Talk:Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1014–1019

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Daskene.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:36, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Class assignement
seems like I've been doing some of your class assignement work. I'd invite you to update the subsections on sonatas 1–5 in Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1014–1019. Maybe look for some additional reliable sources first. I suppose I removed about all of the sources originally proposed for the article for not passing that criterion. Maybe start your search for reliable sources at Google Books (instead of plain internet search which usually generates masses of questionable sources, difficult to separate from the ones that are better suited for Wikipedia's purposes).

Here's a suggestion for something I couldn't solve yet, and for which I'd give you bonus points if I were your teacher (which I'm not, lucky for you, wasn't, excuse my French, too impressed with your first throw): could you locate the first printed edition of these sonatas? should be somewhere in the first quarter of the 19th century but there are diverging dates depending on source, so what would be needed is a title of the publication (as in the first edition), possibly the editor of that first edition (if available), a publishing house, and a reliable source confirming that that edition was truly the first.

Meanwhile I'll ask an admin to merge the edit histories of User:Daskene/sandbox and Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1014–1019 (things would've been clearer to me if the content hadn't been copy-pasted). --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:26, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Sourcing and original research
There is a considerable literature on these sonatas none of which can be found in this article. Instead highly misleading and faulty unsourced content has been added to the article. The material about the Bach revival was unsourced and contradicts fact (the known publication date of the sonatas and their public performance from 1809 onwards by Salomon and Wesley). These are not minor works, were widely disseminated (including hand copies prior to the printed edition) and have been much discussed in the literature. Mathsci (talk) 05:51, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The faulty information was added by Francis Schonken in this edit. Bach scholars have written extensively about Bach's chamber music. I will add these to the article. The discography also leaves a lot to be desired. Mathsci (talk) 06:06, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * One of the main "sources" seems to have been the liner notes from the complete edition of Bach on Brilliant Classics. Mathsci (talk) 06:30, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

All of the sourcing in this article is hopeless. The bare list on the Bach digital archive is not an appropriate source for wikipedia. Nor is the IMSLP scan of the mid-19th century Breitkopf & Härtel edition (for the purposes for which it has been used). Mathsci (talk) 06:40, 14 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Please stop ripping on your fellow editors. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:45, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I have criticised the sources and the highly inaccurate content. It was mostly added by you. I have no idea why you don't try to find books or articles published in journals. The faulty content about Bach revival was created wholly by you as original research and snthesis. In this case your self-concoted and unsourced content was entirely at odds with material in the book edited by Michael Kassel (and other published sources, such as Olleson). The facts about Samuel Wesley and the English Bach awakening are not in dispute and are mentioned in plenty of other articles. Mathsci (talk) 07:34, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Inaccurate content
I have removed Francis Schonken's faulty content that he concocted himeelf. In this article, instead of using Bach scholarship in books and journals, he has gone to primary sources and CD liners. Francis Schonken has stated in an edit summary that Max Schneider is an excellent source. But there is no such person. In Christoph Wolff's article on Bach's chamber music we read: "Listings of Bach's chamber compositions in Schmieder's Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis [BWV] almost mechanically, and with very few exceptions, refer to the Cöthen period as their time of origin. That such a rigid view can no longer be upheld has become increasingly clear in recent years." So presumably Francis Schonken means Wolfgang Schmieder. Given the statements of Christoph Wolff, one of the leading Bach musicologists, Schmieder's list is a primary source and cannot be used for creating content. These sonatas were performed in London in the first decade of the 19th century by Salomon, Samuel Wesley and others to huge audiences (~ 3,000 in Hanover Square rooms, London's principal concert hall at that time). That is recorded in the literature and will be added to the article. Mathsci (talk) 07:16, 14 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Re. "So presumably Francis Schonken means Max Schmieder." – No, "Max Schmieder" doesn't exist afaik.
 * Wolfgang Schmieder is the publisher of the first two versions of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (1950, 1990). Schmieder was dead by the time the latest version ot the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis was published, by Dürr, Kobayashi and Beißwenger.
 * The music historian published in the Bach Jahrbuch, in this case an overview of all of Bach's music that was published (or commercially available) before 1851. FYI: that overview was compiled by Schneider in the 20th century.
 * So the comment above misses the point big time. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:33, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Removed from Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1014–1019
This referenced content was removed without apparent reason:


 * To a large extent Bach followed the format of the Italian trio sonata, that is two upper voices and a continuo accompaniment. Bach gave one of the two upper voices to the harpsichord (right hand), thus giving a concertato role to the instrument. He goes further than the traditional format in giving more than one upper voice to the harpsichordist's right hand in some instances, and other variant formats.


