Talk:Trio sonata

trio sonata with two parts?
"A further innovation of Bach was the creation of what are strictly trio sonatas, involving a concertante (obligato) harpsichord part and one melodic instrument, thus for two players." -- Then what is the third part? And what is meant by "strictly"? I'm not familiar with the construction of a harpsichord, but I think that unlike an organ, it does not have a foot pedal. (I'm totally out of my depth here, just came looking for an explanation.)

Also, "The trio sonatas by Arcangelo Corelli (opus I, 1681, opus III, 1689) set an inspiring example." This sounds like opinion, should be rewritten.

Milkunderwood (talk) 08:04, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
 * In keyboard texture, one line is customarily given to the right hand, and another to the left. It is of course possible to incorporate three, four, five, or more voices into a part for one keyboard player, but the essential element here is that the harpsichord is most commonly found in trio sonatas as a continuo instrument only. As such, it plays from a figured bass, and represents therefore only one of the three lines of music defining the composition as a "trio". In Bach's trios with obligato harpsichord, one line is assigned to a melody instrument (violin, flute viola da gamba), a second line is written out for the right hand of the harpsichordist, and the third line (as usual) is played by the left hand. Bach also composed trio sonatas for organ alone, in which the two upper lines are played on the manual by the two hands, and the bass is given to the pedals. Your point about the Corelli is well-taken, and should either be cited to a source, or rewritten.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:29, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Musical Form
The article notes that the Trio Sonata is a "musical form", but does not describe its formal structure. If there is no standard formal structure, perhaps it should instead be linked to "musical genre" or another article about common instrumentations? 108.212.227.57 (talk) 18:13, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Good point. There is a normal four-movement slow-fast-slow-fast formal structure to trio sonatas (and some common variants, such as the Corellian five-movement design), which ought to be mentioned but is not. I shall see what I can do to rectify this shortcoming.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:03, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Re. "established Harvar citation format, per WP:CITEVAR"
Re. "established Harvar citation format, per WP:CITEVAR; ..." :
 * 1) The citation format (not Harv.) was established by this edit which contained the first citation added to the article.
 * 2) Considering various parentheses used in the article, e.g.:
 * 3) * Not being references: "... (Opus 1, 1681, Opus 3, 1689) ..." – "... (BWV 525–530)," – "... (BWV 1014–1019)," – "... (BWV 1027–1029)," – "... (BWV 1030–1032; BWV 1031 is doubtful)." – "... (BWV 1039)," – "... (BuxWV 266 and 271)," – " (BuxWV 270, fragmentary),"
 * 4) * Harv. references: "... (Talbot 2001)." – "... (Bach 1740-1760)." – "... (Dürr and Kobayashi 1998, 466)." – "... (Hofmann 2006)."
 * 5) * Succession of both types: "... (BuxWV 267) (Snyder 2001)."
 * I'd say that for this article overriding the established CITEVAR style, i.e. footnoted references, was a bad choice.

