Template talk:Bach cantatas

New Template
Here's a navigation template for the Bach cantatas. Because I culled the links from List of cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach with a script there are some quirks: That's it. Let me know if you have any feedback. Because I generated the page with a script, it wasn't as time-consuming as it looks, so feel free to be critical. DavidRF (talk) 05:11, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Some links show up twice (e.g. 147/147a). The were listed twice in List of cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach. These probably only need to be listed once in the template.
 * A couple of links (191 and 192) point to generic hymn-pages and not Bach cantata articles. Is that OK for now?
 * The link for 190, Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, redirects to List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. That doesn't look right.
 * The secular ones could be split off. My goal the first pass was to get all the links in.
 * The spurious ones could be split off or even removed. Again, just getting all the links in on the first pass.
 * The giant list of BWV numbers make for quick and easy navigation, but they might be unsightly for some. Should the default be "hide"?
 * I disagree that the spurious should be removed. I never quite understood why some people seem to want to make navigation templates so small they cease to be useful as nav templates. If there's enough info on them they they'll have ok articles, then there's no reason a line with the spurious ones shouldn't be there. Definitely seperate into three catagories (sacred, secular, spurious) though. As for the 147/147a issue -- well I'm not so sure there, because someone who finds they have "147a" might wonder where it is...eh I'm not knowledgeable about this music to be sure there. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 11:53, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I removed the bogus link to cantata 191. There's no point in having a link to an unrelated article. We SHOULD have an article on cantata 191 though since it is an important source of the B minor mass material. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 00:37, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Direction to titles rather than BWV numbers
The association of the BWV numbers to the first line of the Cantata they refer to (e.g. 106 = "Gottes_Zeit_ist_die_allerbeste_Zeit") functions well only for uniquely indentified works, but, unfortunately, JSB used the same texts for multiple works, so that for example BWV 3 and 58, as well as 61 and 62 will be undistinguishable in the future. Couldn't the pages actually be titled by the BWV number, as in BWV 58? Or should we create pages "(1)" and "(2)" for homonyms?

Opinions/advice would be great. Thanks! Campelli (talk) 20:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I culled the information for this template from List of cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach. It would be best to ask that question on the talk page there as the editors that monitor that page are the actual authors of the cantata articles.  DavidRF (talk) 21:48, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Numbering (#)
Since on 31 July 2011, the template shows each work preceded by a sequential number which makes it unreadable. I can't quite get the previous appearance: the last item will then appear on its own line. Can someone more versed in navigation templates please fix this urgently? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:07, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I reverted the 31 July change. Looks like they're enhancing the base templates so that less work has to be done by us, but they didn't check to see if the refactoring actually worked.DavidRF (talk) 15:51, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Spacing between "BWV Anh" and number
Please see my query at Talk:Entfernet euch, ihr heitern Sterne, BWV Anh 9. Thank you. SchreiberBike talk 05:45, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Split off secular cantatas?
With List of secular cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach more or less developed I was thinking it might be a good idea to split off the secular cantatas in a separate navbox (this one only retaining the church cantatas)? --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:28, 31 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose. With a secular cantata being the base for a church cantata, why split? - Would you please wait a week before making changes? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:13, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * The navbox on the BWV 179 page doesn't link to BWV 236 either (although the first is the base for the second) – and dozens of other examples of that kind (I hope one doesn't have to go to the box at the bottom of the page to see such links between compositions: the links should at least be in the body of the article). Why split: apart from the more elegant box size, it focusses on groups of compositions that belong together (compare NBA grouping them the same way), and so is more helpful to the reader than what most of them would perceive as just a random list of over 250 numbered links. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:28, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Gerda. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:13, 1 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment on wider picture: the BWV numbers for cantatas are pretty meaningless, as well in general (there was no logic of any kind in their assignment) as, I'm sure, even more they would be meaningless for an average reader. I propose that meaningful groups of Bach cantatas get their own navbox, for the church cantatas four navboxes with each around 50 cantatas:
 * Cantatas composed before the Leipzig period (early cantatas; Weimar cantatas)
 * First cantata cycle
 * Chorale cantatas and second cantata cycle (I proposed a layout for that navbox in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music)
 * Other church cantatas: incomplete third cantata cycle and Picander cycle, and whatever is not covered by the previous
 * These boxes I would use in complement to the "numbers only" box, so that an article on a church cantata by Bach would usually have two boxes: the general box with the numbers, and the box for the subset the cantata belongs to (the last one presenting the links in a logically structured sequence).
 * For the secular cantatas I'd use Secular cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach. As these are an entirely different subset I suppose I'd still prefer to keep these out of the general cantata navbox (which would then be a church cantatas only navbox as I had already implemented before it got reverted). The arguments in favour of keeping them in the general box are easily dismissed, e.g. BWV 249a and BWV 249b are secular cantatas. The related church cantata (the first version of BWV 249) is not in the general cantata navbox: navboxes are not suited to elucidate such relations between compositions: roughly half of the relations that apply to a limited subset of the secular cantatas are to church cantatas, the other half are to compositions not in the cantata navbox. The split has the advantage of reducing the number of links in the general cantata navbox (still over 200 links remain in that box in case of split).
 * Yes, all of this takes some time to develop (e.g. a separate article on the first cantata cycle would be welcome), but "it wasn't there before" is just stolid WP:IDONTLIKEIT. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:08, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I answered once before. (Why is this discussion two places?) I'd rather read a list article than a navbox. The list article would have exactly the same links. For whom would the navbox be? Point at the list articles in the general navbox: that would avoid duplication. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:51, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I answered in the other place. Navboxes aren't for reading but for navigation. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:55, 3 August 2016 (UTC)