 * For the first five sonatas the succession of movements follows the sonata da chiesa four-movement model, that is starting with a slow movement, followed by a fast movement, and again a slow and a fast movement. The last sonata starts with an Allegro. After a few slow and fast movements, the sonata ends with an Allegro.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 07:19, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

References to Bach Digital and the 1998 Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis
References to Bach Digital and/or the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis are excellent to indicate BWV number, key, available manuscripts, succession of versions, etc. So these removals are without cause or reason:
 * The first sonata of the set is in B minor,
 * There appear to have been two earlier versions of the sonata (BWV 1019a): in the first version of the sonata there had been another Adagio, with the third and fifth movement based on material from the Courante and Gavotte, movements 3 and 6 of Partita No. 6 for keyboard, BWV 830, and the sixth movement of the sonata a da capo of its first movement. In the second version of the sonata, the third movement, a keyboard Allegro, was replaced by a Cantabile ma un poco Adagio for both instruments. This cantabile was apparently based on an aria that reappeared as fourth movement in the church cantata Gott, man lobet dich in der Stille, BWV 120 and in an earlier wedding cantata with the same musical material, Herr Gott, Beherrscher aller Dinge, BWV 120a. The fourth movement of this second version of the sonata was either the same as the one from the first version or the Adagio of the final version, and the fifth movement was dropped (the repeat of the first movement now becoming the fifth movement).

--Francis Schonken (talk) 07:19, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Publication history
Referenced content removed without apparent reason:


 * ... Still before the Bach Revival associated with Mendelssohn's 1829 restaging of the St Matthew Passion they had also been published by Richault in Paris. The Bach Gesellschaft published them in Volume 9 of the Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe in 1860. The New Bach Edition included them in Series VI (Chamber Music), Volume 1 (Works for Violin) in 1958.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 07:19, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Recordings
Referenced recording removed without cause or reason:


 * A 1999 recording by Luis Otavio Santos and Pieter-Jan Belder was released by Brilliant Classics as part of the Bach Edition.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 07:19, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Rewriting from scratch
I am rewriting this article from scratch, because the previous version had so many errors and misleading statements. The explanation of trio sonata form was not great. There are parts of the sonatas where a figured bass does occur (e.g. the first movement of the sixth sonata): no explanation of this appeared in the article. The attempt to cobble together content from skimpy sources (CD liner notes, Bach digital archive, BWV catalogue, 1907 sources, mid-19th century edition, random web pages) resulted in an article of very little value. I will spend some time finding all available high quality sources. I will also use the digital Bach archive in an appropriate way: for producing a high quality image of a surviving manuscript. This will take some time. Since there has been no activity on this article for a long time, I prefer to rejig the content on my own and at my own pace. I will not use CD liner notes. Mathsci (talk) 08:09, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * If you can't distinguish the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis from the Bach Jahrbuch editions (see above), and think the Bach Gesellschaft edition of these sonatas is not worth mentioning in the publication history, calling all of this and more "skimpy sources", I'm not so convinced you should be allowed to hack away in this article. So, please reinstate the above listed unjustified removals, and propose your rewrites here, on this talk page. In this approach the in use template serves no purpose and should be removed. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:32, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * It is not what I have written here. You adjusted the date of the 1800 manuscript in the archives of the Royal College of Music to 1802. But the sources say 1800. Until I added the content, you didn't have any idea about Nägeli's edition, which probably had several printings (18th-19th century practise). There was nothing at all in the article about it. The copy in the RCM is from 1800. That chamber works of Bach were widely disseminated before other works is unsurprising. It should not be confused with the revival of organ or choral works (much slower) which were not usually in a form suitable for domestic performance. Mathsci (talk) 09:28, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Most of the content created by Francis Schonken seems to be original research and synthesis from unreliable sources. It has been removed. When he was shown a reliable source—referring to a Samuel Wesley's copy of the Nägeli's edition dated 1800 in the archives of the Royal College of Music—Francis Schonken chose to dismiss Philip Ollesen's scholarship. I would say that Francis Schonken is completely out of is depth here (and below). As usual his editing is disruptive. In early publishededitions there were several printings. True of Handel and equally true of Bach (see Giulio Cesare for various examples). Francis Schonken's proposed narrative seems to provide no place for the English Bach awakening under Samuel Wesley. There is very little I can do about that except to ignore Francis Schonken's negative comments about Philip Ollesen. Mathsci (talk) 09:54, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * As I asked you above, please stop ripping on your fellow editors. Ripping on generally reliable sources in favour of a single thesis makes it only worse. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:06, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Please write in English. "Ripping on" makes no sense to me at all. Mathsci (talk) 10:42, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Oops, sorry. Thought the expression would be clear. Stop the damaging negative comments. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:57, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Still meaningless. Nothing damaging. You are the person who has added misleading content to wikipedia. Mathsci (talk) 12:19, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Date of first publication
I'd replace:
 * The sonatas were first published by Hans Georg Nägeli in Zurich in 1800.

