Talk:Frauen-Liebe und Leben

Spacing
Is the spacing in the title correct? Should it be moved to Frauenliebe und leben or Frauenliebe und - leben? Dysprosia 00:47, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * It is German. In German it is common to use the hyphen in case of nouns consisting of two or more parts. Instead of "Frauenliebe und Frauenleben" it is common to abbreviate spelling "Frauenliebe und -leben". 82.82.129.206 00:52, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Indeed. I'm pretty sure this is most common form of the title (my copy of the score has it this way, anyway). --Camembert

Cool, thanks. We'll just leave it, shall we? :) Dysprosia 00:56, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)

List of recordings (Schumann's setting)
The recordings of Shumann's Cycle is a real mess. I cannot follow it at all. Needs updating or editing. 98.210.23.161 (talk) 17:48, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed. For example, under "During the 1930s the principal versions were those of", we have "Elena Gerhardt made a recording with Gerald Moore in 1947-1948" (my emphases). -- Jmc (talk) 18:12, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Title, again

 * 1) The title of the Schumann cycle is Frauenliebe und -leben. This is a standard  construction in German, meaning "Woman's love and life", where the dash in '-leben' signifies "woman's love and woman's life."
 * 2) Lachner called his his cycle Frauenliebe, which again is the standard way of making a compound noun in German, 'Woman's love'.
 * 3) Now the title of Chamisso's poem-cycle (I looked it up) is actually Frauen-Liebe und Leben. In my view this means something different, more akin to "Woman's love—and Life [itself]".
 * 4) However, if Chamisso had actually meant this and called it "Frauenliebe und Leben", I think the finger-wagging German speakers would probably have said, "But you've left the -dash out!"
 * 5) German also uses a dash to indicate that the two joined words constitute a name like Bioskop-Atelier or Apollo-Theater, but I'm not sure that this is quite the same thing.
 * 6) The poems were published in 1830, and I don't know if German usage changed in that short time.
 * 7) Thus, my feeling is still that the orthography of Chamisso's title may be a way of emphasising the meaning I suggested in 3.
 * 8) Wotevs, the article is currently about the poems and not the Schumann setting, so I propose a name change from Frauenliebe und -leben (the Schuumann title) to the correct title of Chamisso's poems, Frauen-Liebe und Leben. >MinorProphet (talk) 01:35, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
 * MinorProphet (talk) 19:17, 13 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Hmmm, your up-looking looks backwards to me: Chamisso's 1831 Gedichte has Frauen-Liebe und Leben while Clara's edition reads Frauenliebe und Leben (following a ms. tradition) and Schumann's 1860 publication uses Frauenliebe u. Leben. I'm highly skeptical about reading any nuances of meaning into these.
 * In my opinion one ought to think very hard before adopting a different pagename from WP:de, particularly when New Grove is in agreement with Frauenliebe und -leben. (Btw, you didn't mean this, did you?) Sparafucil (talk) 22:20, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Support to return to the name of Schumann's setting, which is the main topic of the article, - also the common name. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:30, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

I just love a good de-indent...

Wotevs: lolissimo, but no.

My only salient point is No. 7 supra. My off-the-cuff musings may have misled you, and I have retrospectively struck them through, and reverted my edit about the title of the Schumann cycle.

The lede indicates that the various compositions are all settings of Chamisso's poems. The title correctly reflects this fundamental concept. As to other wikis: the German article is exclusively about the Schumann work, and anyway has exactly zero (0) inline references. Do you disagree with any of the following?


 * "Frauen-Liebe und Leben (A Woman's Love and Life) is a cycle of poems by Adelbert von Chamisso, written in 1830. They describe the course of a woman's love for her man, from her point of view, from first meeting through marriage to his death, and after. Selections were set to music as a song-cycle by masters of German Lied, namely Carl Loewe (1836), Franz Lachner (c1839), and Robert Schumann (1840). The setting by Schumann (his opus 42) is now the most widely known.
 * Chamisso's poems
 * There are nine lyrics in the cycle, to which Chamisso gave the title Frauen-Liebe und Leben. It was first published in 1830, and twice in 1831 in the first editions of his poetry, and of his complete works. "

When the article was created it was just about the Schumann work. At some point someone changed the lede to mention the poems as being the source of the various settings. The orginal poems were not cited, so I looked them up: hence my my edits and name change. The Rufus Hallmark book I cited even talks about a fourth little-known setting.

