Talk:Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben

Scope

The focus of this article should be on the hymn. I don't believe that details of analysis and history of its use in compositions are lead material. A summary there should be enough. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:37, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, will see what I can do. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:53, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt: done – that is, unless you have further suggestions. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:42, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Afaics, we're not ready with this yet. A lead section should be a summary of what is contained in the body of an article. So I agree that "A summary [in the lead section] should be enough." The former lead section (I mean, before I shortened it), did that for the content of the article at the time. In the mean while, I was expanding the body of the article (not ready yet!) with content on aspects different from the Vetter & Bach compositions, in order to make the article more balanced, which would, quite naturally, lead to a rewrite of the summary in the lead section. Re. "I don't believe that details of analysis and history of [a hymn's] use in compositions are lead material" – yes and no: excessive details don't belong in a lead section, but if a balanced body of an article gives considerable bandwidth to the analysis and history of a hymn's use in compositions, some of that detail will evidently also best be represented in the lead section. That will likely be different for every article on a hymn, while all hymns and their histories, are different. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS should be avoided as a rationale for decisions on the lead section of this article. For clarity, there are several examples of articles where "details of analysis and history of [a hymn's] use in compositions are lead material" – I only say that this is quite irrelevant when deciding on the balance of body and lead in this article. If asked, I'd mention a few of such examples (some of which are imho successful, others probably still needing work), just to illustrate how it can be approached, if we can keep in mind that, for the present article, the result may be quite different. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:55, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Synthesis

This article seems to use a large number of images about the same chorale to make a statement "in wikipedia's voice." No Bach commentators have expressed any doubt that Vetter's 1713 chorale was "borrowed" by Bach. (Borrowings by Handel were frequent.) In addition the status as a "spurious" source can be read off from the BWV^2a listing, where on one line the movement BWV 8/6 appears, Vetter appears and the 1975 Bach-Jahrbuch of Emil Platen is cited. In this long article, 19th century documents have been used to compare images; by contrast, no contemporary Bach scholars have drawn attention to these points. In addition the article uses directly scanned images from the Bach Archive to support these statements. In fact Dürr also points out that it was only in 1982 that the current urtext status of BWV 8 was established. Contemporary scores edited by established Bach scholars are available. Parts of the content are useful. Mathsci (talk) 15:41, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

No synthesis

I can find no WP:SYNTH in the article. Checked the policy page on synthesis (see link in previous sentence): when the sources used for this article say different things, what each source says is separated from what any other source says, even when nuances of difference between sources are fine. There is no other form of OR, or whatever, either. The synthesis tag seems, to all extents and purposes, spurious. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:05, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

• The main topic of the article is the Lutheran hymn of this title and the biographical details of the hymn writer and composer. The fact that Bach was contemporaneous is significant. At the same time, twelve images, including a gallery, have been used together for the article. This is a side-topic involving Bach's borrowing of Vetter's 1713 chorale for the final movement of his 1724 cantata BWV 8 of the same name. The movement is known to have been a borrowing or reworking of Vetter's chorale. In 1998 established Bach scholars made a brief record of this borrowing in BWV^2a. Beyond that, there seems to be no further substantial literature on this topic. The use of twelve images concerning the same chorale seems to be WP:SYNTH and WP:UNDUE.

On the other hand, there seems to be no problem with the biographical content or the hymn text in this article, although I have not looked too carefully. Mathsci (talk) 18:04, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

There's no synthesis. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:06, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

I've listed a 3O. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:13, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt: Having 12 images devoted to a theory without consensus seem to be WP:SYNTH. When writing about Bach's life and music, there are standard contemporary secondary sources, such as the series "Bach perspectives" or recent musical biographies. These are usually readable even if written by experts, many of whom are associated with the Bach Archive (e.g. Christine Blanken). These are appropriate WP:RS. Substantial use of early 18th century sources (1713) or mid-19th century sources (1847) counts as primary sources. It could only really be justified if there is a matching prose description for the WP:RS. That doesn't seem to be the case for the 1713 and 1847 examples. Mathsci (talk) 13:24, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

