Talk:Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben, BWV 8

Title
I think it is more common to leave out the punctuation marks (here quotation mark) at the end of the cantata titles. --Mst 21:29, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm using the Grove dictionary as my primary source, and they include incipit-final punctuation in all cases. Most of the other secondary literature I have does the same. Micro tonal  (Put your head on my shoulder) 23:38, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * The book by Alfred Dürr and the (German) music publishers omit them, also the NBA (Neue Bach-Ausgabe). --Mst 08:48, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I'll check out the Dürr tomorrow, as I haven't looked at it in years. I suppose I ought to have done before I started doing the cantatas, but I don't think I've done anything that can't be improved. I'd love a look at the new edition of Dürr, but our library doesn't have it yet (no surprise there, given that it just came out last month), and it's prohibitively expensive to the individual buyer (~$350 retail, last I saw).
 * The German paperback edition is slightly cheaper (~$35)... --Mst 10:09, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Frankly, this may be a language difference, in which case, I'm inclined to let the German usage take precedence in cases where Bach's own usage is in doubt. I'll spend some time concentrating on this particular issue when I get back into the library tomorrow. Micro tonal ... (Put your head on my shoulder) 09:06, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Infobox
Proposal → --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:03, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the proposal which could be useful once the article gets much longer. Even then,
 * The BWV number should be visible above the image, to avoid confusion with the hymn article.
 * For the infobox, it seems enough that it is a cantata by Bach. The inclusion of a setting by a different composer for just a 4-part hymn seems not worthy of mentioning there.
 * I don't think we need to mention the author of the hymn as the hymn has a link.
 * I don't think the term "premiere" is suitable for sacred music.
 * I don't think the instrumentation needs to be specified for individual movements.
 * --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:50, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Re. "... once the article gets much longer" – many of the Bach cantatas are GA or FA (only BWVs 5 and 8 are neither in the BWV 1–12 range), so expanding this article, trying to get it to GA level would, imho, be an excellent idea. Trying to address your concerns in a split variant proposal ↓ --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:54, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Or, split
Like the first proposal, I agree with Gerda's suggestion that such more elaborate box(es) are only appropriate when the article has grown. Lead infobox (presented without image for talk page size: the image would be the same as the current one) →

Second infobox (could be inserted at Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben? BWV 8 – compare Magnificat (Bach) which also has a second infobox further down the page for the "other" version) → --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:54, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Or, this short version for the second box → --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:06, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I've linked the occasion as you proposed, and have proposed a new version of based_on. Beyond that I think discussion of expansion and/or addition of a second box should be postponed until the article has grown enough to warrant it. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:04, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Re. "discussion of expansion and/or addition of a second box should be postponed until ..." – disagree: whether planning to expand, trim or split, discussion can continue here, even if such discussion would come to a consensus that certain adjustments (expansion and/or trimming) to the article content are a prerequisite for updating the template in mainspace. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:53, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Other proposal
Proposing to remove the infobox, apart from the lead image (and its caption) enclosed in it. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:53, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Infobox and new material
, The current infobox at the moment seems fine. So far there has been no consensus to remove it or adjust it in any major way. The infobox is not dissimilar from the infobox for BWV 105 that was recently added.

Researchers on the Bach Archive have created a link to this article.

Content from the 1978 book of Whittaker has not yet been incorporated in the current wikipedia article. On wikipedia the 1971 Taschenbuch of Alfred Dürr has been used for other cantatas. It is available on archive.org. I checked that for BWV 8 it contains less information than the 2006 book of Dürr & Jones, available a while back as an ebook on google books. Content about the reaction to pietism has not been added. The German version of Dürr's 1992 book is not available electronically. The reference for BWV2a, now available as an electronic resource, has only recently been added. Mathsci (talk) 12:30, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben?
The article above concerns a Lutheran chorale with the same title as the cantata. The content there, however, is only concerned with the statement that Vetter's closing chorale was "borrowed" by Johann Sebastian Bach. No Bach commentators, many of whom are or were connected to the Bach Archive, have disagreed with that assessment. The borrowing from Vetter and its labelling as "spurious" is currently described in one paragraph of the "Music" section of the current article. There a single reference to Emil Platen's 1975 Bach-Jahrbuch plus one line on the small BWV2a listing of 1998, which is linked to Platen's discussion. The article on the Lutheran chorale seems to be out of balance with the article on the cantata, often in a contradictory way. Mathsci (talk) 13:41, 24 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben? is the article on the hymn, with the text. It's a different question where material not related to the hymn itself should go. A link to the text should be part of the cantata article. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:56, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
 * (ec) The article is nevertheless unbalanced. For this current article, there is a slightly problem in finding appropriate English translations for the arias. For BWV 39 and Carus-Verlag, English translations outside copyright were available. That does not apply to BWV 8. The Novello English translation, which were originally used for the vocal score, were converted to only German texts when Kalmus remastered the Novello edition on IMSLP. The chorales of C. S. Terry have survived. Mathsci (talk) 14:16, 24 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Gerda, Talk:Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben (that is the talk page of the hymn article) is currently a redlink: feel free to initiate – whatever improvement suggestions regarding the hymn article are of course welcome there. Tx. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:05, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Ideas
Some ideas I'd like to implement for this article include: --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:57, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
 * By movement subsections, i.e. subsections where each movement is discussed separately (see models in many Bach cantata articles)
 * Reception section, i.e. approaching reception as a whole
 * Winterfeld's analysis, in Vol. III, pp. 308–309, of the difference between how Bach treats the older chorale melodies rhythmically as compared to how he does so with those closer to his own time (like Vetter's).
 * The use of out-dated 19th sources, such as those of Winterfeld, does not seem appropriate and appears to be original research. These aspects of the article "Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben?" unbalance the article on the cantata. Giving different images of the same chorale seems unusual when it is done in "wikipedia's voice." At the moment there seems to be no consensus to incorporate this kind of material on the cantata at the moment.
 * Use of contemporary scholarshiship is now the norm, but needs care. The Bach Archive does gives a guide to page numbers for standard references, such as the Bach-Jahrbuch. However, as with the series on Bach perspectives, they need to be be read and absorbed carefully. Citing a single page of the Bach Archive does not constitute a reliable source, although it is a starting point.
 * In other comparable articles on cantatas, some of which are featured articles, there are no comparable sections on reception. Sometimes transcriptions are mentioned.
 * All of the content concerning Dürr's 2006 has been extracted. There has also content from Christoph Wolff which has been incorporated. Passages from Hans-Joachim Schulze and Leisinger have also been used. As has already been commented on this page, the pages on the book of William G. Whittaker still await summary. Mathsci (talk) 15:16, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