PS Schumann's songs are OK, esp. Dichterliebe, but the 4th Symphony and the Konzertstück do it for me. I have conducted the former (sadly not the original version, which I prefer) and tried to 4-track myself playing all the solo parts in the latter. MinorProphet (talk) 02:05, 14 September 2017 (UTC)


 * As you rightly note the article originated under the WP:Classical music banner instead of WP:Germany. I don't think extending the discussion to Loewe & Lachner necessarily changes the primary focus to a primarily literary one, and in fact in the bibliography I don't see a single secondary work that discusses the poetry in outside of its musical (indeed Schumannesque) context. A second point is whether the typographical variants have any demonstrable significance: If the article were eventually split into Frauen-Liebe und Leben and Frauenliebe und -leben, can one be expected to know which is which in the way that Woyzeck and Wozzeck are distinguished? Sparafucil (talk) 00:59, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree with your points. I notice, by the way, that almost all of the available scores, gramophone records and CDs - starting with Julia Culp - give the title as Frauenliebe und Leben, and that -leben is in a very noticeable minority. If you would like, I will hunt down some reliable sources as to the usual spelling in English of the Schumann work, but I bet it's going to be without the dash. As you say, very few English speakers have any interest whatsoever in that direction.
 * However, I see little reason why any WP:en article should have exactly the same title as the German one, or vice versa, and here's an example I prepared earlier :- German literary types realised long ago that Henry IV, Part 2 is really quite boring and not worth bothering about: maybe this explains the German title of Henry IV, Part 1? I tend to think of him as Henry IV, der Halbenkönig. And why is the English title of de:Faust, erster Teil not Faust, First Part? (I hope you realise that I'm not being particularly serious here, just reheating some points which must have been made at least a million times on all WPs, and just hoping to find the 'best' title for this particular English Wikipedia article.)
 * I agree that the current title introduces some awkward and unnecessary complications. I know that Frauenliebe und -leben is grammatically correct contemporary German, but this (AFAIK) applies to normal written or spoken German such as you would find in any newspaper or encyclopædia article: but I don't think that specific literary titles are subject to any sort of discussion at all. These tiny orthographical variants could be thought of as just good old artistic flouting of literary convention (e.g. e. e. cummings), which certain sections of any society simply do not like.
 * There could be a small 'Variant spellings' section or paragraph or footnote, discussing (or just listing) these very specific yet apparently meaningless variants, perhaps with reference to current German usage. So how about a name change to Frauenliebe und Leben to keep the Brexiters happy? You know, the ones with a tiny... um... er... majority.     Blimey, that took nearly  two hours, I reckon edit-warring is much easier, but not nearly as much fun.      >MinorProphet (talk) 04:27, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Ah, translated titles are a different can of wormy oranges;-) WP:Opera has/had? a policy of slavish adherence to New Grove's sentence capitalization, at one point resulting in separate pages for La mère coupable and La Mère coupable; at the time WP:France hadn't decided on a standard style so maybe the battle may yet be reopened. Your suggested research into WP:Common name might be an interesting avenue, though. Sparafucil (talk) 00:34, 17 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Translating is wormy, but the suggestion "Frauenliebe und Leben" is impossible because Leben then would be "Life", not "Women's Life". It's so wrong that I would not even want a redirect. Why not restore the common name of Schumann's work? The poem alone would not have any entry in the English Wikipedia, - Schumann made it notable. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:21, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Title, Part III
[Continuing the above discussion]

Please excuse this vast rambling essay, I just let my mind do that Viginia Woolf stream-of-consciousness thing while waiting for slow pages to load during my attempt to determine the English common name of Schumann's song cycle.

You said that "Frauenliebe und Leben" is impossible because Leben then would be "Life", not "Women's Life". But this is exactly my point in #2 above. This was my initial response to the title of Chamisso's Gedichtzyklus Frauen-Liebe und Leben: "In my view this means something different, more akin to 'Woman's love—and Life [itself]' ". However:

Before we begin, has anyone grown up singing from a particular vocal score or reading record or CDs covers? It was the green Peters Edition for me, and also Dichterliebe. Or maybe you learned it in school/college from a respected teacher? If so, it may have disappeared firmly yet happily into our our memories, and are we thus convinced of our own experience or opinions or what other people said. We probably didn't even care until a certain J. Wales started something, and here we all are. I have another huge article under starter's orders, but anyway, here goes:

Soooo, what is the "common name" of the Schumann? Are we going to consider either Or both? Let's have a look.
 * a) The most common published title of the score in its original language (not many in English) ? Or...
 * b) The title which other published reliable sources (in English) use when discussing the work?