by:
 * The sonatas were first published in the early 1800s, by Hans Georg Nägeli in Zürich.

Rationale: Ollesen is not the most expert source on publication dates of Bach's compositions. Three reliable sources give different dates for the first publication (1800, 1802, available by 1804). The exact date (on which experts seem to disagree) has less importance than the fact that it is an early 1800s publication. All three sources confirm that. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:49, 14 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Ollesen is a published author and an authority on the English Bach awakening. He has visited the Royal College of Music and consulted the copy in the Samuel Wesley archives. Why should he lie about the date on it? Making that kind of suggestion is just disruptive. Making derogatory comments about Philip Ollesen's scholarship is not a good idea. How is Francis Schonken in a position to make any kind of statement about Philip Ollesen? In this case he is suggesting that Philip Ollesen is lying about a date in the Wesley archive. That seems highly unlikely. Like the early Handel editions of Walsh, Cluer and Creake from the 1720s, there were presumably several printings, all of them dated.  Mathsci (talk) 09:27, 14 October 2016 (UTC)


 * "Zürich" and "English Bach awakening" are geographically quite different. Ollesen doesn't contend, in his footnote pp. 225-226, that he has the publication date from Wesley's copy conserved in the Royal College of Music. Afaik no publication date was printed on Nägeli's first edition: the Bach Bibliography website gives the date in square brackets (which means: no publication date in the printed score, publication date derived from elsewhere). Schneider's date reflects availability for sale (i.e. when it was listed for the first time in inventories and sales catalogues). If reliable sources aren't unanimous on the date it is not up to Wikipedians to select one source (...and not even the most authoritative one on this particular bit of information): NPOV guidance indicates that the information in all reliable sources should be reflected with appropriate weight, not exclusion of sources according to one editor's whim. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:01, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Your narrative implied that the sonatas were unknown until the 1840's editions. That is untrue. You use unreliable sources to support your narrative. You force that narrative on readers. The performances of the sonatas are not described in the footnote but in the referenced book. These were documented performances in well known concert venues.The same venue where some Haydn string quartets were given their first performances. It would appear that you have not read the book; nevertheless you seem to be dismissing the English Bach awakening. As I say, in the current circumstances where you are disruptively asserting that known historical events did not occur and had no impact, my only option is to ignore what you write. It makes no sense to me. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 10:30, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Re. "Your narrative implied that the sonatas were unknown until the 1840's editions" – nonsense, it implied nothing of the kind. Please stop ripping on your fellow editors (third time I ask), and certainly stop ripping on them based on spurious argumentation. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:37, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Your editing is disruptive. There is no doubt about what Ollesen write: he is the expert on the Wesley archive in the Royal College of Music. The "in use" tag is on the article, so please find something else to do while I'm editing it. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 12:17, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

I see no argument against...
 * The sonatas were first published in the early 1800s, by Hans Georg Nägeli in Zürich.