Anyhow, I'll undo the WP:CITEVAR change and go back to the originally established citation style. As it was nicely put in the edit summary of the diff given above: "please discuss any suggested changes of format on the Talk page and obtain consensus before making such arbitrary changes". --Francis Schonken (talk) 02:32, 31 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Incorrect: the Harvard citation format was esteblished with this edit, which contained the first citation added to the article, on 16 May 2011. As for the non-citation parentheses, this can easily be addressed without changing the citation format.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:02, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * No, the above diff doesn't establish a citation format: at the time there wasn't a single harv reference in the article – these only started appearing after I had introduced a footnoted reference. --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:25, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Further, re. "this can easily be addressed without changing the citation format", and still easier with keeping to the established footnoted CITEVAR format. --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:27, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Rubbish. The Harvard citation is there in 2011. All you have to do is look at it.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:24, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Now I see (maybe present a diff in a more usual format next time). Still, no harv format at the time (as I said), and footnoted references still the easiest way to avoid multiple parentheses typology (no "rubbish"). --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:27, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I think we may be on different planets here. The presence or absence of a particular template does not define a formatting style. You may not believe it, but Harvard formatting is even used in printed paper books and journals, where such templates are meaningless. The established format is (Harvard) parenthetical referencing, not footnotes, a referencing style that has gotten along quite happily in this article for more than five years now.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 15:11, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Numbered footnotes
I'd suggest to go to a numbered footnotes system, while the harv is quite cumbersome, and easily leads to mistakes, e.g., first repair attempt, still not OK, ... finally got it right Any problems with that proposal? --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:45, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I find the Harvard referencing much easier to read and to edit. I suspect the reason you are having trouble with the formatting is unfamiliarity with the markup. I do not see one editor's unfamiliarity with the formatting as a valid reason to change the established style.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:36, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Further thought: as a matter of fact, it would be simplicity itself to convert all of the present references to numbered footnotes, simply by replacing all of the harv templates with sfn ones. I fail to see how this would address the editing problems you encountered, Francis, and it would interpose one more layer between the reader and the reflist (three-point links instead of two-point).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:27, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

My general reasoning is this: harv references are quite suitable for, e.g., philosophical topics or stylistic analysis, i.e. topics depending to a high degree on interpretations of the authors writing about these topics: then without clicking (or moving the mouse indicator over the ref) one gets an immediate view on who-wrote-what, which really assists the reader to get a good understanding of what they're reading. For more matter-of-factish topics (meaning where "multiple possible interpretations" are less an issue) the harv parentheses are rather a cumbersome bother than really assisting the reader: if a concerto has three movements, that should be referenced, but whether it is referenced to the concerto's first publication, to a writing by a Bach scholar or to a writing by a Vivaldi scholar is immaterial to a good understanding of the readable prose (and thus rather a hindrance).

As for the trio sonata article, it contains some topics dependent on interpretations by authors (e.g. whether a trio sonata can be played by less of more than three musicians), but these authors generally say the same thing (e.g., Bach's and Stölzel's organ sonatas, performed on organ without other performers around, are "trio" sonatas: any author would confirm that), so it doesn't really matter whether such author, accompanied by a date indicating when the author wrote it, is named in the prose. Similar for BWV 525a: any author (or even the primary source) would confirm that it is called "Concerto" in the eldest extant source, and any author (but not the primary source) would confirm it is in fact a trio sonata – no authors need to be named in-text for a better understanding of the prose (and such author name would rather be a distraction in such case). As for the bulk of the article, indicating which composers wrote which trio sonatas, the "interpretation" aspect is mostly absent, and where it isn't, irrelevant, while all authors say the same.

But I can only speak for myself: I do think that in this article the parenthetical author names, dates and other numbers are a bothersome distraction. But, for me, that isn't even the worst consequence of that type of referencing in this article – I see it as an impediment for updating. Meaning, I'd probably have contributed more to this article if its referencing system weren't such a clutter. May be that nobody misses my withheld contributions to this article, so be it. But the article has multiple issues, and in future I'd probably rather start tagging these than addressing them myself: my time is limited too. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:44, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

"... inspiring slavish imitation ..."
The expression "... inspiring slavish imitation ..." seems like an appreciation of the author (i.e. Talbot 2001). Such interpretive claims need more context (not necessarily putting Corelli above whoever followed in his footsteps) and/or more reliable sources that say the same, or at least in-text attribution "according to Michael Talbot Corelli's trio sonatas inspired slavish imitation". Especially while the next composer mentioned, Bach, was all but a slavish imitator of Corelli's models. Personally I'd simply remove the "slavish imitation" expression from that sentece. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:08, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, it doesn't say (nor can I imagine Talbot saying) that Corelli's trio sonatas inspire nothing but slavish imitation. Still, I agree that this lacks some necessary context, and should probably be removed.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 15:06, 31 October 2016 (UTC)