If a), I'm afraid you may be surprised: I googled, and these are the hits:
 * Frauenliebe und Leben: F.Whistling, (Leipzig undat. 1842?); Breitkopf & Härtel (1885 ed. Clara S); Heinze; Barenreiter; Peters Edition (urtext); Henle Verlag; International Music Company (IMC), probably a reprint; Universal Edition;  G. Schirmer (NB main title in English, with 'ergänzungsstrichloser Deutsch' in smaller type); usw., usw., ad infinitum.
 * Frauen-Liebe und Leben: Peters old edition
 * Frauenliebe und -leben: Modern reprint of Peters

In other words, every single reliable music publisher uses Frauenliebe und Leben.

So, should a consensus reflect the title of published scores, as at a) above: or should it take into account (or even be based wholly on) b) reliable published English-language sources discussing the work, which is a whole 'nother can of worms, and takes vastly longer.

I don't really think we need to worry about 'wormy translation' here (and it is full of vermiculation) if we are just considering the title of this English-language article: I reckon there are enough reliable English-language sources not to worry. I usually get bored finding rules and guidelines around to make a point and don't usually bother, but here goes:

b) Now, over time some works get known by different names, like Shakespeare's The Second Part of Henry the Fourth (NB First Folio title), currently known as Henry IV, Part 2—and not at all on WP:de. On a similar trajectory, Faust / Der Tragödie / zweiter Teil is known in Germany as de:Faust, zweiter Teil) but wasn't known too well in England or US as Faust: The second Part of the Tragedy as Faust, Part Two currently confirms. Does the Schumann cycle suffer this unworthy fate? Or that of the FF The Tragedy of Anthony and Cleopatra? No, it's still generally available as Frauenliebe und Leben in 2017, nearly 180 years after it was written.


 * Common Names, and Article Titles
 * WP:Article titles: "If there are too few reliable English-language sources to constitute an established usage, follow the conventions of the language appropriate to the subject (German for German politicians), etc."
 * WP:Naming conventions (use English): "The native spelling of a name should generally be included in parentheses, in the first line of the article, with a transliteration if the Anglicization isn't identical."
 * WP:DIACRITICS but It'll probably do: "In general, the sources in the article, a Google book search of books published in the last quarter-century or thereabouts, and a selection of other encyclopaedias, should all be examples of reliable sources; if all three of them use a term, then that is fairly conclusive. If one of those three diverges from agreement then more investigation will be needed. If there is no consensus in the sources, either form will normally be acceptable as a title."
 * WP:ESTABLISHED: "If a particular name is widely used in English-language sources, then that name is generally the most appropriate, no matter what name is used by non-English sources."

So: if there are enough English-language reliable sources, we could instead consider the majority of them. I feel that recent sources which discuss the works in detail are to be preferred to encyclopedic entries. Ohhh, just looky over here, see what I've found:
 * Guralnick, Elissa S. (2006) "'Ah Clara, I am not worthy of your love’: Rereading ‘Frauenliebe und Leben’, the Poetry and the Music". Music and Letters, Volume 87, Issue 4, 1 November 2006, pp. 580–605.
 * Another random JSTOR one: Schumann's Song Cycles: The Cycle within the Song by Barbara Turchin (1985) briefly mentions Frauenliebe und -Leben, but oops, it's over 25 years old... so sad.
 * Oh no, what about all these? Search for "Schumann, Robert, 1810-1856. Frauenliebe und Leben" on Worldcat. (May include the previous four). No, you deffo won't like this: that's 16 out of 20 Frauenliebe und Lebens back to 1984 using Frauenliebe und Leben or leben, and a further 6 out of 10 before 1983. I normally try not to do maths in public, but I reckon 22/30 is over 66%.
 * Another random JSTOR one: Schumann's Song Cycles: The Cycle within the Song by Barbara Turchin (1985) briefly mentions Frauenliebe und -Leben, but oops, it's over 25 years old... so sad.
 * Oh no, what about all these? Search for "Schumann, Robert, 1810-1856. Frauenliebe und Leben" on Worldcat. (May include the previous four). No, you deffo won't like this: that's 16 out of 20 Frauenliebe und Lebens back to 1984 using Frauenliebe und Leben or leben, and a further 6 out of 10 before 1983. I normally try not to do maths in public, but I reckon 22/30 is over 66%.

Anyway, Sparafucil, how much detail does Grove go into? Is it just mentioned in the list of works (which are usually very good in G.) or is there a longer, more specific discussion?