... instead of the questionable phrasing currently in the article. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:29, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

"Rewriting from scratch" method unworkable
your method of first hacking away in referenced content (removing numerous viable references in the process) is not working. The in use tag should not be used to cover that up, and proposed changes should pass by this talk page. There's no consensus for your "destruct first, salvage later" approach, which calls for continuous close monitoring to see whether salvageable parts are integrated in the rewrite. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:29, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The sources you found were poor quality and unacceptable. You did not succeed in finding any substantial sources in books or journals, even thought they exist, You have made disparaging remarks about my sources. writing as if youyourself were an acknowledged Bach scholar, you have cast doubts on the Wesley archive in the Royal College of Music and on Philip Ollesen's expertise.


 * I have barely even started gathering sources. I started with Richard Jones and Christoph Wolff, but there are plenty more. I have no idea why no effort was made to look for those sources. The article was little more than a bare list when I found it, with a thoroughly misleading section on reception. CD liners for Brilliant Classics are not acceptable as sources. Nor do we need add sources to specify the key of each sonata.


 * I am gradually adding proper content starting with a better image of the 18th century manuscript. I will probably create more. I have not been able to make any sense of your negative comments on Ollesen; and I have no idea why you made them. Salomon, who was involved as a performer in the English Bach Awakening, was a quite famous German violinist and this part of musical history relates to him. As described in the sources, he knew the sonatas prior to meeting Wesley.


 * I don't agree with your proposal. I think your judgement on sources in this case is questionable, particularly after your disruptive comments about Olleson's scholarship. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 13:19, 14 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry, no consensus on the method. Again, stop your damaging comments about sources like these:
 * (1907). "Verzeichnis der bis zum Jahre 1851 gedruckten (und der geschrieben im Handel gewesenen) Werke von Johann Sebastian Bach", pp. 84–113 in Bach-Jahrbuch 1906, Neue Bachgesellschaft VII (3), p. 104
 * Wilhelm Rust, editor. Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe, Volume 9, pp. 67–172 and 250–59. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1860.
 * Rudolf Gerber and Günter Haußwald (editors). New Bach Edition, Series VI: Chamber Music – Volume 1: Works for Violin. Bärenreiter 1958.
 * Yo Tomita et al. (23 March 2012). "Nägeli, Hans Georg" at Bach Bibliography website
 * Bach Digital Work at Bach Digital website
 * Bach Digital Work at Bach Digital website
 * Alfred Dürr, Yoshitake Kobayashi (eds.), Kirsten Beißwenger. "BWV 1014-1019a Sechs Sonaten" pp. 415–17 in Bach Werke Verzeichnis: Kleine Ausgabe, nach der von Wolfgang Schmieder vorgelegten 2. Ausgabe. Preface in English and German. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1998. ISBN 3765102490 - ISBN 978-3765102493.
 * I consider your comments in this regard damaging to the article (and to your reputation for that matter), while based on your damaging idiosyncrasies regarding these sources you go on a random deletion spree of well-sourced material. These are all fairly standard sources, used (or: similar ones used) in the best articles on Bach's compositions. Yes, for the timing of the first publication (far away from the English Bach awakening) I'd give more credence to Yo Tomita et al. (2012) over Olleson (2000). But as said, that is not a discrimination to be made by Wikipedia editors: both are reliable sources, and a formulation that contradicts neither, nor adds stuff to what is actually in the sources, has been proposed. It is disruptive to go on editing the article with your version of how such sources should be extrapolated, while this discussion is going on on this talk page, and a consensus has not yet been reached. Adding tags to the article to attract more input from others to this discussion to reach a consensus is not disruptive at all. Removing such tags expounding your questionable version in mainspace is. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:24, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The number of sources that you have ignored grows by the hour. I am slowly gathering them. Bare entries on the Bach digital archive are not a substitute for finding properly sourced material. Synthesising content from the Bach digital archive is unacceptable. In this case professional musicians have produced an Urtext edition (there at least two and probably more). In those editions the editors normally survey the sources, discuss the musical background, etc. The Urtext editions exist and it is the commentaries there that provide valuable source material.


