Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music/Archive 31

Enigma Variations Theories
There's a minor edit/revert thing going on over at Enigma Variations during the past week or two. Its between two anons Special:Contributions/81.205.147.164 and Special:Contributions/82.173.128.227 and its pertaining to a recent published theory about how the "Enigma" theme might be Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata. From what I gather, one of the anons might actually be the author of this theory, though I can never be sure when all I have to go on is an IP Address.

Does anyone know how to resolve this issue? Personally, I have never been a big fan of the "enigma" discussion in that article. The fact that this is an unsolved mystery lends itself to over-explanation and even "promotion" of various theories. If the mystery was solved, it would simply be stated in a short paragraph with a few citations, but what were left with is several long paragraphs with mentions of authors names. This article is the number one google hit for "Enigma Variations" and I have seen lazy program note writers pull uncited information from wikipedia before. One could hope to virally spread their own theory by putting it in the article.

Double-checking the publication. The publisher has only this one book which makes me a bit suspicious that its a self-publication. Though he did go through the trouble of getting an ISBN number.

Could someone else handle the details here? I don't know what rules are. Thanks.DavidRF (talk) 00:46, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I have removed the offending section altogether. WP is not the place for WP:OR of the kind pushed in self-published vanity works. If the anon restores the material, simply revert and ask Antandrus to protect the article again. I agree with your general views. Eusebeus (talk) 17:24, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

St. John Passion
Please have a look at a request on renaming the Passion to match St. Matthew - and help the discussion. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:12, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * How to procede to give the two great works matching decent titles, such as "St. John Passion" and "St. Matthew Passion", primary topics? How about doing that until Bach's 325th birthday March 21? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:03, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The birthday passed without action. I regard renaming as urgent - NOW is the time these pieces get performed and hopefully looked at. I am not familiar with the administrative procedure, please help. My personal preference:
 * 1. St. John Passion + St. Matthew Passion - primary topics, now disambiguations
 * 2. St. John Passion, BWV 245 + St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244 - like the cantatas
 * 3. St. John Passion (Bach) + St. Matthew Passion (Bach) - now working redirects --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:00, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

