User:RannochbyGlencoe/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
I am evaluating the Wikipedia article on chamber music; more specifically, my group members are evaluating the lead and section of the article titled "Chamber music and society in the 19th century".

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I have chosen this article because chamber music is the central focus of this class; moreover, the specific time period of the 1800s around the Romantic Era, which this assigned section describes, is when chamber music, especially use of the string quartet, became especially prevalent. Thus, it is of particular interest for understanding chamber repertoire from that time.

Lead
The lead for this article should include a brief description of the structure for the rest of the article by including the timeline breakdown of chamber music's progression over time. These delineations are used for section headings throughout the article but not actually denoted in the introduction. Furthermore, the second and third paragraphs of the lead seem less factual and more philosophical; in addition to containing a timeline as previously mentioned, these could be improved by replacing vague information about the musical interactions of chamber music with a list of standard chamber ensemble instrumentations, to be expounded on further in the article.

Chamber music and society in the 19th century
This section addresses the usage of chamber music and its popularity during this time. All the links I tried worked. It provides an idea of what the scene or musical atmosphere was like during this time period, but it does not denote any specific characteristics that arose, and no discussion of new forms or genres that developed during this time. There is some improvement that could be made in regards to writing and phrasing to make the text more succinct. More citations and musicological information needs to be provided. Effective use of images and media. The article is a bit undeveloped in certain areas; not all the information provided is important to state in a definitive article such as this one, and not all the necessary information for understanding the era is included. The Talk section of this article has not been added to since 2017. There is some discussion of copyrighted material being added and/or taken out, and for some initial paring down of repertoire links from the first version of the article, but aside from these, the commentary is relatively sparse. Despite being defined as a "vital article in Art", its wiki rating is B-class.

Some specific weak areas that could be addressed in each paragraph of this section in its current form are as follows:

Paragraph 1. Some phrasing and wordings seem unclear or minimally professional. "...it remained very much a type of music to be played as much as performed". This sentence is structurally repetitive.

Paragraph 2. "...and the pace did not decline in the next century..." This sentence is provided but not elaborated on further at all. Seems out of place in that it does not fit the current century being described, and thus could be deleted. At the very least, it could use more contextualization.

Paragraph 3. Paragraph on solo and piano music could be saved for the end of the section as an addendum rather than a main body paragraph, since it is actually describing the non-chamber influences at work, which is not the focus of this article. Also, it states that Liszt coined the term "recitals", but provides no citation for this information.

Paragraph 4. This is an entire paragraph without any references. It brings up the existence of an ideological schism, but needs to identify what those two sides of the argument actually are.

Paragraph 5. The examples listed of emerging professional string quartets is good; however, because the purpose of this page is to elucidate chamber music as a whole, and not just the string quartet, additional examples should be included of other chamber ensembles at the time, such as quintets, piano trios, etc.