 * But just taking your example above. The only content in the 1860 volume the Bach-Gesellschaft edition that might be useful is not the score, but the foreword. You don't mention it so you evidently haven't looked at it. I have now provided a link to the djvu file. There are two pages of commentary (XX, XXI). Unfortunately they have been superseded by more modern Bach scholarship, so cannot be used. From the above it seems that you feel that the bare score can be used as a source. Mathsci (talk) 15:10, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Urtext commentaries unused in article
The references to Rust were to the bare score on IMSLP. On the other hand, the 1860 Bach-Gesellschaft edition had a foreword describing the four sources as they were perceived at the time. That material is an usable primary source since it has been superseded by subsequent Bach scholarship. Useful sources are the commentary in recent Bach Urtext editions which I am gradually adding. These provide a valuable discussion of the sources and can replace attempts to create content by looking at the bare entries in the Leipzig Bach archive. I cannot see how content can be created in any sensible way by an amateur looking at a bare computer archive: it seems like pure folly to attempt to do so. Unlike the organ sonatas, Bärenreiter does not seem to have made available the commentary of Peter Wollny and Andrew Manze; but I will attempt to get a copy (it could take some time). The edition is for violin and obbligato harpsichord with a viola da gamba or cello part. Breitkopf do not seem to have produced an Urtext edition. I will look for the Henle Verlag edition. Mathsci (talk) 14:46, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Deleted content and sources
See Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Please comment there, not here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:34, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * More disruption. Mathsci (talk) 08:58, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Francis Schonken's sourcing was rejected on WP:RSN. He has tried to suggest otherwise. I cannot see any rationale behind that, beyond blatant disruption. Mathsci (talk) 09:00, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Wollny's 2004 preface
I will now begin adding content from the preface (pages VIII–XIII) by Peter Wollny to the 2004 Bärenreiter Urtext edition. There is also a separate section on baroque performance practise by Andrew Manze. Mathsci (talk) 12:57, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Francis Schonken seems to think that the trio sonata BWV 1079 has some relation to these sonatas. Not only do I have the physical copy of Wollny's Urtext edition, I also have a scanned copy of the preface. Searching for "BWV 1079" I find nothing. If Francis Schonken wants to discuss the summary of Wollny's content, please could he read the source that is being used? It is a simple courtesy.


 * I have never seen any relation between these works and the musical offering discussed in the literature. They involve quite different musical styles and genres. One involves an obbligato harpsichord the other involves a figured bass. One was composed/compiled in the 1720s, as a collection of sonatas; the other was composed in 1747 with very different goals. Mathsci (talk) 10:32, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Musical analysis - progress report - BWV 1017
I will be adding miniscores for each of the sonatas created using lilypond. I also hope to create audio files. In the case of BWV 1017 the bare notes had been encoded on mutopia, but voicing the violin with micro-articulations in a separate performing file is very time-consuming. After completing the last movement, I will gradually set about the other sonatas in their established form. The analysis will have a general discussion (which will involve a modification to the lede) together with a discussion of each sonata, although not necessarily movement by movement. The main sources are hard to access and commentators often concentrate on a single sonata, to explain Bach's general method. Useful sources are Eppstein's 1966 book and Asmus's 1986 article, which summarises his thesis. (I will have access to both of these.) Single movements are discussed in some of the other sources listed in the references. When I will start adding the analysis when I have those two references. Possibly I will start on BWV 1017. This will be a quite slow process; but there is no rush. Mathsci (talk) 08:08, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

