User:Jashiin/contribs

UPDATE: This page is no longer maintained. I'm sorry, I simply don't have enough Wikipedia time anymore to both write articles and write about what I write. As of 9 January 2011, my latest major contributions were in Leopold Godowsky, Gisbert Steenwick, Georg Böhm, Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major, BWV 564, Max Ernst, Cinq études de bruits, Symphonie pour un homme seul, Johann Krieger, etc. Below is the last version of the contributions list, from 28 September 2010:

Articles I created and/or made significant contributions to, in alphabetical order (some minor things are not included):


 * 1) Abraham van den Kerckhoven: one of the last representatives of the 17th century Dutch keyboard school. Many small versets are extant, as well as some incredible polyphonic fantasias. Unfortunately, I have no good sources on his music, and so the article was translated from nl:Abraham van den Kerckhoven - I don't speak Dutch, so the translation is poor and partial.
 * 2) Albert de Rippe: 16th century Italian lutenist and composer who worked in France. He composed some of the most complex lute pieces of the period, apparently very difficult to play. His work was only published after his death.
 * 3) Alessandro Poglietti - a 17th century organist and composer who wrote a lot of bizarre pieces and a collection of ricercars that may have influenced Johann Pachelbel and the south German school in general. Unfortunately, I was only able to find sources dealing with his keyboard music, but not his chamber or vocal works.
 * 4) Amour (Stockhausen) - a small cycle of clarinet pieces by Karlheinz Stockhausen. Most are melodic program music; probably a good introduction to Stockhausen for those who are not used to avant-garde sound and would like to hear something more traditional.
 * 5) André Raison - one of the most interesting composers of the Baroque French organ school. Like his contemporaries, he mostly wrote short versets for liturgical use. He had a pronounced melodic gift, evidently interesting enough to inspire JS Bach to borrow a couple of Raison's themes for his Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582.
 * 6) Angelo Michele Bartolotti - a 17th century Italian guitarist who composed a cycle of passacaglias (!) in all major and minor keys.
 * 7) Anton Reicha - a contemporary and friend of Beethoven's. Reicha wrote some of the most beautiful and complex fugues I know, and he was also a fantastic musician and theorist. He experimented with extended sonata forms and various rarely used ensemble techniques, but most incredibly, he advocated polyrhythm, polytonality (in 1803!) and microtonal music (at least before 1824). Unfortunately, his contemporaries - including Beethoven and Schumann - thought that Reicha's experiments were too much. He is now best known for his theoretical treatises. I've written a few articles about his music, based on the very limited sources available today:
 * 24 Horn Trios (Reicha), 36 Fugues (Reicha), Josef Reicha (his uncle), List of compositions by Anton Reicha
 * 1) Antonio Bertali - 17th century Italian composer, succeeded Giovanni Valentini, which is what lead me to create the article, because Valentini is a very interesting figure. Translated from fr:Antonio Bertali.
 * 2) Antonio de Cabezón‎ - 15th century Spanish composer. An extremely important keyboard composer; his works include the earliest high point in the history of keyboard variations, and many wonderful organ versets and tientos.
 * 3) Antonio Valente - 16th century Italian organist, one of the earliest composers of the Neapolitan school which later gave the world such great composers as Mayone and Trabaci.
 * 4) Arnolt Schlick - early 16th century German composer whose compositions anticipate Baroque methods and styles by about a hundred years. Currently, only the biography is completed, but the rest is to follow shortly.
 * 5) Bauyn manuscript - this is one of the most important sources of French harpsichord music of the 17th century; particularly notable for pieces by Louis Couperin. (translated from fr:Manuscrit Bauyn)
 * 6) Bernardo Storace - a very obscure and enigmatic Italian composer of mid-17th century. Nothing is known about his life, except what can be derived from a little notice on the title page of the only surviving collection of his music. He specialized on beautiful variation sets, some of which can be linked to Buxtehude's later Passacaglia in D minor, BuxWV 161 in terms of structure, wrote "toccata and canzona" pairs (foreshadowing the "prelude and fugue" form), and also composed a huge minimalist piece for organ, Pastorale, which is based on folk tunes and sounds as if it was composed by someone like Philip Glass. Well, almost.