If you feel you have to re-add the tag, please do it to the section, but not at the top. I have no time to read all this, and no intention to join another battle, sorry. To my experience, top tags don't really help to get problems solved, but are ugly (and often for years) for someone who comes to read. Right now, I'm busy copy-editing and referencing the bio of an overlooked important conductor, and my interest in these details of composition history is small, in comparison.--Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:30, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Page number of Kenney source

The page number of the Kenney source is included in the full bibliographical reference. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:39, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Please stop adding {{in-use}}

The previous lead was written in an inaccurate and indecipherable way. BWV 8/6 were mentioned with no context (a composer or a musical work). I added this sentence: Neumann's hymn text and Vetter's chorale were used by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1724 for his own composition of the cantata BWV 8 with the same title. It should be comprehensible to readers now. Mathsci (talk) 10:54, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

First line is the title of Bach's Cantata No. 8, not the hymn

The idea of selecting the first lines for translations of the the first verse of Neumann's verse in misleading. In reality, Cantata No. 8 was translated into English several times. The title appears on the cover of several vocal scores. That can be checked: Carus, Breitopf, Bärenreiter and Novellon & Co/Kalmus. (Amazon.de partially shows a scanned version of the original vocal score by Novello.) There is also a miniature score published by Eulenburg and edited by Schering, with an English title. There are also translations of the libretto text of Bach for Movements 2, 3, 4 and 5. Why 19C, 20C and 21C translations have been used on this page where the sources only refer to the libretto of Bach is quite odd. Instead of having anachronistic content, removing these problematic lines from the article might be the best solution. They seem out of the scope of this article. Mathsci (talk) 16:43, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

No consensus

No consensus on the above. --Francis Schonken (talk) 00:48, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Off-topic

This seems off-topic in the section on Neumann's hymn text

In the context of the widely-documented "Bach Awakening" in the Georgian, Regency and Victorian era, major choral works of Bach began to be sung in the English language with 19th-century performances of the St Matthew Passion and the B minor mass. The English musician William Sterndale Bennett founded the Bach Society in 1849 mainly for a future performance of the Passion, which he discussed with Mendelssohn: the first performance took place at Hanover Square Rooms in 1854. Similarly Sterndale Bennett's friend Arthur Coleridge founded the Bach Choir in 1869 for the first performance of the Mass at St James Hall in 1876. At the same time, smaller choral works in English translation were being published in the Victorian period: the Westminster clergyman John Troutbeck provided English translations for nine Bach cantatas published by Novello & Co, including the vocal score for Cantata No.8, "When will God recall my spirit?" Other titles for the cantata include:

References

--Francis Schonken (talk) 17:00, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Titles of vocal scores of Bach's Cantata No. 8

Removing all mention of Johann Sebastian Bach from the section on Neumann's text was not possible. Having a straightforward translation of the hymn text is fine, but the edits mingle solely Bach-related documents without mentioning him. That happened with the libretto for Bach's Cantata No.8 (19C, 20C and 21C sources/programme notes).

In the preceding comments by me above, I explained carefully that titles of various scores for Bach's Cantata No. 8 refer to the English translations of Bach's libretto, not to the text of Neumann's hymn. The edits listed titles but without mentioning Bach. Edits like that are confusing and will not help wikipedia readers.

My own first choice is to remove these lists, because they are actual references to Bach's Canata No. 8 and so completely beyond the scope of this article (that is easily verified from the sources used).

As an interim measure, to clean up the issue of titles, I have provided context for English translations of Bach choral works, which as presented previously would not have been made sense for the general wikipedia readership. The references are fairly well-known and the biographical sketch from The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular by John Troutbeck from 1899, written five months before he died, summarises Troutbeck's approach to translating vocal scores from German to English.

