User:Ral0198/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Chamber music

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
This article was chosen based on the subject of our class, "Chamber Music Literature," to help provide a basis for analysis for our Wikipedia projects. My analysis will focus on the lead section and the section Chamber Music and society in the 19th Century.

Evaluate the article
The lead section has a clear opening statement that defines what chamber music is, however there is no citation for the definition provided. The lead does not provide a clear overview of what the article discusses, as it provides only a basis for the concept of "music of friends," which is a very small portion of the article as a whole. Overall, the lead section feels random and does not give the reader a clear understanding of what the article is about.

The article section Chamber Music and society in the 19th Century begins with a vague opening statement. Though the first paragraph reads a bit random, as the thoughts portrayed do not flow very well, it is likely the most on topic paragraph of the section. With a male dominated focus, the second paragraph opens with a claim regarding how many quartets were written between 1770 and 1800, which is not a focus on the 19th century. Unclear if the writer then moves to focus on the compositions written in the 19th century or still referring to the end of the 18th century, the paragraph moves to list several composers of quartets. No female composers are mentioned and there is no representation of any other type of chamber ensemble than the quartet. Suddenly moving to the mid-19th century, the next paragraph has nothing to do with chamber music works, but rather, about solo piano composition. It feels very out of place in the section. Again ignoring the topic of chamber music, the fourth paragraph discusses the rise of programmatic music in the mid to late 19th century with more influence on symphonic works, as the debate between "pure music" and romanticism began to fester. The paragraph presents the sentence that "the composers of this [programmatic] school had no use for chamber music," which is incredibly out of place in an article about chamber music. Coming back to the topic of chamber music in the final paragraph, the section provides some examples of professional string quartets that arose during the 19th century. With an attempt to break the barrier of the sexes, the paragraph provides two examples of all-women string quartets that arose, but presents them in a last thought kind of way, as women are introduced as second hand to the male dominant quartets initially presented. There are two pictures that correlate with this section of the article, representing a home performance of chamber music and a professional performance.

Overall, I found the section Chamber Music and society in the 19th Century to be rather clumsy in its approach to the subject of chamber music. It did not focus on the topic at hand as it moved from late 18th century chamber composers to solo piano works to the debate between "pure music" and romanticism with the rise of programmatic music, finally returning to the topic of chamber music in the last paragraph. When the section actually discussed chamber music, there was only mention of quartets (with the implication that they were only string quartets), and the view point felt very male dominated as women were only mentioned as a last minute thought.