 * 7) Boris Vian - French 20th century writer, poet, jazz musician and critic. His work only recently started appearing in English; it is difficult to translate because of Vian's reliance on wordplay and invented words. He is most famous for his provocative Vernon Sullivan novels, written specifically to scandalize the literary world and promote his friend's publishing house, and L'Écume des jours, a love story. I find both Sullivan novels and L'Écume inferior to his mature novels such as Heartsnatcher and Red Grass, but those are much less known.
 * 8) Capirola Lutebook - this is an important source of early Italian lute music; the book contains pieces by Vincenzo Capirola.
 * 9) Charles Dieupart - French 18th century composer who lived and worked in London.
 * 10) Charles Fleury - a French Baroque lutenist who remained in history because his untimely death was lamented by as many as four major composers - Couperin, Froberger, Gaultier and Dufaut.
 * 11) Charles Piroye - an interesting French organ composer from the late 17th and early 18th century; very obscure.
 * 12) Charles Racquet - French Baroque composer known for a single monumental organ fantasia, unique for French organ music: rather than continuing the style of Jean Titelouze or adapting new French idioms, Racquet apparently chose to write in a style close to that of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck.
 * 13) Christophe Moyreau - a somewhat recently discovered French composer who lived in Orléans, and partly because of that remained virtually unknown. Some eccentric harpsichord suites survive (up to 26 movements), and an interesting character piece for organ, which imitates church bells.
 * 14) Denis Gaultier - French 17th century lutenist, important for his contributions to the development of style brisé
 * 15) Dieterich Buxtehude - probably the most important North German composer, instrumental in the development of advanced organ technique, and a huge influence on JS Bach. His treatment of stylus phantasticus is only equalled by that of his pupil, Nikolaus Bruhns, who unfortunately died young. I'm planning to expand the coverage of Buxtehude one day, but so far only a few articles exist about his work:
 * List of compositions by Dieterich Buxtehude, Passacaglia in D minor, BuxWV 161
 * 1) Enharmonic keyboard - a type of musical keyboard that has more than 12 notes per octave. Instruments with such keyboards existed in Europe at least since the 16th century, see Archicembalo.
 * 2) Ernst Wilhelm Wolf - 18th century German composer; wrote some really beautiful keyboard sonatas and other music, but very, very obscure.
 * 3) Etienne Richard - one of those 17th century French harpsichordists and organists who have very few extant pieces, but were apparently highly regarded during their lifetime
 * 4) Étude - a musical form; for some reason the article was full of non-neutral POV and had to be rewritten.
 * 5) Francesco Canova da Milano - 16th century Italian lutenist, quite probably the most famous lute composer of his time.
 * 6) Francesco Spinacino - 16th century Italian lutenist and composer. He produced some of the earliest known prints of lute music. Among his pieces is Recercare de tutti li toni, a ricercar that moves through all modes; to my knowledge, this is the first instrumental composition to use the concept that would eventually lead to The Well-Tempered Clavier.
 * 7) Frédéric Rossif (from anon. IPs) - French filmmaker who mostly shot nature and history TV documentaries. He collaborated with Vangelis on numerous occasions, and the famous La petite fille de la mer was created for his series L'Apocalypse des animaux (see L'Apocalypse des Animaux (album)).
 * 8) Friedrich Krebs (organ builder) - early organ builder (stub)
 * 9) Friedrich Suppig - an eccentric theorist and composer of the early 18th century. His work on temperaments has been discovered sometime recently, and is not particularly well-known.
