Talk:Jan Dismas Zelenka

Death date
I note the Czech article says he died on the night of 22/23 December and leaves it at that. But all the others I checked go for 23 December. What do they know that the Czech authors don't?  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  13:10, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Zelenka Forum
There is a very informative Zelenka Forum on the web: http://www.jdzelenka.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=2 It might help in improving this article. -- Zbrnajsem (talk) 17:13, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Musical style
The following statement appears to be some sort of non-sequitur: "In particular, his writing for bass instruments is far more demanding than that of other composers of his era, notably the utopian (as Heinz Holliger describes them) demands of the oboe scores in his trio sonatas." It is surely true that his writing for bass instrument is demanding. But why would Heinz Holliger be describing oboe parts in support of this idea ["scores" seems inappropriate here too]? A reference to something Heinz Holliger has actually said would be very helpful here. Beowulf (talk) 15:40, 13 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Heinz Holliger is well-placed to comment about oboes, of course. Jason Verlinde, reviewing a Holliger recording of trio sonatas on Amazon, describes them as "impossibly difficult" here:, but says nothing about bass instruments, and there is no quote from Holliger. His use of "utopian" appears here: "Evidently the volatile, utopian, experimental quality of the music - its insoluble mystery - still makes a great many performers (whether using period or modern instruments) feel insecure and frightens them off." But this obviously says nothing about "oboes scores" or even "bass instruments" in general. He's talking about quality or style, not the demands of the score. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:18, 13 May 2013 (UTC) (p.s. enlightening/disturbing that the phrase "utopian (as Heinz Holliger describes them)", thanks largely to YouTube, now gets 5,690 hits on Google).

Written style
There are some really outrageously bad sections in this article... not well written, feverishly phrased, and obviously biased. I only cite one particular egregious example: "which literally acted as a nuclear bomb thrown into the tranquil world of Zelenka." Woha. And I don't even mean that by "literally" the enthused author means "metaphorically"... or else, I think, we would have heard about that incident.