My preference would be for St John Passion (Bach) and St Matthew Passion (Bach) &mdash; note the lack of dots. In British English "St" generally abbreviates "Saint", whereas "St." abbreviates "Street". I believe that in American English, as well as in archaic British English, the dot is often used for "Saint" as well, so some of our American editors might argue with me on this one! The articles themselves, and WP in general, seem to mix the spellings with and without the dot. --Deskford (talk) 14:31, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Learning. I saw many streets in American English abbreviated St without a dot. I see in Bach cantatas (no sacred scriptures, smile) "English Title: St. John Passion", most of the recordings bare German titles, of course, or Latin. English with dot #13, #41, #43, #44, #49, #52, #62, #64, #73, #74, #102, #148, English without dot #106, #108, #109, Saint John Passion #18, a few undecided (may be small dots). I see a majority. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:00, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * What do people's various recordings use? I only have one, from BIS, which uses it without the dot. As for the names, as I said on the John Passion talk page, *if* the two are the primary topics, they should be without the '(Bach)' disambig in the title. There's zero reason to redirect St John Passion into St John Passion (Bach). ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 04:04, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * If you want to look yourself for St. Matthew, 175 entries: . I also see St. Thomas Church, Leipzig with a dot. If we don't want to be caught between English and American, we could of course go German, but then real German, please, Matthäuspassion & Johannespassion or Matthäus-Passion & Johannes-Passion. Johannes Passion is no German. The German abbreviation for Sankt has a dot. But there is no Saint in the German nor the Latin title. (Same for Thomaskirche, btw) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 00:01, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I would go with the original Latin German titles: Johannespassion and Matthäuspassion. These are not the original titles, note (these were in Latin and the title of the Matthew is huge!), but, since Bach was German, the German makes sense and avoids the whole stylistic issue altogether  --Jubilee♫ clipman  00:13, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Johannespassion and Matthäuspassion are not Latin but German titles, and apparently not the correct ones. The German Wikipedia follows the Neue Bach-Ausgabe and calls it Johannes-Passion and Matthäus-Passion; for a discussion on the subject, see de:Portal Diskussion:Klassische Musik/Archiv2. The Neue Bach-Ausgabe uses St John Passion as the English term; it doesn't offer an English term for Matthäus-Passion, but the obvious analogue term would be St Matthew Passion. Currently, the latter term is a REDIRECT to St Matthew Passion (Bach) and the former is a disambiguation page with the Bach work titled Johannes Passion. As to "St." vs "St": there doesn't seem to be consistent usage in Wikipedia and the article St. leaves both possibilities.
 * St Matthew Passion (Bach) should be moved over the REDIRECT at St Matthew Passion and Johannes Passion should be moved to St John Passion after the current content of that page has been moved to St John Passion (disambiguation). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:28, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oops... I had originally meant to suggest using the Latin but then saw the original title for the Matthew Passion! I forgot to change my opening statement, now corrected, above.  Johannes-Passion and Matthäus-Passion are fine also, of course, as are the "undotted" English titles (as it were...)  Whatever else, we need to be consistent  --Jubilee♫ clipman  05:39, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The last names suggested are equal to de-WP which makes sense to me, and to Neue Bach-Ausgabe, more sense. To use German is also good to avoid disambiguation needs. I'm not surprised that NBA uses an English title versus an American, it's Europe. - If we move to German I will start calling the works that name in articles also, at least where it is sung in German. And who is the "we" doing a move? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:19, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I have asked JackofOz to comment here --Jubilee♫ clipman  06:37, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think these works are generally known in the English-speaking world under their German names (Johannes-Passion and Matthäus-Passion) but as St John Passion and St Matthew Passion. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:56, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes in the English world, but with dots in the American world. I voted for American English titles to start with, remember, probably being known best worldwide? - btw todays picture on Main page is another example of "Saint", name questioned on the talk page, perhaps you want to speak up there, too? I was there a few weeks ago: beautiful! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:05, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't care much either way regarding the dot after "St"; I simply thought that my proposal was relatively easy to implement given the set of REDIRECTs and names we already have for these works — all without a dot, except St. John Passion recordings. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 09:26, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * If we agree on no dot I would of course rename that article. No dot just is impossible in German - but that is probably not relevant here, and maybe wrong, our "Neue Rechtschreibung" is full of surprises. Learning, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:07, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Without a dot - new idea - is likely to be more compatible with url naming. So why not? I'm not passionate about the dot. St Matthew Passion + St John Passion then? Whatever, let's DO IT. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * GO! GO! GO! Indeed, let's go with no dot and change them all to be consistent  --Jubilee♫ clipman  07:49, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Your proposal has my imprimatur. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.  :)  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   07:57, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Feeling blessed, I did what I could so far: change to fewer dots in the recording articles (names) and in the lead of the passion articles and the parts in those articles I had written. I think we should not change in the titles of sources, and I would not change what other contributators wrote. I will change DYK Max van Egmond once we moved - now who is WE? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:50, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Well... Jack requested the move originally and normally the nom moves the articles once the debate has decided which way etc. However, Jack is pretty busy with RefDesk stuff, usually, so I guess that will be you... or me if you prefer? :) (I have time to kill at the moment)  --Jubilee♫ clipman  09:00, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * On second thoughts, these requsts might have to be sent to WP:RM since the histories of the desired pages (St Matthew Passion, St John Passion and St John Passion (disambiguation)) may well cause problems for non-admins. I'll try first, though, then RM.  Later today, probably  --Jubilee♫ clipman  09:14, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Man proposes: God disposes. :)   But seriously, I've never heard of a policy that the proposer of a move always does the move once it's been agreed to.  I'm just glad to see a positive change happening.  I have no interest in any personal glory coming from it (being the son of a Pope is celebrity enough - and quite a burden sometimes, let me tell you). --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   09:21, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I was going by the norm. Anyway, I'm happy to do this  --Jubilee♫ clipman  21:52, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify: the consensus seems to favour a move to undabbed pages without dots ie St John Passion and St Matthew Passion and to move the disambiguating material over to St John Passion (disambiguation) and St Matthew Passion (disambiguation). Correct? --Jubilee♫ clipman 21:52, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I like that! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:44, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Seems to be the way forward for now so I'll go ahead. I'll report back with problems and so on  --Jubilee♫ clipman  22:47, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * OK. They will all have to go to Requested moves because of the page histories.  Will send for admin assistence through that channel and direct them here for verification of the consensus.  Cheers  --Jubilee♫ clipman  22:54, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Have moved St. Matthew Passion (disambiguation) to St Matthew Passion (disambiguation), though --Jubilee♫ clipman  23:02, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Others listed awaiting a passing admin: Requested moves. Please check the details of my requests for inaccuracies etc.  Cheers  --Jubilee♫ clipman  23:14, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you! What about St Matthew Passion, now a redirect? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:24, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * All resolved: St John Passion, St Matthew Passion, St John Passion (disambiguation) and St Matthew Passion (disambiguation)! Thank you, Anthony Appleyard!    --Jubilee♫ clipman  23:44, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Now what about St Mark Passion and St Luke Passion? --Deskford (talk) 23:51, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * %^&$£#%$... d'oh! Sorry.  Another day, perhaps!  They do need resolving, though, agreed  --Jubilee♫ clipman  23:56, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