 * 10) Gan Bao - 4th century Chinese historian and writer who compiled a large collection of stories about spirits and supernatural events:
 * In Search of the Supernatural
 * 1) Gaspard Corrette (translated from fr:Gaspard Corrette) - French organ school composer
 * 2) German organ schools - self-explanatory. The article still needs a lot of work, but it is surprisingly hard to search for sources that cover the schools rather than individual composers!
 * 3) Germaine Dulac - early (1920s) avant-garde filmmaker. Did what I could with the few sources available online
 * 4) Gilles Jullien, (translated from fr:Gilles Jullien) - French organ school composer
 * 5) Giovanni Angelo Testagrossa - an early Italian lute composer whose works do not survive. Part of my efforts to improve coverage of lute composers.
 * 6) Giovanni Maria Alemanni - another early Italian lute composer whose works do not survive. Part of my efforts to improve coverage of lute composers.
 * 7) Giovanni Valentini (partly translated from de:Giovanni Valentini) - early 17th century Italian composer, active in Vienna. He experimented with instrumentation, harmony and rhythm, and composed some of the earliest pieces that used irrational time signatures. Also, he taught Johann Kaspar Kerll. Sadly, his compositions are very rarely recorded and almost impossible to find.
 * 8) Girolamo Frescobaldi - one of the most important European composers in history, best known for his keyboard music.
 * Fiori musicali, Secondo libro di toccate (Frescobaldi)
 * 1) Heinrich Traxdorf - early organ builder (stub)
 * 2) Henry Bredemers - an early organ composer whose works do not survive; he was an important teacher though. Part of my efforts to improve coverage of Arnolt Schlick's life.
 * 3) Ileborgh Tablature - a 15th century source of keyboard music; contains the earliest known examples of the keyboard prelude.
 * 4) Jacques Brunel‎ - a 16th century French organist composer active in Italy. May have had a lot of influence on the development of the ricercar&mdash;that is, if the pieces attributed to him are actually his.
 * 5) Jacques Hardel - another one of those 17th century French harpsichordists and organists who have very few extant pieces, but were apparently highly regarded during their lifetime
 * 6) Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck - probably the most influential Dutch composer of the 17th century: his pupils established the North German organ school, which eventually produced Buxtehude and, well, Bach, with whom Sweelinck shares the love for the didactic and the encyclopedic.
 * 7) Jan Zach - an eccentric 18th century Bohemian composer whose personality ruined his career; composed utterly stunning fugues and utterly banal early Classical works in one breath
 * 8) Jean Titelouze - French Renaissance-Baroque organ composer and poet, father of the French Baroque organ school. That is, he is usually referred to as its father, but in reality Titelouze wrote in a rather strict polyphonic style derived from 16th century vocal models; he had little or no influence on the distinct French style that emerged in the second half of the 17th century. Still, an important historical figure.
 * 9) Jean-Baptiste Thillaie Delaborde‎ - 18th century French physicist who invented the second earliest electric musical instrument, the clavecin électrique.
 * 10) Jean-Henri d'Anglebert - late 17th century French composer. He wrote some of the most beautiful harpsichord music in history, I think; he also contributed to the development of the unmeasured prelude, the history of keyboard music engraving, etc.
 * 11) Joan Ambrosio Dalza - 16th century lutenist and composer. His is some of the earliest surviving Italian lute music. Unfortunately, the only known collection of his pieces contains easy works for beginners; Dalza himself acknowledges the fact in the preface and mentions an upcoming publication of more serious, complex music. We do not know whether it has ever been published; if it was, it is currently lost. I also had to create Piva (dance) for this article.
 * 12) Johann Adam Reincken - 17th century German organist and composer. Very few of his works survive, but enough to prove his commanding position. Reincken was an important influence on Vincent Lübeck and JS Bach - the latter was so impressed he arranged some of Reincken's works and wrote a fugue on his theme. I only expanded the Life section slightly; hopefully more will follow.
 * 13) Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer - German composer of the early 18th century; an important influence on JS Bach and on German music of the time in general. Sadly, the article is in a sorry state; it was one of the first articles on early music that I expanded, and I haven't worked on it since.