NB The following has no bearing on the article's title, I am genuinely curious to know: my personal (un-reffed, uninformed) feeling is that despite every major publisher printing Frauenliebe und Leben on their covers, Frauenlieben und -leben has been retrospectively applied by certain German speakers to the name of Schumann's song-cycle as if it were a standard German construction such as 'Straßenbahn und -bushaltestellen' (to use one of my old German teacher's favourite examples). Please correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, here's the result of my inquiry:


 * End of vast rambling essay

a1) The entirety of reliable editions of the Schumann cycle use the exact title of Frauenliebe und Leben including: Breitkopf und Härtel, Peters Edition urtext, Bärenreiter, Henle, Universal. a2) Frauen-Liebe und Leben and Frauenliebe und -leben are also found, but none of the main publishers currently use either of these titles. b) Twenty-two out of thirty published sources going back to 1983, including the most recent one also surprisingly use Frauenliebe und Leben,
 * Executive summary

In other words, in my opinion every single reliable edition of the score, and over two-thirds of reliable published sources use Frauenliebe und Leben without the dash. NB I remind you of what I said earlier: "If you would like, I will hunt down some reliable sources as to the usual spelling in English of the Schumann work, but I bet it's going to be without the dash." Yup.

So, Gerda, in response to your charming and reasonable request that I restore it to the "common name", I repeat my proposal that this article's name (currently Frauen-Liebe und Leben) be changed to Frauenliebe und Leben, 'coz that's what it seems to be. I've got lots to do, anyone else want to do the move? MinorProphet (talk) 02:21, 18 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank you for diligent research, telling me again that what I think is common is not necessarily common, and that commonness changes over time. Shakespeare's title was Loues labors lost, but recent editions and performances come under Love's Labour's Lost. Kafka wrote Das Schloss, which was later in Germany Das Schloß, until an orthography reform in 1996 made it Das Schloss again. In a way, it doesn't even matter what the article title is, as long as the different names and their places in history are explained. My 2ct. Ich grolle nicht ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:13, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Hmm, Das Wikischloss? Ach, diese Admins überall... MinorProphet (talk) 17:54, 18 September 2017 (UTC)


 * "Please excuse this vast rambling essay..."O dear ;-) but thanks for the entertainment.
 * Since ESTABLISHED and agreement between sources (I'm still mildly curious about whether Chamisso's holograph/autograph agrees with his printer), encyclopedias (Slominsky's Baker's V gives Frauenliebe und -Leben) and "books published in the last quarter-century or thereabouts" can't settle the issue, it looks like "the conventions of the language appropriate to the subject" would be the rule and I suppose19c German is fluid enough to make 1996 rules seem logical, lest more labovr be lost. Sparafucil (talk)
 * I'm sure you are making a point, but which one? What is _your_ current suggestion for the article's title? Please see below. Gerda seems unworried, as long as the issues raised here are explained in the article.
 * BTW, (and somewhat tongue-in-cheekily—nicht ernstgemeint (or: ernst gemeint), to use another English compound expression specifically addressed by the 1966 German rules :)—Slonimsky was born in 1897 in Russia, and what he made of the German language while writing in English in America in 1958 (before the '66 rules were even thought of) is anyone's guess. I'm not surprised that he thought "-leben" was correct, Russian is even more inflected than German.
 * Anyway, the publisher of Bakers was G. Schirmer Inc., whose own published title of the work in question reads Woman's Love and Life / (Frauenliebe und Leben)  . Sorry, I feel you'll have to do better than that, "Spa-ra-fucil|Spa-ra-fucil." (Act I, Scene 2). Do we have the actual name of the author of the article in Baker? Is the issue unsettled between people who simply can't read the title of a work as given on the cover by every single reliable publisher since 1842? Why do the German 1966 orthographical rules matter (most interesting, thanks for the link, although the particular issue that concerns us here seems not to be discussed in the article) in deciding what non-native-German-speakers might mistakenly believe? Anyway, my entire life has been one Lost Labovr, so let us pray continue, time being no impediment, neither to art nor knowledge: Vita brevis est, etc. :-}} MinorProphet (talk) 15:31, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

So I was going to change the title to Frauenliebe und Leben (despite my earlier move to Frauen-Liebe und Leben which I personally prefer): but that needs a WP:Move request which I've never attempted, so I'll leave it as it is and perhaps disambig the various titles in the main article as suggested.  MinorProphet (talk) 02:12, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Finally got round to adding a 'Nomenclature' section reflecting this interesting and fruitful discussion. Thanks, all. ✅ MinorProphet (talk) 00:05, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Translation of poem titles
I wonder why the translations of the poem titles in the section about Schumann's setting are title case. They are only translations, no? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:07, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
 * You're right of course, save in the rather unlikely case that someone wanted to refer later to individual songs by English titles. Sparafucil (talk) 22:27, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
 * MinorProphet (talk) 04:31, 16 September 2017 (UTC)