The scope of this article went far beyond the article on Bach's Cantata No.8. Listing titles for the cantata was therefore also beyond that scope. Mathsci (talk) 18:21, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Citations

• Bach, Johann Sebastian (1870), Cantata No.8, Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben?—When will God recall my Spirit? BWV 8, Vocal score, vol. K 06014, translated by John Troutbeck, London: Novello & Co/Kalmus Edition, ISBN 9780769273853
• Eatock, Colin (2009), Mendelssohn and Victorian England, Ashgate, ISBN 0-7546-6652-2
• Kassler, Michael (2004), The English Bach awakening: knowledge of J.S. Bach and his music in England, 1750–1830, Ashgate, ISBN 1-84014-666-4
• Parrott, Isabel (2006), Cowgill, Rachel; Rushton, Julian (eds.), William Sterndale Bennett and the Bach revival in nineteenth century England, Europe, empire, and spectacle in nineteenth-century British music, Ashgate, pp. 29–44, ISBN 0-7546-5208-4

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Francis Schonken (talk • contribs)

This is unsigned content (editors on a talk page are required to sign). The content here seems to have been added from the article, but that has not been explained. Mathsci (talk) 00:52, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

1870 publication by Novello/Kalmus

I can find no trace of the 1870 publication by Novello/Kalmus. I mean: not for that date. The ISBN number obviously does not refer to a 1870 publication. The "K 06014" volume number also does not seem to turn anything up for that date. I've looked in the usual places where (Bach-related) first editions may be listed (oclc, Yo Tomita's database, bibliography pages of the Bach Archive, LCNAF, ...). The citation being a hybrid of what may be different (& incompatible?) editions doesn't help. Also, the established citation format for this article is native CS1 templates ({{cite book}}, {{cite journal}}, etc), not the native CS2 {{citation}} format. This source citation is not usable as presented as first entry in the OP list of this section. --Francis Schonken (talk) 02:53, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

David Gaynor Yearsley

Yearsley is American not Dutch. There is an entry for him on nl.wikipedia because, in 1992 and 1994, he won several organ prizes in Gronigen and in Bruges. The website bach-cantatas.com gives a biographical sketch and there is also the nl.wikipedia entry. Yearsley studied American History at Harvard, then got a Ph.D. in musicology at Stanford in 1994. Since 1997 he has been on the music faculty of Cornell University. Edits like this David Yearsley should be avoided. The edit summary "ill" was marked as minor.[1]Mathsci (talk) 00:14, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

• The inaccurate description David Yearsley has been added several times. Mathsci (talk) 02:16, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Here is the latest diff [2] with the summary more restoration of what I wrote and how I wrote it. On this talk page, it is explained in detail that David Gaynor Yearsley is Anerican and not from the Netherlands. As such that kind of constitutes vandalism. Mathsci (talk) 02:27, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

• Yet again there are disruptive edits[3] where the nationality of David Yearsley ghas been disputed (see below). David Gaynor Yearlsey is American. He was born in April 1965 in Seattle, Washington. He graduated as an A.B. in American history at Harvard College. He obtained his Ph.D. in musicology at Stanford University in 1994. He is married to the English organist Annette Richards. Both of them are professors on the Music Faculty of Cornell University. Mathsci (talk)

Interlanguage link

{{ill|David Yearsley|nl}}, rendering as David Yearsley, is a correctly placed interlanguage link (ill), per the applicable guideline (see WP:REDLINK#Dealing with existing red links, bullet point starting with "The subject of the red link may be covered on another edition of Wikipedia"; see also {{ill}} template documentation). I placed it, and there is no consensus to remove it, nor is there any consensus to otherwise modify the sentence in which the ill occurs. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:28, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

"Interlanguage links"?

Sometimes errors can occur on wikipedia. Edits can be made when unaware of various facts. However, when it is known and easily established that an well-known academic (David Yearsley) is American, continually suggesting through some abstruse mechanism (see above) that he is Dutch or Flemish is a misuse of wikipedia. There seems to be no justification at all for this kind of "interlanguage link." It is also probably a BLP violation continually to suggest on wikipedia that David Yearsley is Dutch instead of his true nationality (American).

In my sandbox, because of the continual mislabelling, I have started to prepare a BLP for Yearsley. There is already an entry on nl.wikipedia.org where he is described as American. He has published several books and CDs.

