Talk:Geirr Tveitt

Untitled
I am sorry, but I really do not think that National Gathering or National Unification is a good English translation of National Samling. Norway was unified some time in the middle ages, and to gather means to collect or summon. I guess National Gathering covers the meaning, but it just sound garbled and really awkward. I think National Assembly or The NA, is better, simply because it describes what the party intended to be, and the name sounds more political.

Thomas

Something probably needs to be done about the opening paragraph (and integrate it with the 'Tveitt and neo-heathenism' section - as it is now, it seems very awkward.

ilja.nieuwland

-- Since the article appears to be in a tentative state of acceptance, rather than edit it, I shall provide an overall review. In general, I would rate it overly subjective and skewed more towards Tveitt's socio-political and racial views than his music.

The opening, summary paragraph is unobjective and distorted in emphasizing Tveitt's personality traits and ideas over his music. The latter, after all, is what makes Tveitt worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. Until the 1990s, Tveitt's music was barely known in Europe outside of Scandinavia. The reason for this has far more to do with its highly tonal style than anything else, a style considered retrograde by most during the '50s and '60s. Only the informal Norwegian musical community knew of Tveitt's ideas and obsessions, and his controversial relationship with the Nazis.

The opening paragraph should include only factual items relating to his music, with controversies as to his personality and beliefs recorded in a carefully worded and vetted separate section. In that section, citations are required to support the statement "Tveitt displayed a highly confrontational attitude."

The opening paragraph does not clarify that the musical establishment was uneasy about Tveitt starting after WW2, not during the 30s. Somewhere in the article it should be mentioned that much of this was derived from the fact that Tveitt received a stipend from the Quisling regime while other, more "degenerate" composers (as defined by Nazi strictures) did not. After the war, Tveitt was left with a black mark for this, even though he repudiated Hitler and, according to family members, was at one time sought out for arrest by the Gestapo.

Finally, while the opening paragraph mentions Gimse's contributions in publicizing Tveitt's music, the contribution of the Stavanger Symphony's recordings for BIS under Ole Kristian Ruud should also be included, not to mention the many recordings of Tveitt made by more strictly Norwegian labels.

In the Leipzig section, we have an unsubstantiated opinion that "it was the expatriation from Norway that enkindled in Tveitt a strong desire to embrace completely his Norwegian heritage." This ignores the fact that Norway, after hundreds of years of being a part of first Denmark and then Sweden, became newly independent in 1905, instilling a vast outpouring of national pride. "Impressive and beautiful" are subjective terms, regarding Tveitt's first piano concerto, and should be removed unless they can be found as quotations from critics.

In the "Amongst the Great in Europe" section, it is my understanding that there is little or no documentation to prove with whom Tveitt studied, other than his own assertions--thus citations are required. Quotations from the Parisian reviews should be included to verify the "paroxysm of ecstasy" assertion.

In the "Any Composers' [sic] Ultimate Nightmare" section, "glorious" is too subjective. No mention is made here of the problems tonal music began to face during the Modernist ascendency. No mention is made of the destruction of Tveitt's studio in 1960 (deleted among much else from the original Wikipedia article). "Sorry remains" is another example of the over-subjectivity of the writing, as is the statement "Tveitt could not stand up to the hardship and tragedies of his life." Storaas should be cited here if that is his claim.

"Tveitt and Neo-Heathenism" is the largest section, engendered by recent research into the letters of Hans Jacobsen. It is a calumny on the scholar Hallgjerd Aksnes to accuse her of not addressing this controversial material when her tiny 300-word New Grove article was probably written before the controversy broke in May 2003. Even if the article was written after 2003, the significance of the New Heathenism on Tveitt's place in musical history is frankly too small to include in so short a space. It is a further calumny on Aksnes not to include her important treatise, "Perspectives of Musical Meaning: A study Based on Selected Works by Geirr Tveitt" as a reference. In it is a detailed, objective discussion of Tveitt and his 1930s nationalistic sentiments.

The "Music" section's Introduction wrongly concentrates on the history of his scores. This should be in a separate section, and should include the remarkable resurrection of the "Prillar" symphony (or suite). Readers beginning a Music section are looking for a sylistic description of the sounds put together by the composer, not a history of paper. One gets the impression that the writer of this biography is not a trained musician, for too much of the writing is devoted to externalities, not the music itself.

Finally, the article contains numerous misspellings and grammatical infelicities, which undoubtedly will be corrected over time.

Jdunnpm 22:02, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

"official" website lost to squatters
Its was at "http://www.geirrtveitt.net". I removed the link. Documenting it here in case the domain comes back (or if someone knows that its been moved). DavidRF (talk) 02:54, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

External links modified
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The tone of this article...
1. "Tveitt’s glorious successes"

2. "Tveitt's works remained largely misunderstood and unappreciated by his contemporary Norwegian musical establishment. However, Tveitt won the hearts of a whole nation with his radio programmes"...

3. "Today Norway is seeing the advent of a new generation of musicians and musicologists, who seem to be primarily concerned with Tveitt's music and not so much with the controversies he inspired."

4. "it was amongst the treasures lost in the 1970 fire."

Circling back to the 2007 comment made by @Jdunnpm, this article is indeed quite subjective in its tone, I find. Above are some offenses (bolded) that exemplify this issue... note the almost laudatory nature of the writing. The outright lack of citations in the paragraphs containing examples 2. and 3. I find to be especially problematic. Unfortunately, it seems much of this article has been written in a similar fashion. Encyclopedic tone is essential to the quality of an article, and is fundamentally lacking here. It is on these grounds that I am adding a tag to the page, in hopes that this will spur edits that will upend any major flaws.

Feel free to comment on the matter below. x. Fleder1858 (talk) 23:45, 14 December 2022 (UTC)