St Mark St Thomas
St John St Matthew all resolved: a reason to jubilate! St Mark and St Luke are not of comparable importance but now we are at it, why not now? Also perhaps St Thomas Church and St Nicholas Church, and do they need Leipzig? or could there be St Thomas Church (disambiguation)? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:56, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Changed my mind when I saw that the Thomaskirche is calling itself now St. Thomas Church. I vote for keeping the current name now. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:53, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Done?
Are we more or less happy with the state of these titles, now? Apart from those on the lesser works and the Cantatas, are there any other articles that need to be brought into line with these changes? --Jubilee♫ clipman 03:09, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Please s.a.. Not eager to change Mark and Luke. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:54, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Jordan Anderson
For your information: Articles for deletion/Jordan Anderson (musician). --Vejvančický (talk) 14:50, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
 * This article has now been deleted. Although I was one of those voting for deletion, I don't think consensus had really been reached.  Three editors had voted "keep" and if reliable sources had been added to the article I might have changed my mind.  --Deskford (talk) 10:09, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think there was consensus.--Karljoos (talk) 12:47, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
 * That should have been a relist, IMO. Then again, Kleinzach made some good points and I suspect the closing admin found those and similar comments compelling when considering the weight of evidence in favour of deletion  --Jubilee♫ clipman  23:28, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Duplicated pages
I just stumbled across two articles for a classical record label called OgreOgress Productions. One appears under that name; the other is identical except that it appears as OgreOgress productions (i.e., it varies only in capitalization of the title). I'm noting these articles here in hopes that someone more versed than I in the niceties of deleting/merging/whatever can eliminate the duplication. Drhoehl (talk) 02:29, 12 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Once the spelling of the company has been clarified, Productions vs. productions (and their web site is not much help), one of the articles can be converted into a REDIRECT to the other. Spelling with a capital P seems preferrable to me. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:39, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Articles to check: Totentango, King's Wood Symphony etc
Totentango - This article has the air of having been cribbed from somewhere, or if not, a rather inappropriate style. It's one of several articles related to the compositions of Matthew King (composer). Another one to check is King's Wood Symphony. I just found a lot of copyvio/close paraphrasing in Brunel (opera project) and The Snow Queen (opera) isn't looking too good either. Voceditenore (talk) 17:49, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
 * By the way, I've bannered the compositions as well as Jane's Minstrels with Contemporary music as well as CM as I wasn't sure which one (or both) applied, feel free to remove as appropriate. Voceditenore (talk) 20:15, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Appraisal of WP:Manual of Style (music) and WP:MUSTARD
My appraisal of these two major documents (part of the general audit of Wikipedia's Manuals of Style) are linked here:
 * WT:Manual of Style (music)