 * Ariadne musica - Fischer's cycle of preludes and fugues in (almost!) all keys. This collection, as well as the composer's work in general, influenced Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier.
 * 1) Johann Erasmus Kindermann - a representative of the so-called Nuremberg school; precursor to Pachelbel. Composed some of the very first harpsichord suites.
 * 2) Johann Heinrich Buttstett - the most important pupil of Johann Pachelbel. He experimented with form and melody, and influenced Bach's famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565. Unfortunately, out of about 1000 compositions, only a few dozen survive, mostly generic chorale preludes.
 * 3) Johan Helmich Roman - "the Swedish Handel", an 18th century Swedish composer.
 * 4) Johann Jakob Froberger - one of the best 17th century composers, "inventor" of the keyboard suite. The impact of Froberger's work was so big that his music was studied even by Mozart and Beethoven (although apparently they only knew his contrapuntal work, not his suites). I have some wonderful books on his music, but currently no time to expand the article.
 * List of compositions by Johann Jakob Froberger
 * 1) Johann Kaspar Kerll - a South German composer of mid-17th century. Kerll's output is very varied and uneven, to my ears, but he was an excellent composer with a fantastic grasp of counterpoint. His Modulatio organica is frequently referred to as some of the finest organ writing before Bach. He was also the first German composer to write organ chaconnes and passacaglias, and his contribution to these genres greatly influenced Johann Pachelbel.
 * 2) Johann Krieger - an important 17th-18th century German composer, best known for his keyboard works.
 * 3) Johann Pachelbel - the most important composer of the South German school. Among his many achievements are some of the earliest arias with variations on original themes and a new form of chorale prelude; he also was the first major composer to concentrate on the fugue as an autonomous form (he wrote more than a hundred fugues). Pachelbel is my favorite composer; the article on him, while semi-decent, is in need of rewriting. I've concentrated on satellite articles for now:
 * Amalia Pachelbel (partially translated from de:Amalia Pachelbel), Erster Theil etlicher Choräle, Hexachordum Apollinis, List of compositions by Johann Pachelbel, Musicalische Sterbens-Gedancken, Musicalische Ergötzung, Predigerkirche (Erfurt), St. Rochus Cemetery, Nuremberg (translated from de:Rochusfriedhof (Nürnberg)), St. Sebaldus Church (partly translated from de:St. Sebald (Nürnberg))
 * 1) Johann Paul von Westhoff - a 17th century German composer, one of the most important representatives of the Dresden violin school. He wrote the earlist known multi-movement works for solo violin, which influenced Bach's famous cycle.
 * Partitas for solo violin (Westhoff)
 * 1) Johann Sebastian Bach - I didn't write that one, but I contributed to a section or two, and worked on a number of articles on related topics:
 * Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach, Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582, Schübler Chorales, Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565.
 * 1) Johann Staden - 17th century German composer. He established the so-called Nuremberg school, which eventually led to Johann Pachelbel.
 * 2) Johann Ulrich Steigleder - an obscure South German composer of the early 17th century. He died young, but created some very impressive keyboard works: a collection of innovative ricercars and a massive, encyclopedic collection of Vater Unser settings.
 * 3) Johannes Hieronymus Kapsberger - one of the best composers for lute; early 17th century. Very controversial because of his unusual approach to rhythm, structure, and counterpoint in general, Kapsberger is still one of the most popular lute composers today. Unlike most lutenists, he composed all kinds of music not intended for lute or theorbo: motets, arias, sinfonias, etc.
 * 4) Johannes von Soest - a late 14th century composer, poet and theorist, who abandoned music to pursue medical studies. Unfortunately, his compositions and treatises do not survive. This article is part of my efforts to improve coverage of Arnolt Schlick, who may have studied with Soest. Interestingly, Soest's two known pupils, Sebastian Virdung and Schlick, both wrote some of the earliest known German treatises (on musical instruments and organs respectively).