I will be starting today on the analysis for BWV 1017, after completing the audiofile. The are general comments about the structure of the sonatas which are explained in Eppstein, Asmus, etc. These comments will be summarised later at the head of the section, since they apply generally. They include: the appearance of passages for figured bass in some sonatas (discussed by Koopman in "About Bach"); the dance-like form of some of the fugal finales (many sources including R. Jones, Vol II), without any identifiable dance (Dance and the Music of Bach, Little & Jenne); two types of fugal movement—the "tutti fugue" and the "concerto-like fugue" (Eppstein, 1969); the variety of new compositional forms for the slow movements (Eppstein, Asmus); similarity of themes between the two fast movements; special musical devices (e.g. the doubled seventh in BWV 1016/1 (Hefling, Journal of Music Theory, 1986)). This list is not complete, which is why I intend to add it only when the detailed summaries for each sonata have been written. The sonatas with figured bass also need separate encoding for the musical quotations (where I might add the figures under the bass notes) and the audio files, where I will make own choice using published versions as a guide. (The 19th century editions republished by Dover or the Durand edition of Claude Debussy are outside copyright.) N

For BWV 1017, the slow movements are described in detail on pages 39-41 of Eppstein's book; and the adagio again in Asmus's article. The two fast movements are discussed on pages 62-63 of Eppstein (and elsewhere). The structure of the sonatas was first discussed in Spitta, who is often cited. The Urtext prefaces contain brief discussions of each sonata, but usually not in any detail. Particular features in this sonatas are the diminutions in the last movement (Breslauer); the anapaests in the first movement (Neumann's ornamentation in baroque music); the chromatic fourth in the counter-subject of the second movement (Williams); the arpeggiated accompaniment in the first movement (Ledbetter's WTC). Joel Lester also refers to the "echo" responses in the adagio between the forte and piano sections in his article on "parallel-section" constructions. Mathsci (talk) 07:03, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Each separate sonata requires separate intensive research to locate the sources. All of them are complex and have been much discussed in the literature. The musical analysis was most often done by German scholars, starting with Spitta. Bach scholars who are also professional violinists will often treat the violin works in greater detail. (Lester for example has treated the solo sonatas and partitas in detail.) Mathsci (talk) 07:17, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I am going to start adding the musical analysis of BWV 1017/1 today. This process will be slow and incremental. I am adding an additional reference which I now have. Mathsci (talk) 09:09, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I have now completed the musical analysis for the slow movements. It was quite hard gathering the sources to write that content (e.g. Stowell's comments on the G string). Wollny's preface did not contain anything particularly relevant. Generally information came from musical academics specialising in Bach and a particular instrument (violin and harpsichord). I will now start on the two fast movements, but it will take some time. Again Wollny's preface does not seem to be of much help. Mathsci (talk) 16:59, 11 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I have completed (a preliminary version of) the analysis of all four movements. Mathsci (talk) 16:28, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Article under construction
Could Francis Schonken please stay away from this article? I don't need any help or irrelevant details of subsequent manuscripts, which are hardly the point of this article. If he wants to wikihound somebody, could he please choose somebody else and another article? If he wants to compete with somebody, could he choose somebody else? He is obviously trying to disturb my editing in any way he can. I find it creepy and rather nasty. What he adds is of no interest to the reader. Is he just trying to show off? The image of the early nineteenth century Nageli imprint from Harvard was already in the article (as an image and external link). He did not have the initiative to think of improving this article. Can he please stop inserting things that cannot be used for creating content or are already in the article? He should just stay away from the article: his aim seems to be to to create a poisonous atmosphere with his threatening behaviour. I find it quite aggressive, a very strange thing to do. Nobody on the WP:RSN board agreed with any of the points he made. Five editors disagreed with him. He suggested the opposite in his edit summary. I have no idea why he lied in an edit summary. He knows the article is being actively worked on at the moment. Presumably that is irritating him. I went to a library: he doesn't like that. Very odd. Mathsci (talk) 08:12, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The discussion of BWV 1019 is the most complicated of all. There are journal articles and books discussing its evolution. I paused in the origins section before adding that in a form intelligible to the reader. Wikipedians cannot analyse the original manuscripts themselves by looking at the Bach-archive. That is what Bach scholars do themselves and is not the main point of this article. The main section on analysis of movements is in its infancy at the moment. The preparation of the audio file for BWV 1017/4 is under way. It obviously has an educational purpose like the remainder of the article, which is not supposed to be a dry and arid list, like an out of date telephone directory. Mathsci (talk) 09:22, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Concerto allegros vs Tutti fugues
These terms were introduced by Hans Eppstein in 1969 to describe the fast movements in the sonatas for obbligato keyboard & melody instrument (including the organ sonatas). They have been adopted by subsequent commentators. Examples in the organ sonatas are BWV 529/i (concerto allegro) and BWV 529/iii (tutti fugue). Treating the sixth sonata BWV 1019 as exceptional, as a rule in the first five sonatas BWV 1014–1018 only the first allegros are tutti fugues. There are two exceptions: in the fifth sonata BWV 1018 in f minor, only the second allegro is a tutti fugue; and in the third sonata BWV 1016 in E major both allegros are tutti fugues (Eppstein, 1969, page 13). Mathsci (talk) 23:51, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * More from Eppstein (1969). In the case of BWV 1014–1018, the concerto allegros are fugal but follow the model of a fast movement of a Vivaldi concerto. All parts play together at the beginning and there are solo episodes; the movements have a binary structure, i.e. two sections and each of them can be repeated. The tutti fugue does not start with a tutti (this is a peculiarly germanic use of the word tutti!), but commences with the fugue subject in one part together with a non-thematic bass accompaniment (sometimes a figured bass), followed by the subject in the other upper part and finally the fugue subject in the bass; there are countersubjects and solo episodes, with a development section and a da capo close; the tutti fugues are not in binary form. Mathsci (talk) 00:23, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Editing while the in use tag is up
Francis Schonken has been doing so while a large amount of editing is happening. He is adding pedantic comments which do not help the reader. They are confusing, written in a telegraphic and unintelligible style, which mangles the English language. They are the antithesis of Bach scholarship. The Bach Archive is not acceptable source. He has been told so on WP:RSN by five different editors. It is a list and Francis Schonken does not have the musical background to understand it. The title page is in Bach's handwriting (this is explained in books and articles).