 * See also my proposal at Template:Bach cantatas/sandbox. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:03, 7 August 2016 (UTC)


 * That looks nice. Gave me the sudden idea if we could simply differentiate types of cantatas by giving the numbers different colours? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:11, 7 August 2016 (UTC)


 * You split the secular cantatas, but added motets and oratorios, and claim a support. Where is that support? Please restore a template with all cantatas (not some other sacred works but not all) simply by number, and restore it to the articles in question. I have no time. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:34, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I read "looks nice" (your comment 14:11, 7 August 2016 above) as being support for what I had produced in the sandbox, I waited a week (didn't want to rush, see above), and then implemented the sandbox.
 * Re. motets and oratorios: note that there was already one motet (BWV 118) and one oratorio (BWV 11) in the navbox, so either remove those, or include them all (in each case the header of the navbox should be appropriate to its content, e.g. also not saying it are cantatas by J. S. Bach, when some of them are clearly by other composers). See also discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music, where I wrote something about this regarding the motet. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:51, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry if I wasn't clear. It looks nice, but a navbox Bach cantatas should have the cantatas, not more, not less. If you need something else, you can create additional ones, Bach's sacred music, you name it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:10, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

A navbox with the name Bach cantatas, and as header "Cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach" should not contain links to the following: Please remove these from the box, or change name and header of the template. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:16, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
 * BWV 11 – not a cantata
 * BWV 118 – not a cantata
 * BWV 15 – not by Johann Sebastian Bach
 * BWV 141 – not by Johann Sebastian Bach
 * BWV 160 – not by Johann Sebastian Bach
 * BWV 218 – not by Johann Sebastian Bach
 * BWV 219 – not by Johann Sebastian Bach
 * BWV 222 – not by Johann Sebastian Bach


 * I won't, it's not "my" template. I inherited it - with more than hundred red links - in 2010. Please take such a request to Classical music, but best just leave it alone and simple as it is/was. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:43, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Explanation of removal
The following are not cantatas - 1040, 1045. 1083 is an arrangement, and it isn't even a cantata, it's a motet. Finally,1127 is an aria. As thus, I have removed them from the template. 69.165.196.103 (talk) 04:11, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
 * BWV 1040, renumbered to BWV 208/13a in later versions of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, is a cantata movement.
 * BWV 1045 is as much a cantata movement as BWV 149/1a, i.e. an instrumental opening sinfonia to a cantata of which the rest is missing.
 * BWV 1083 is, at least as much as for instance BWV 191, a cantata – e.g. qualified as a "German-text cantata" by Richard D. P. Jones
 * BWV 1127 is listed as a cantata at List of Bach cantatas
 * So I'll be reverting the edit that removed these from the cantata navbox. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:47, 22 July 2017 (UTC)