If the intention was to link to nl.wikipedia.org, the idea of creating a BLP for Yearsley (as I started to do on my sandbox) is the best idea. The interlanguage link David Yearsley does not point to the nl.wikipedia.org as far as I'm aware. Mathsci (talk)

There is a method, which I've used before, that allows links for articles on a different wikipedia, in this case nl.wikipedia.org, to connect to en.wikipedia.org: this is the method David Yearsley, i.e. [[:nl:David Yearsley|David Yearsley]]. The interlanguage link David Yearsley just keeps asking readers to create an article on David Yearsley on en.wikipedia.org, which is not helpful. Mathsci (talk) 15:57, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

WP:REDLINK

{{ill|David Yearsley|nl}} is currently a redlink, [[:nl:David Yearsley|David Yearsley]] is not: the redlink should not be removed unless it is "certain that Wikipedia should not have an article on the [David Yearsley] subject" (see WP:REDLINK guideline) – in this case it is pretty certain that Wikipedia should have an article on that subject, so the redlink should not be removed. --Francis Schonken (talk) 00:20, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

In use

The article will be {{in use}} now for issues discussed at #Scope above (etc). Please avoid causing edit conflicts. --Francis Schonken (talk) 00:16, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

• "In use" sections applied to the whole of this article are not permitted. In addition the disinformation about David Gaynor Yearsley show that edits have not been made in good faith (see previous posting and diff). Mathsci (talk) 00:29, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
• The use of the "in-use" tag was abusive. The edit about David Yearsley was nonsensical as Yearsley is Americn not Dutch. Simialrly the list of titles for Bach's Cantata No. 8 has been misrepresented. As I mentioned above the best idea is to suppress it because it is so confused. Mathsci (talk) 00:43, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Continued

I'll be running a series of updates involving most (if not all) sections, at least including lead section, body of the article, various footer sections and image layout in various places. For that reason, the entire article will be tagged {{in use}} until I'm finished. --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:25, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Lead: the unexplained use of short-hand use of BWV 8/6 — omission of Johann Sebastian Bach or BWV 8 in the lead

The edits to this article, including its lead, have resulted in an unstable article. It is currently impossible to see that there is any connection between this article and the cantata BWV 8 by Johann Sebastian Bach. On the other other hand BWV 8/6 is mentioned in the lead, but without any explanation at all. A wikilink to BWV 8/6 redirects to this article. Edits of that kind seem to be extremely unhelpful. It seems that there has been no attempt to find consensus. There was a request to limit the scope of the article, but so far that has not happened.

The confusion between the English titles of the Cantata and the claimed translation by Neumann has not helped: Neumann text is not used, only Bach's libretto with its variants.

Nobody on wikipedia could be expected to understand that private reference created ne editor. The lead had been changed been changed to correct those problems, but those modifications have not been respected nor consensus respected.

As a result it seems unlikely that the main article, Liebster Gott, wenn werd ich sterben? BWV 8, can be linked to this confusing article. Mathsci (talk) 01:40, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Verses 2, 3 and 4

At the moment there are no German versions of verses 3 and 4 in the article.

Only verses 1 and 5 appear in the English translations. The footnotes for verses 1 and 2 are unsightly: the biblical references appear without proper sources. The sourcing has to be done from a reliable secodary source to make sure that it is verifiable. Some sources for Verse 1 have been provided in Dürr & Jones, but they have not been used in the article.

It is unlikely that there are any English translations of Verses 2, 3 and 4 from the Victorian era.