John the Evangelist image
Image moved here from mainspace while I don't see the connection to the topic of this article →

I'd be very happy if someone could explain? Thanks. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:26, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Question mark in article title
In the Dürr/Jones book on Bach's cantatas (2005/2006) the title of the cantata is given as:"Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben, BWV 8"That is, with a comma, and not a question mark, between the German incipit of the cantata's text and the BWV number. Similar in the New Bach Edition (1982):"Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben, BWV 8"And, according to the Bach Digital website, neither question mark nor comma: In fact, virtually no source, that is, neither an English-language one nor a German-language one, seems to refer to Bach's cantata with a question mark at the end of the German-language incipit. For the hymn, in Wikipedia spelled without question mark ("Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben"), I've seen a few sources, but as far as I can remember not the majority, which refer to it with a question mark at the end of the title, but for Bach's cantata, the practice appears to be non-existent, or at least very rare. So, I'd move this article to the format as in the Dürr/Jones book, that is Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben, BWV 8. Any objections? --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:05, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben (1st version) BWV 8.1;...
 * Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben (2nd version) BWV 8.2;...
 * No objections from me. It was created with the ? and I never cared about this detail that doesn't change a meaning. If I had time, I'd care about oversized lead image, references pointing nowhere, sandwiched text and empty sections. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:15, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Moved – Re. "oversized lead image": the image is just filling the width of the infobox: that width is dictated by the infobox title, not the image. I "cared" in the sense that I replaced the former image by one that has a lesser height. Re. "sandwiched text": afaik there isn't any sandwiched text any more currently, or did I miss anything? Re. "references pointing nowhere, ... and empty sections": yeah sure, working on it (but give me some time to get the consequences of the article title change such as navboxes, italictitle etc ironed out first) – anyhow better that the page was moved without further delay, before all the other work is done, rather than getting everything else right first, and then another overhaul for a changed article title. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:33, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you, and understand. I made the lead image a tad smaller. "Sandwiched" isn't quite right - sorry - just a load of images in the history section. Perhaps some can go to the movements once they are there. Take your time, - I just asked for patience in another corner, In the news, where it seems a foreign word. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:53, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Micro-biographies
I reduced some micro-biographies per WP:COATRACK: I expect these updates to be unproblematic, but to make sure, I put them here for further discussion, if needed. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:09, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Troutbeck :"... Rev Dr John Troutbeck (1832–1899). A musicologist specializing in Bach's choral music, he became a Minor Canon at Westminster Abbey and Chaplain-in-Ordinary to Queen Victoria."reduced to:"John Troutbeck ..."
 * Barth :"... Carl Friedrich Barth, born in 1734, the son of a merchant from Glauchau. Barth became a chorister at the Thomasschule in 1746, where he was picked out by Bach for his skills in Latin to become music prefect. After leading performances at the Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche, he enrolled at the University of Leipzig in 1757 to study philosophy and theology. In 1770 he was appointed as a Cantor in Borna, where he died in 1813."recast as:"Carl Friedrich Barth, who had become a pupil of the St. Thomas School in Leipzig in 1746, was a copyist who worked for Bach and his successors Gottlob Harrer and Johann Friedrich Doles. In the period between Harrer's demise (9 July 1755) and the start of Doles's tenure (January 1756) he was, together with Christian Friedrich Penzel, acting Thomascantor."

