Talk:Requiem (Reger)

Pre FAC comments
To my cursory I the prose seems in pretty good shape. Only thing I'd do for sure is try and eliminate 1-2 sentence paras, either by expanding or merging. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:13, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you, taken. I will also try to have a little bit more on the composer, for background. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:55, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Poem
I added the lyrics. It has been suggested to make a translation. I am on vacation and don't have time right now, suggestions welcome.

You may get inspiration from the translations published in the Hyperion liner notes and the appendix of the work by FitzGibbons. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:20, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Something to get the translation process started. This is not a literal translation of the verses. It attempts to try to convey some of the emotive content apparently expressed by the original author. Fountains-of-Paris (talk) 16:13, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Fountains-of-Paris, thanks for trying, very emotive and flowing, but in the second section it seems almost the opposite of what the poem says, which is ambiguous about many things (such as whose soul the undisclosed solo voice is addressing, and who is fighting about renewed existence) but quite clear and blunt about: forgetting the dead will bring cruel misery to them, no more arms of love (as in the first section). I will try to fill the blanks in "my section", and you will perhaps adjust a bit?


 * I'll take the more literal translation to the article now. Pinging my helpers in translation, Moonraker and Brianhe, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:23, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
 * My impulse right now is to follow Gerda's version, for WP:OR concerns. The closer we stay to word-for-word translation, the less chance there is for an editor's personal interpretation to make its way into the encyclopedia. It's a bit sad, because the text is dry in comparison to the freer translation, but necessary I think according to the OR guideline. I especially agree with her comment on ambiguity, which shows up in the very first word - Seele; this does not specify "my" soul as the free translation renders it. - Brianhe (talk) 21:30, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Gerda's version is both more poetic and more literal. FoP no doubt means well, but there's no reason to make changes like turning the plain-speaking word tot into the euphemism "departed", and where the lyricist deliberately repeats the words vergiss... nicht , translating them in one line as "do not forget" and in the next as "remember" deliberately takes away the planned effect. For the word verglimmend, the translation "all but fully extinguished" is awkward as well as hopelessly unpoetic. Gerda's translation is far better. Moonraker (talk) 22:46, 20 May 2016 (UTC)


 * How would you best render "Gluten"? It's not flames or fire, just glowing. "zusammengekrampft" is another challenge. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:51, 20 May 2016 (UTC)


 * "Holy glow" sounds fine... and maybe "pressed together"? It's not quite the same as "huddled together". "Huddled together" sounds like they are trying to hide from the storm (no intimacy implied; just escape), while "pressed together" sounds a bit like they're making love (but not necessarily in the most pleasant way, perhaps a bit desperate somehow). Or "forced together, pushed together" even "clutching each other" or "wrapped together" or "sprawled together" ... BTW, "wilderness" seems much better than "desert" because the latter just evokes sand dunes, not particularly fearsome or stormy.  Lingzhi &diams; (talk) 23:20, 20 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the "glow" (Glut), - there's probably no plural (Gluten)? - "Zusammengekrampft in sich" has not much of any "together", could be said of just one, - more from me tomorrow. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:19, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
 * "Holy embers"? "Holy glimmers"? And tho the word zusammengekrampft can be used for one person, it is clearly a group of people here. "Crowded together"? Lingzhi &diams; (talk) 23:28, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I think "embers" is the best word here, but I can see where the word "fires" has come from: in English we stoke fires but not embers, certainly not glimmers. Strictly speaking, Gluten should surely not be the object of schüren, so "stoke" with "embers" shows the same poetic licence. I like "cramped together", because like krampfen it suggests tight crowding, whereas "crowded together" doesn't, and "cramped" also runs more smoothly in the line. Another thought, "one last time" or "the last time" would be a lot better than "a last time", which fails to pick up the definite article in zum. There can only be one last time, "a last time" suggests there are others. Moonraker (talk) 02:06, 21 May 2016 (UTC)
 * My high school/college German was several decades ago (alas), so I am only commenting as an English speaker... "cramped" sounds... informal? casual? almost trivializing? It seems incongruous given the poem's tone; it doesn't seem to convey the level of storm-tossed distress... but YMMV.. and I hope no one will overlook my earlier aside that "wilderness" is better than "desert", which seems to really clash with the tone of the poem. Lingzhi &diams; (talk) 02:47, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

New day: thank you, all. How is a footnote to the glow (fire) that "embers" is literal? Or use embers? - "the last time" taken. "zusammengekrampft in sich" - agree that cramped is not ideal, and "together" almost wrong. What else can we say about a person tensely uptight? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:50, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments and queries during copy edit