I will have copies of the translations of John Troutbeck and J. Michael Diack fairly soon. That the 2nd, 3rd and 4th verses of Neumann's mymn represent the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th movements of the cantata is not supported by any source, in particular not by Dürr & Jones. Edits like this seem to be original research. It is also completely beyond the scope of this article attempting to recreate material on the main article. At the moment a lot of the information in this article is not reliable. The bibical references are taken from mid 18th-century documents, so are primary sources not WP:RS. By contrast Melvin Unger's book is a secondary source that gives reliable theological commentaries on Verses 1 and 5. They are contemporary. Mathsci (talk) 04:48, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Dürr & Jones wrote, "The second and third verses were paraphrased to form nos. 2 and 3; the opening lines of the fourth verse served as the model of no. 4, and the rest of this verse as that of no. 5. Although the librettist had to eke out the text with his own additions, particularly in nos. 4 and 5, he nonetheless adhered almost entirely to the hymn’s train of thought." But this article is not about the cantata, it is about a Lutheran hymn. Changing prose to a table is misleading; phrases like "the librettist had to eke out the text" are not explained. But this article is not about the cantata. BWV 4 should be compared with Christ lag in Todesbanden, without edits getting out of control. (I added all the the verses for German and English texts in 2016.) Mathsci (talk) 05:26, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Library sources

Library sources with datings are not reliable. Here is the Cambridge UL record Ernst Eulenburg's study score, edited by Arnold Schering, with the translation by John Troutbeck.

Liebster Gott, wann werd' ich sterben? : (Domenica [sic] 16 post Trinitatis) : Cantata No. 8 / by Johann Sebastian Bach ; edited from the score of the Bach-Gesellschaft and with foreword by Arnold Schering. Johann Sebastian Bach 1685-1750. ; Arnold Schering 1877-1941.; J Troutbeck (John), 1832-1899. London : Ernst Eulenburg, [1932] ([196-?] printing)

The Novello edition appears in this way:

Pendlebury Library of Music

[Cantatas, no. 8. Vocal score.] When will God recall my spirit; cantata for the sixteenth Sunday after Trinity. Vocal score. DE:68. (English words only; price one shilling.). Johann Sebastian Bach 1685-1750.; K Neumann; J Troutbeck (John), 1832-1899, tr. London, 187-

Mathsci (talk) 11:31, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

BWV 8

This is the "discussion" part of WP:BRD. The third paragraph of the lead contained WP:UNDUE commentary on Bach's cantata BWV 8. The article, however, is about the Lutheran hymn not Bach's cantata. The out-of-context quotes of Dürr & Jones and Spitta, both involving commentaries on Bach, are unhelpful for a general readership. Mathsci (talk) 06:24, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

The closing chorale of BWV 8 is a reworked version of Vetter's four-part setting. The appreciation of the similarity (or: difference) between this cantata movement, BWV 8/6, and Vetter's original ranges from "somewhat altered" to "with radical alterations", the 1998 edition of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis listing the 1724 version as a composition by Vetter.

An in-use tab has been added for the umpteenth time.

The edits to the lead are unreliable and have been used as a would-be scholarly commentary on Bach's cantata BWV 8. Although the lead was written "in the voice of wikipedia," no substantial evidence was provided (cf the two quotes). What is known is that a single line from the smaller 1998 BWV listing has a statement about Daniel Vetter: nothing more. This is not controversial, no Bach commentators have seen fit to comment and does not warrant mention. In that sense this paragraph was out of proportion. The article was about the hymn of Caspar Neumann, not the cantata of Johann Sebastian Bach. The edits concerning BWV 8 seem improperly sources and do not reflect other sources, and seem quite at odds with Arnold Schering or William G. Whittaker. The main body of the article has far too many problems to describe. Mathsci (talk) 14:00, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

In use (2)

After an edit conflict during my work on this article, the article is now "in use". --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:44, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

in-use tags and edit-conflict?

These claims do not support the edit history. There were no in-use tags and were no apparent edit-conflicts.

As the article talk page explains, certain misleading and unsupported edits have been removed from the lead. The article concerned Caspar Neumann's Lutheran hymn not quibbles about authenticity of parts of Cantata BWV 8 by Johann Sebastian Bach. Most of the edits, particular the 12 images, result from unsourced speculation. Writing a parallel commentary on Bach's cantata No.8, however, is beyond the scope of this article. Inaccurate reports about "in-use" tags and "edit-conflicts" are not advised. The current state of the lead is unstable: the article carries a certain amount of information on the Lutheran hymn; the fragmentary comments on the cantata are insubstantial. The article on the cantata is linked to the Bach Archive, despite the forked content here. Mathsci (talk) 14:48, 15 October 2020 (UTC)