Talk:Water Droplets (Sibelius)

Lost autograph manuscript
Needing some help here. Several sources report that the autograph manuscript for Water Droplets is lost and, therefore, that the piece only survives as a copy made by Sibelius's first biographer, Erik Furuhjelm, who published a Swedish-language book in 1916. What I cannot figure out from the sources available to me is whether: a) Furuhjelm made a hand-written copy; or b) Furuhjelm was permitted to print the score in his book, i.e., a printed copy.

Second, it's not clear to me what happened to the autograph ... Tawaststjerna seems to indicate that it was destroyed, but his wording (or, more accurately Layton's translation) is, in my view, woefully imprecise. Here's the relevant passage:

"Sibelius preserved these [his Uncle Petr's compositions] all his life although few of his own manuscripts from the time of his youthful Water-drops down to what he wrote of the Eighth Symphony survives the bonfires which warmed his old age (p. 10)."

Add to this the following passage from an article by Layton, which confuses things further:

"It is a small piece for violin and cello pizzicato called Vattendroppar (Drops of Water) and on the same piece of manuscript paper there is a short sketch for string quartet (p. 4)."

Any clarifying information would be much appreciated. Thanks ~ Silence of Järvenpää 00:11, 17 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Were you able to find Furuhjelm's book? If not, its here (p. 21 for score) in Finnish and here (p. 19 for score) in Swedish. I guess he must have made a handwritten copy for at least this piece, given that he recorded it in the book?—though he mentions that other melodic fragments from Sibelius's childhood were on the sheet of paper, so he definitely had at least limited access to the original. –  Aza24  (talk)   03:13, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi, Aza24 ~ Whoa! It's that you found Furuhjelm's book ... and, thus, solved the mystery! (I had no idea this digital resource existed.) From what I can piece together, I think: (1) Furuhjelm got to view an autograph manuscript of Sibelius's that had Water Droplets and a few other sketches on it; (2) He made a copy when writing his book in 1915 and which was published in 1916; (3) He probably returned the autograph to Sibelius; (4) Sibelius likely destroyed the autograph in the 1930s or 1940s when he went through his various waves of incendiary destruction; and (5) The article by Layton, that I linked to above, must be Layton citing Furuhjelm's published account (in which he describes the autograph), as opposed to Layton himself having seen the autograph (which is how I originally read it). ~ Silence of Järvenpää 00:18, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Great to hear! Glad we understand the full context now.  Aza24  (talk)   19:15, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Some thoughts
I definitely agree with the B-class rating, nice work and impressive research! It's the perfect balance of information for a juvenile piece like this. Some thoughts
 * ✅ I would be careful switching between "Janne" and "Sibelius" in the same sentence (e.g. Later in life, Sibelius claimed that his first composition [...] perhaps because Janne never committed it to paper). It makes them sound like different people; maybe "he" or "the composer" would be better
 * ✅ Ext links aren't allowed directly in text ("published" in the lead)
 * ✅ I think the opening para of History should be understandable without having read the lead, so I would contextualize who Christian Gustaf Sibelius is and who is Janne is
 * ✅ Do you think the Sinfonia domestica metaphor refers to the Strauss piece? Worth linking if so. I'd also link pizzicato (and I don't think it needs to be italicized)
 * Hard to say ... it might be, but Tawaststjerna doesn't mention Strauss and my hunch is he's speaking generally while using a specific title. ~ Silence of Järvenpää 03:01, 9 May 2023 (UTC)


 * ✅ The Fazer publication info should be in the body text as well
 * Maybe "the biographer Daniel Grimley"? (perhaps for Goss as well)
 * ✅ Not sure of the relevance for the "Reception" section's photo, though it is a nice photo   Aza24  (talk)   02:46, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, not particularly relevant, especially to the Reception section ... that was just the place that had space. I will say that, because the article says Sibelius may have composed Water Droplets as an exercise for him (violin) and Christian (cello), and this is the only photo that contains the two! Ergo, I think it fits (Aside: the Sister, Linda, at the piano, eventually was institutionalized for depression.) ~ Silence of Järvenpää 03:23, 9 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Aza24 ~ Thanks for your wonderful comments ... I'll get to them soon. A few follow-ups:
 * In the search panel, the image that displays is the one of Evelina. It should be the one of young Sibelius, but I don't know how to change it. Thoughts?
 * Why aren't Ext links allowed in-text? What should I be doing with them instead?
 * Am I correct that the piece is in E minor? Or is is G major?
 * It looks like in Furujehlm's book, he has two-beats per measure, and hence 24 bars total (although he only prints the first 8); but the published version of Water Droplets by Fazer, is four-beats per measure, and hence 12 bars total. This may explain why sources I consulted (e.g., Barnett, Goss) say "24-bars" but that I wrote in the article "12-bars" (I assumed they were counting 12 for Vn + 12 for Vc = 24) ... do you think this discrepancy needs to be mentioned?
 * Would this article be a solid/relatively quick candidate for GA? ~ Silence of Järvenpää 00:26, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
 * For the image, I tried adding just the image of young Sibelius and it did indeed show him instead. My guess is either the long width made the image unusable for the preview (so it resorted to the next image which of a normal width).
 * ✅ Ext links have never been allowed in text, I'm not sure why but see #2 in WP:ELPOINTS. Instead I would put it in the ext links section or use it as a reference
 * ✅ Yes, definitely in E minor
 * ✅ My guess is that Sibelius didn't put a time signature if the original, so the reprints have just made differing editorial decisions for the time signature. It looks like a loose sentence, and 4/4 probably makes more sense. You could put a brief note that editors differ in their time signature choice(s), I don't think it would hurt.
 * Definitely a solid GA candidate, I don't think any reviewers could find much, if any, issues with it. –  Aza24  (talk)   19:04, 6 May 2023 (UTC)