 * I can't make anything of "Klangapparate" in the Lateinisches Requiem section. It isn't a term used in English. Google translate give "sound equipment", which doesn't help at all. Clarify please? --Stfg (talk) 10:42, 18 May 2016 (UTC)


 * If I knew I had clarified. Let's try Klangapparat means a source/force of sound, for example the chorus, the orchestra. Klangapparate (plural) is more than one, here the ensemble of the soloists also. --GA


 * I think I see. I listened to a performance on youTube last evening and I think I can identify the four Klangapparate as: chorus, orchestra, soloists, audience coughing ;) OK, joking apart, we do refer to "forces" sometimes, but I don't think its use here would be understood. Rather than saying "The four ..." it might be best just to list them: "The chorus, orchestra, organ and soloists are used like the several choirs in compositions by Heinrich Schütz." Does that work for you? --Stfg (talk) 14:21, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * That works provided readers don't think it's not sourced ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:40, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I don't understand that. If the source doesn't identify the four "Klangapparate" then either it must be obvious from the meaning of the German word (in which case all we're doing is translating), or else the source isn't saying anything clearly enough to use. We can't use a word that English readers won't understand just because we can't source the meaning! --Stfg (talk) 15:07, 20 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I may have a language problem: how would a reader who doesn't understand Klangapparate know that what is meant are: 1) the ensemble of soloists (never just one), 2) choir, 3) organ and 4) orchestra? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:12, 20 May 2016 (UTC)


 * They wouldn't, unless they had read your explanation above (your first reply to my question). Even then I didn't know that the organ counts as a separate Klangapparat rather than as part of the orchestra -- I was just guessing because it had to be four and I guessed you didn't mean the audience coughing :)


 * Well, I should have gone to the source sooner. Why not simply quote the sentence "As Sun-Woo Cho writes, the solo quartet, chorus, orchestra, and organ act as four separate 'Klangapparate' in a way evocative of Schütz and the polychoral style." from FitzGibbon p13, instead of paraphrasing it? The sentence makes clear what she means by it, and the scare quotes tell the reader not to worry if they hadn't seen that word before. --Stfg (talk) 20:19, 20 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I've made so bold as to remove the mention of Mozart's Requiem from the Structure section. Restore it if you like, but lots of works are in D minor, and I don't think the key of Mozart's work adds anything to our understanding of Reger's setting of a completely different text. --Stfg (talk) 11:12, 18 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I take it, but the source FitzGibbons ("This pedal point can now be seen as alluding to at least four historical Requiem traditions: the funeral music tradition of Bach and Schütz with their use of pedal points, the D minor of the Mozart Requiem, the pedal point with quarter-note pulsation in the opening of the Brahms Requiem, and finally Reger’s own earlier Latin Requiem.") refers to the key related to Mozart's, who assigned D minor to very few compositions, such as Don Giovanni, yes, different text, but also dealing with death. --GA


 * Right you are, but I think FitzGibbons is discussing pedal points there, not the keys of the works. The mention of Mozart vis-a-vis the pedal point is in section A - I didn't change that -- but I don't think it's needed in the Structure section as well. The rarity of D minor in Mozart (another is the D minor piano fantasia, btw) is interesting when examining Mozart, but not when examining Reger. Only if some scholarly work indicated that Reger's choice of key was influenced by Mozart would I mention it. --Stfg (talk) 14:21, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * The comparison of the D pedal point with the E-flat of Das Rheingold seems to me to be irrelevant, and even less useful as the source is a populist one rather than a scholarly one. --Stfg (talk) 11:23, 18 May 2016 (UTC)


 * The piece is mentioned by scholarly FitzGibbons, who mentions another scholar ("Although Susanne Shigihara sees the long pedal point as similar to the opening to Wagner’s Das Rheingold, I find it more convincing as an allusion to Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, which begins with an F pedal point with quarter-note pulsations.), - only she doesn't mention Wagner's E-flat, which is in the score, and mentioned also by other scholars. --GA


 * OK, that justifies the comparison in the Lateinisches Requiem section, but in the A section, I think that "lower even than the opening of Wagner's Das Rheingold on E-flat" is over the top (and the source is populist). It implies that there is something remarkable about a D1 in the bass, and really, in the 20th century, there isn't. --Stfg (talk) 14:21, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * In the same section, I suggest removing the mention of using ledger lines. This is a tiny and insignificant detail of notation. --Stfg (talk) 11:26, 18 May 2016 (UTC)


 * It's something you see on the lead image, and it strikes me as unusual, but if you and others think it's OR, I'll think about it. --GA


 * It's not so much a question of OR as one of too much attention to a trivial technical detail. The lead image is the piano reduction, by the way; I assume that these notes would have been scored for Cb and Cfg, and organ stops at 16 or 32 ft, so these wouldn't have shown ledger lines. This many and more ledger lines are commonplace in 20th (and later 19th) century in violin, flute and piano parts. Frankly, who cares whether the notes are written on ledger lines or with octave notation? --Stfg (talk) 14:21, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I've now checked with the full score, which can be seen on IMSLP, here. There's nothing extraordinary in the notation. That D1 is notated under the first ledger line for contrabass, sounding an octave lower than written. This is the normal way to write it for contrabass. (No contrabassoon and no organ.)