 * 5) John Cage - one of the most important 20th century composers. Cage loved sounds as such, didn't like functional harmony and was interested in the Eastern notion of accepting reality instead of trying to change it. So he composed using chance procedures and found sounds. Cage's work is frequently labelled as "controversial" or "not music"; to me his views are crystal clear and I have no problem at all with what he did. Two sections and a lead are currently completed, and I'm planning to improve the rest of the article sometime soon; meanwhile, I've been working on articles about his works:
 * A Flower, Cheap Imitation, Construction (Cage), Etudes Australes, Etudes Boreales, Freeman Etudes, List of compositions by John Cage, Living Room Music, Music for Piano (Cage), Music of Changes, Nowth upon Nacht, Number Pieces (a work in progress), Silence: Lectures and Writings, Six Melodies (Cage), Sonata for Clarinet (Cage), Sonatas and Interludes, Song Books (Cage), String Quartet in Four Parts, The Seasons (Cage), The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs, Variations (Cage), Works for prepared piano by John Cage
 * 1) Josef Seger - 18th century Bohemian composer. Nice, clean fugal style, influenced by Bach. Not particularly known these days.
 * 2) Joseph Payne (musician) - British harpsichordist and organist. Payne made important early recordings of 15th-17th century music, recorded the complete works of Johann Pachelbel, and a lot of other obscure early music. I can't really say that he was a great performer (I don't agree with his interpretations in 8 cases out of 10, roughly), but I think his choice of repertoire deserves respect.
 * 3) Josephine Hopper - American artist. She was the wife of Edward Hopper, a famous 20th century American painter; I don't particularly like her work, but I felt like after all she has been through in her marriage, she deserved more than a pitiful stub describing nothing of her own life and work.
 * 4) Hans Tugi - early organ builder (stub)
 * 5) Heino Kaski - 20th century Finnish composer. Overshadowed by Sibelius and others, and very unknown everywhere except Finland.
 * 6) Howard Skempton - a contemporary composer who composes beautiful and melodic.. avant-garde music, using chance procedures and improvisation. He studied with Cornelius Cardew. I also created a few articles on his works:
 * Images (Skempton), Lento (Skempton), List of compositions by Howard Skempton
 * 1) Leo Schrade - a German musicologist, important for his editions of music by medieval composers such as Guillaume de Machaut.
 * 2) List of composers for lute (I expanded this from a very incomplete list)
 * 3) List of compositions by Erik Satie
 * 4) List of compositions by Iannis Xenakis
 * Evryali, Herma (Xenakis)
 * 1) List of compositions by Morton Feldman
 * 2) List of paintings by Hieronymus Bosch - I expanded and reformatted this.
 * 3) List of publications by Ottaviano Petrucci - Petrucci was an extremely important early 16th century music printer, responsible for publishing collections of Dalza's and Spinacino's music.
 * 4) List of short stories by Robert Sheckley - Sheckley is a favorite writer of mine. I think he's horribly underrated. Unfortunately, it seems that there are no books about him, so our article on him is destined to remain in bad shape for quite some time; but at least we can try to provide a bibliography.
 * 5) Louis Archimbaud - a recently discovered French composer from Carpentras. He wrote simple, song-like melodies in a very attractive style, a somewhat simplified version of the French organ tradition. His work offers a rare glimpse into what kind of organ music was performed in the south of France at the time (most composers of the French organ school were active in the North).
 * 6) Louis Couperin - French composer of mid-17th century. His organ music remained unknown until the 1950s, and then was not available to researchers until the 1990s. Today he is recognized as the composer who shaped the classic style of Baroque French organ school with his numerous innovations; unfortunately, he died young and presumably numerous works are lost.
 * List of compositions by Louis Couperin
 * 1) Louis Marchand - another French Baroque composer; he is best known for his difficult personality, rather than for his music (of which only a small portion of early works survives).