It also contains a summary of my thoughts and recommendations. Thoughts welcome. It might be better to keep general discussion centralised at WT:Manual of Style (music) to begin with. Specific issues surrounding MUSTARD should of course be raised here as usual. Thanks --Jubilee♫ clipman 15:37, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

AfD
Please feel free to comment at: Thank you. --Vejvančický (talk) 13:11, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Articles for deletion/The Greenwich Trio
 * Articles for deletion/Lana Trotovsek
 * Articles for deletion/Stefano Miceli ‎
 * Articles for deletion/Božena Angelova

Mozart Mass in C Minor
After we solved some Bach concerns I asked a question about the lead of Mozart's greatest mass, Talk:Great Mass in C minor, asking for help with ideas and wording. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:49, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Articles on classical guitarists
In the course of rescuing José Tomás from deletion, I've come across several truly dreadful articles for some very eminent classical guitarists, e.g. David Russell. (Frankly, the Segovia article is pretty dire in places too, with a huge quote farm.) Anyhow, the Classical Guitar project is defunct and there was some talk of merging it with this one, but it seems not to have happened (see ). If there any editors here who would be interested in improving some of these, let me know and I'll post a few here. Voceditenore (talk) 15:34, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Help with identifying a sound file on Wikipedia, probably by Handel
Any assistance at this reference desk query would be appreciated. Thanks. Graham 87 14:57, 5 May 2010 (UTC)


 * That discussion will eventually be archived here. Graham 87 15:00, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

List of compositions by Antonín Dvořák
was redirected to List of compositions by Antonín Dvořák on 12th May --Jubilee♫ clipman  22:11, 17 May 2010 (UTC) Hello. Currently, we have two duplicate lists for Dvořák's works:


 * List of compositions by Antonín Dvořák
 * List of compositions by Antonín Dvořák by Burghauser number

User:Hrdinský arranged the first list into easily sortable table, including sorting by Burghauser numbers. I suggest redirecting the redundant List of compositions by Antonín Dvořák by Burghauser number to the List of compositions by Antonín Dvořák. The duplication makes no harm, however, it is useless for this project. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 08:34, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, absolutely. Go ahead and do it. Eusebeus (talk) 09:15, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The two lists appear to be identical now. I would make 100% that both contain the same info (merging to List of compositions by Antonín Dvořák, if not) and then go ahead with the redirect.  Duplication is not harmful unless it results in confusion....  --Jubilee♫ clipman  14:46, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Featured Articles
Hi. So I was looking for Classical Music Featured Articles so I would have a template to build off of, but the category has nothing in it. Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks. ɳ OCTURNE ɳ OIR talk //  contribs 00:53, 6 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Forgive me for being a heretic, but I think "Featured" status is overrated, and currently is a large personality-driven bureacracy. I recommend browsing the excellent non-featured classical music articles, completely ignoring the arbitrary and capricious "ratings" given to them (unless by a knowledgeable person, i.e. Magicpiano who gives detailed reasoning), find one you like, and use that as a template.
 * I know opinions of others will differ from mine; that's fine. But this is my experience.  Write what you know, cite your sources, write well, and ignore those soul-crushing bureaucracies.  Fighting one's way through them is a major cause of editor burnout.  Cheers, Antandrus  (talk) 01:09, 6 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't entirely agree with you; peer reviews can be incredibly helpful, as can properly done "ratings". But that's beside the point; I still need example articles. My target article(s) are the Chopin nocturnes, if that helps matters. ɳ OCTURNE ɳ OIR  talk //  contribs 01:40, 6 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Off the top of my head, the closest FA articles to what you are looking for are Symphony No. 3 (Górecki) and Symphonic poems (Liszt).  Centy  – [ reply ]• contribs  – 15:23, 6 May 2010 (UTC)


 * There's also a couple of GA articles you can draw inspiration from: Six moments musicaux (Rachmaninoff), Violin Concerto (Mendelssohn), Symphony No. 5 (Nielsen), Miscellaneous solo piano compositions (Rachmaninoff), Schubert's last sonatas.  Centy  – [ reply ]• contribs  – 15:37, 6 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you Centy for finding those. I'd forgotten; there are some excellent ones.  That article on the Górecki symphony is one of my favorites.  Our articles on Lutoslawski and Messaien are also featured, but those are of course composers, not pieces.  Good luck, Antandrus  (talk) 00:35, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree completely with Antandrus. Every time an article of mine went up for featured review, it only made the article worse.