 * In section A", I'm confused the sentence beginning "The quoted words, for the bar form's ...". Bach used the whole stanza (Movement 62 of the St Matthew Passion). Also, the quote omits the words "wenn ich den Tod soll leiden, so tritt du denn herfür" (which are under the repeat in the Bach). What is this sentence trying to say? --Stfg (talk) 11:46, 18 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I'll try to clarify, hoping that you can word it better. Bach quotes a complete stanza, 8 lines, 2 each Stollen, 4 Abgesang. Of these, Reger quotes only the melody of 3 lines, the first Stollen and the first line of the Abgesang (line 5). The text of these lines is: "Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden, so scheide nicht von mir. Wenn mir am allerbängsten ...", ending mid-sentence, on "most anxious". Omitted is also the text of lines 3 and 4: "wenn ich den Tod soll leiden, so tritt du denn herfür". Do we also need to say that none of these chorale words are heard, but instead "Vergiß sie nicht, die Toten ...", sung to the chorale melody, but the listeners are expected to understand the reference? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:58, 18 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Still working on this. --Stfg (talk) 14:21, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Having seen the full score, I now understand what's going on. Firstly, I'm sure it's correct to say that Reger most often quoted from the 5th stanza, but does the source say that he was quoting from that stanza here? I see no evidence for that, because the words are replaced by Hebbel's, and the harmonies are not those of #62 in the Matthew Passion (nor of the other four settings of this melody in the Passion). The only thing that is clearly quoted here is the melody. Here is a suggestion to start further discussion: I would replace the two sentences "The quoted words, ... more than an octave" with


 * Here Reger uses the first line and the first half of the third line of the chorale melody, but replacing the chorale's words with Hebbel's "vergiß sie nicht, die Toten", repeated three times. The chorus then continues to the end of the work without further reference to the chorale melody, while the solo voice repeats at the same time Seele, vergiß nicht die Toten, concluding with descending tones of more than an octave."


 * I realise that this omits the reference to the details of the bar form, but since Reger doesn't retain enough to preserve the bar form, perhaps it is better omitted in any case. It's better included in the article about the chorale. What do you think? --Stfg (talk) 20:02, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Returned from vacation: thank you very much for looking that closely. Go ahead. With more time - hopefully, but was pinged to ANI - I will look up where I read about Reger thinking of that specific stanza "When ich einmal soll scheiden" which makes a lot of sense in the context. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:40, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I found this. Not a reliable source, obviously, but it alludes to something that Reger wrote. The only thing is, in that quote Reger is using the first line of the stanza as if it were the name of the chorale. I'm not sure what to make of that. Also, it's a different work. --Stfg (talk) 08:32, 20 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you, will search further. - I am sure that he quotes that line of text because he means that line, not "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden", - "Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden" is the very line Bach used after the death of Jesus in the St Matthew Passion#62. (More OR: interesting that Bach picked such a subjective, self-centered line at that moment.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:11, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Comment
I would like to say that I think the page is beuatifully written; the prose flow very well here. Well done to Gerda and those helping. Ceoil (talk) 07:02, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Requiem (Reger). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110718170844/http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/McDermott_uncg_0154D_10357.pdf to http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/McDermott_uncg_0154D_10357.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110719063650/http://www.musiktext.de/texte/reger_requiem_txt.htm to http://www.musiktext.de/texte/reger_requiem_txt.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 16:46, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Requiem (Reger). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150402111337/http://www.ncco-usa.org/tcs/issues/vol4/no1/fitzgibbon/TCS_fitzgibbon_reger.pdf to http://www.ncco-usa.org/tcs/issues/vol4/no1/fitzgibbon/TCS_fitzgibbon_reger.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150402154621/https://www.musikverein.at/monatszeitung/show_artikel.php?artikel_id=1695 to https://www.musikverein.at/monatszeitung/show_artikel.php?artikel_id=1695

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 14:27, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Requiem (Reger). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110719060529/http://www.maxreger.de/ to http://www.maxreger.de/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 08:50, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Requiem (Reger). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120610120928/http://www.edition-peters.com/product/modern/requiem-op-144b/ep3996?TRE00000%2F to http://www.edition-peters.com/product/modern/requiem-op-144b/ep3996?TRE00000%2F

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 00:03, 26 November 2017 (UTC)