 * 2) Luis de Narváez‎ - 16th century Spanish vihuelist. Wrote some lovely polyphonic fantasias and the earliest known variation sets.
 * 3) Messe de la Pentecôte - an organ work by Olivier Messiaen, probably the only truly important organ composer of the 20th century.
 * 4) Miff Mole - an early innovative Jazz trombonist. He was popular throughout the 1920s, but after Jack Teagarden's style became more known, Mole was quickly forgotten.
 * 5) Nicolas Gigault - a little-known representative of the French Baroque organ school, Gigault's only surviving collection is a bit archaic, which makes it historically interesting. Another interesting feature is Gigault's preface to this collection, which is a heartfelt letter to Virgin Mary.
 * 6) Nicolas Lebègue (translated from fr:Nicolas Lebègue),
 * 7) Nikolay Diletsky - a 16th century Ukrainian music theorist who influenced Russian church music of the 17th century, including Vasily Titov.
 * 8) Oscar Byström (composer) - a minor 19th century Swedish composer, best known for a very pretty symphony.
 * 9) Peeter Cornet - a Flemish composer, contemporary of Sweelinck and every bit as interesting. Unfortunately, very few of his works survive and they are rarely recorded.
 * 10) Peter Breisiger - early organ builder (stub)
 * 11) Prelude (music) (I expanded that? must've been a long time ago; I don't even remember what I did)
 * 12) Puddle Lane - a 1980s British pre-school children's television programme, and a series of books based on that programme.
 * List of Puddle Lane books
 * 1) Richard Buhlig - American pianist, mentor to Henry Cowell and John Cage.
 * 2) Rocco Rodio - another 16th century Italian organist, one of the earliest composers of the Neapolitan school, which later gave the world such great composers as Mayone and Trabaci. Pity there are almost no recordings of his music; the only ricercare I heard was really fantastic.
 * 3) Sebastian Anton Scherer - a South German composer of the 17th century. He published a somewhat interesting collection of keyboard music, inspired by Girolamo Frescobaldi, and also a collection of pieces for lute (now lost) - this is why I got interested in him; you don't normally see composers who played keyboards and lute
 * 4) Sesshū Tōyō - 15th century Japanese artist, pupil of Tenshō Shūbun‎. Expanded this with what little I could find; I was interested because Shūbun‎ was inspired by my favorite Chinese painters.
 * 5) Simon Lohet - Dutch composer of the early 17th century; the first to write keyboard fugues - that is, short monothematic imitative pieces named "fugue".
 * 6) Stephan Kaschendorf - early organ builder (stub)
 * 7) Tenshō Shūbun‎ - 15th century Japanese artist; he was heavily influenced by my favorite Chinese Song Dynasty artists, and I tried expanding the article with what little material I could find.
 * 8) Unmeasured prelude - a type of keyboard prelude with free notation, invented by Louis Couperin. The very unusual notation of such pieces was subsequently adopted by Nicolas Lebègue and Jean-Philippe Rameau.
 * 9) Vasily Polikarpovich Titov - a very obscure Russian composer from a very obscure period in the history of Russian music. Titov and his colleagues wrote in a distinct polyphonic style very different from the Western Baroque one. Sadly, this music is seldom heard anywhere.
 * 10) Vincent Lübeck - German Baroque composer, probably one of the most important of Bach's contemporaries. He is known for virtuosic, complex organ music, of which only a few pieces survive.
 * 11) Well-Tempered Clavier - I just added a section on Bach's precursors, particularly lute composers.
 * 12) Willi Apel - German-born musicologist; authored numerous classic books on early music, such as The History of Keyboard Music to 1700 and Gregorian Chant.
 * 13) Xia Gui - an early 13th century Chinese landscape painter, one of my favorite artists. Unfortunately, sources are unavailable to me and I had to extrapolate from what little I could find.
 * 14) Yefim Golïshev - Ukrainian-born composer credited with one of the earliest 12-tone pieces, which is also the only surviving piece by him.