Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Charles-Valentin Alkan

Charles-Valentin Alkan
This nomination predates the introduction in April 2014 of article-specific subpages for nominations and has been created from the edit history of Today's featured article/requests. 
 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the TFAR nomination of the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page unless you are renominating the article at TFAR. For renominations, please add   to the top of the discussion and   at the bottom, then complete a new TFAR nom underneath.

The result was: scheduled for Today's featured article/November 30, 2013 by BencherliteTalk 13:26, 5 November 2013 (UTC)



Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813–88) was a French composer and pianist. Alongside his friends and colleagues Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt, he was among the leading virtuoso pianists in Paris. His career was marked by his occasional long withdrawals from public performance, and from 1848 he began to adopt a reclusive life style, while continuing with his compositions, mostly for the keyboard. During this period he published his collections of large-scale studies in all the major keys (Op. 35) and all the minor keys (Op. 39). The latter includes his Symphony for Piano Solo and Concerto for Piano Solo, considered among his masterpieces, of great musical and technical complexity. Alkan's attachment to his Jewish origins is displayed both in his life and his work. He was the first composer to incorporate Jewish melodies in art music. Fluent in Hebrew and Greek, he devoted much time to a complete new translation of the Bible into French. After his death, his music became neglected, but since the late 1960s many pianists have recorded his music and brought it back into the repertoire.

I announced that I will be back for an exception. You heard that we had a lot of classical music. This is another classical composer, born in 1813, as Wagner and Verdi, but much less known. He was withdraw and Jewish, - I would like to show him. The author is the same as for Wagner: Smerus, also withdrawn. We have been seen on opposite sides of the so-called infobox war, - that image is too simple, look again. 6 points. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:54, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

As I also occasionally drop back from the dead, and was the main editor of this article, I thank Gerda for this proposal and would like to support it, of course. This is an opportunity for WP to do the right thing by Alkan, who has been almost totally ignored by all major music institutions in the flood of (of course not undeserved in themselves) Verdi and Wagner celebrations - (the BBC for example has not devoted a single programme to Alkan, let alone have him as Composer of the Week). Alkan was an outstanding original - let's show please on his 200th birthday that we can make space, when appropriate, for folk in the shadows as well as for those in the spotlight. Best, --Smerus (talk) 20:18, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Support. I remember playing Alkan as a child, but knew nothing of his Biblical translations. This is a solid article on an unjustly neglected composer, and it would be a shame to miss the bicentenary of his birth just on grounds of rationing of classical music FAs. Espresso Addict (talk) 14:17, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Support: 200th anniversary; great unjustly neglected composer; what more could you ask for? Double sharp (talk) 14:30, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Support—hear hear. Alkan's bicentenary should certainly be marked. I have trimmed the blurb down a little, please excuse my presumptuousness. —Cliftonian (talk) 14:30, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Support: 200th anniversary of the birth of a composer who isn't getting the attention he deserves. Toccata quarta (talk) 15:53, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Support: Interesting person, worth noting.  Montanabw (talk) 23:00, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I think btw we can add 2 points to this as 'widely-covered' (27 coverages) but I am not sure of the methodology here, would be grateful if someone could check and advise.--Smerus (talk) 15:06, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I think you are right, but if we stick to point math we will have to deduct for closeness to another composer whose 100th "birthday" should be celebrated, - I would stick to the importance to show a great unique person who is too little known. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:12, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Clearly Alkan has community support and it's odds-on that Alkan will follow Britten onto the main page even with that three-point penalty, as the 200th anniversary is worth marking. If it was some random unimportant anniversary, perhaps people would be saying "come back next year" but 200th? Alkan will still score 5 points even with a Britten penalty, and we're not exactly over-run with 5-pointers these days! BencherliteTalk 20:48, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for noting the community support in this case, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:31, 20 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Support, high quality article, educational and encyclopedic. I note that there is a good deal of community support here, above, with or without over 9,000 amount of raw pointage totals. Cheers, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 00:56, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Support, as per the above. - SchroCat (talk) 11:17, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Support – ditto, most definitely. Tim riley (talk) 11:43, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Support - per the aboves. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:17, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not really comfortable with some of the prose here, but better copyeditors may disagree. I don't understand why the word "alongside" is used, and can't "he began to adopt a reclusive life style" be phrased with less convolution, something more straightforward and less wordy along the lines of, "he became more reclusive"? Sandy Georgia (Talk) 18:37, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The prose seems top-notch to me. "Alongside" is surely unexceptionable, and the proposed condensation of the second phrase doesn't actually say what the original says. I advise leaving well alone. Tim riley (talk) 22:07, 1 November 2013 (UTC)