Libretto translations
Proposing to replace (in Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben, BWV 8): In Diack's translation, the text of the first movement reads:Gracious God, when will Thou call me to my home in Heav'n above? Where, with all the saints and angels, I will praise Thy wond'rous love; 'Tis the fate of man to know, pain and sorrow here below, for a season he endureth, then to mother earth returneth. By: In Lunn's translation, the text of the first movement reads:O my God, when shall I perish? For my days run swiftly by, as with all who here do flourish, for of Adam's seed am I. We inherit this from him, that we for a little time here on earth are tried and wearied then ourselves in earth are buried. I'm not sure but possibly Diack's translation is still under copyright (but maybe not everywhere), and I'd avoid too much copyrighted material from the same source (there's another Diack translation of an entire movement further down the page, while no part of the Lunn translation is quoted yet). See MOS:LYRICS (guideline) and WP:NOTLYRICS (policy). Also, I think that for this stanza the Lunn translation works way better than Diack's.

In general we'd have to consider how much primary source text material (copyrighted and non-copyrighted) we'd want to retain in the article, in view of the indicated guideline and policy. Whittaker's translation of two separate stanzas is maybe too much too (copyrighted afaik). Ideas? --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:23, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Detailed description of Vetter's Musicalische Kirch- und Hauß-Ergötzlichkeit
In an unfortunate edit conflict I apparently overwrote:"Aimed at the pious Leipzig merchant class for 'spiritual recreation' or 'refreshment' through music, the simple four-part organ chorales were paired with spinet or clavichord broken-chord variations, in the style brisé, then in vogue. Like Bach's Orgelbüchlein composed during the same period, Vetter's collection starts with Nun komm der Heiden Heiland. It has one piece per page, except for the final chorale Liebster Gott of the 1713 volume which is annotated on two full pages with four separate staves for cantus, alto, tenor and figured bass:"

A few points: --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:13, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The article is still "in use", please some patience – in the mean while suggestions can be posted on this page.
 * IMHO, this is not the place for a detailed description of Vetter's Musicalische Kirch- und Hauß-Ergötzlichkeit, especially as the other 220 pieces in those volumes (for organ/keyboard) have a different nature from the concluding piece (Vetter's "Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben", for SATB singing voices) – there are several options where such content can be added, e.g.,
 * Start an article Musicalische Kirch- und Hauß-Ergötzlichkeit
 * Add such content to Daniel Vetter

in-use tags
An in-use tag was removed on 22:30 November 17, 2020 by me when no editing was happening (bed time usually). An edit adding two new sentences and one high resolution image from Commons in a gallery format was added on 5:53 November 18, 2020 when there no in-use tag. Mathsci (talk) 06:35, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Caption of Scheibe-organ image
Suggesting: →

With this entry added to the sources list: Reason: more precision. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:36, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

MdZ and period instrument practice
The sources for the current article are not up to date.

Moritz Hauptmann became Thomaskantor in Leipzig in 1842. The publication of the Bach cantatas started in 1851. Their pdf files can be read online or downloaded on the MdZ, the Munich Digitization Center. The first volume contains the first 10 cantatas; no D major version was published at that stage. The commentary for the 1851 volume is a primary source so cannot be used directly. As director of the St Thomas choir in Leipzig, Hauptmann would have had access to its archives. But choral performances in Leipzig moved on into quite a different direction, e.g. the public performances of St Matthew Passion organised by Felix Mendelssohn at the Gewandhaus. The 1986 book "Moritz Hauptmann of Leipzig" by Dale Jorgensen gives a modern historical account of Moritz Hauptmann. I am not sure how accessible that source is.

The article at the moment mentions en passant technical difficulties for the transverse flute and the oboes d'amore. Using the original manuscripts from the Thomaskirche archive, the conductor Masaaki Suzuki has given a very detailed account of what kind of flute or recorder was used for the first and fourth movements of the cantata. Those details can be found in the liner notes here: https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Pic-Rec-BIG/Suzuki-C24c[BIS-CD1351].pdf. Similar liner notes are often discussed concerning period instrument practice/adaptation to baroque instruments: e.g. the Gustave Leonhardt-Nikolaus Harnoncourt complete cantata set. There are other in addition some special practices such as "one voice per part": these ahve been used by Joshua Rifkin for BWV 8 and BWV 78, often to make orchestral textures more transparent.

The 1982 Osthoff edition (which includes the adapted D major version) includes some odd editing. The first movement for the strings in recent editions is usually marked sempre pizzicato. In Osthoff's version, "pizzicato" has been removed and the words "con sordini" added. Later editions seem to adhere more faithfully to original manuscripts.

It is also not quite clear why the second movement from circa 1755 is labelled as hautbois instead of hautbois d'amour.

Despite these ambiguities with "period instrument practice", it is clear that modern performers are adept at playing their baroque instruments. Although Suzuki has given a D major version for the first movement as an appendix, in the end he has opted for the E major version. Similarly the recordings of Leonhardt-Harnoncourt, Rilling, Herreweghe, Koopman, Gardiner, Rifkin and Johanssen are in E major with oboes d'amore and transverse flute. Karl Richter is old school and very much slower. Mathsci (talk) 17:13, 23 November 2020 (UTC)