FS has used the Bach Archive for writing content in old versions of this article. That is just original research. His editing at the moment, while the in use tag is up, is purely disruptive. While he conducts himself in this way, with his misuse of WP:RSN, his edits will simply be reverted on sight. He has shown absolutely no interest in adding useful content; his suggestions only create confusion for the reader. The text in the history and origins section is still under construction. I should also point out that the article has been completely overhauled. It contains substantial new content, huge amounts: it is four to five times longer than it was before and is now reliably sourced. (The article was originally created just under a year ago as an undergraduate assignment.)

The in use tag is at the top of the article and is easy to read. Mathsci (talk) 08:26, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Francis Schonken is aware that a large amount of new content is in the course of being created in this arricle. The messages on this talk page state that quite clearly. They do not need to be repeated every day. While those messages on this page apply, Francis Schonken's edits to the article are disruptive, an attempt to "vandalise" the article while it's still being written. His edits do not seem to be designed to help the reader in any way at all. I have therefore reverted them. I am not sure why Francis Schonken spends his time following me around to articles. Mathsci (talk) 06:53, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Musical analysis - progress report - BWV 1019
I will now start preparing the material on the last sonata. It does not fit into the pattern of the others and requires separate material in the origins and compositional history section. The musical analysis will concentrate on the five movement version, including creating lilypond and audio files (from scratch alas). One problem with the other versions is that the wikipedia article on the Partitas for keyboard (Bach) is largely empty (an earlier version of BWV 1019 includes a movement from BWV 830). I have no idea why that is so, since the these are among the most perfect of Bach's keyboard works. They have not been neglected in the literature. Strange. But Bach "culture" on wikipedia often does not reflect the musical world. Mathsci (talk) 16:41, 14 November 2016 (UTC)