My main advice to you is this: remember you are writing for an online encyclopedia. That means that, unlike the Britannica, you can include videos and music. Put in lots of musical examples. Good luck. --Ravpapa (talk) 19:04, 6 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Count me as a Semi-Heretic: while I think there is some merit to an article having FA status (and I don't entirely disagree that FA status is generally achieved by "personality-driven" contests), I strongly believe that many of our best articles are pretty good models, especially those suggested by Centy. Remember, there is no Perfect Article only several brilliant ones.  And we have plenty of those.  I do feel that assessment has its place, though, if the assessor follows a blueprint designed for the specific assessment they are making.  On a related note, this project does not presently assess leaving it instead to the daughters and relatives: e.g. WikiProject Opera and WikiProject Composers are pretty good at assessments (click the links)  --Jubilee♫ clipman  19:54, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

To elaborate just a bit on what Antandrus and Ravpapa said: Featured Article review attracts an audience of people who want to participate in Featured Article reviews. It normally does not attract people who know about the subject matter. So, the reviewers are unable to help the article re. accuracy and completeness, but they can (and do) introduce plenty of inaccuracies and ill-chosen material. Cheers, Opus33 (talk) 23:13, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, the best thing FA reviews do for an article is to give it a near-professional copyedit.  Centy  – [ reply ] • contribs  – 02:19, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

It appears that this wikiproject neither supports "assessments" in principle nor technically (via its template Template:WikiProject Classical music). Like NocturneNoir I find it misleading to have empty "assessment" categories. Might I suggest that someone nominate for deletion the entire tree at Category:Classical music articles by quality--they're all empty save the non-assessment category. Or perhaps one of the resident administrators (hi Antandrus!) could simply delete them on the basis that they're empty and not used/supported. This would solve the problem of the categories suggesting we have no "FA-level" classical music articles, when we do. If this is done I'll add a "see also" to the text of the category I mentioned above, directing people to "composers by quality", etc. (Alternatively "composers by quality" (etc.) could exist inside the aforementioned category, if anyone feels like fiddling with the template infrastructure, and I don't [dare].) Riggr Mortis (talk) 01:17, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Classical music-related AfDs
Articles for deletion/Jodi Levitz and Articles for deletion/Michael James Arman Brough - Voceditenore (talk) 13:19, 10 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The first was kept, the second was deleted --Jubilee♫ clipman  22:12, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Gregorio Allegri's date of birth
Hi. Recently, Gregorio Allegri's day of birth has been changed from 7 to 17 (February). However, I've found that in New Grove's dictionary it is the 7th (also in ru, pl, ja, he Wikipedias) but the rest of Wikipedia articles say it is the 17th. Does somebody have some other sources? --Tomaxer (talk) 21:39, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I reverted this as an unreferenced unexplained change, but we need a reliable source one way or the other. --Deskford (talk) 21:58, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Now I see there has already been discussion of this on Talk:Gregorio Allegri. --Deskford (talk) 22:04, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, really. I must have overlooked that. Thank you. --Tomaxer (talk) 22:16, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Antandrus made a good point in that discussion; however, I wonder if this might just be one of those stupid "let's change the date and see if any one notices" vandals. Quite a few of those recently  --Jubilee♫ clipman  22:17, 17 May 2010 (UTC)


 * There was one of those in Leo Funtek today. I reverted it. TJRC (talk) 22:23, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Mahler's Eighth Symphony
This is now at WP:Peer review. Any comments welcomed. Centenary of premiere is on 12 September. Brianboulton (talk) 22:57, 18 May 2010 (UTC)