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Return of a problematic editor

In the last few days there have been many edits to the instrumentation lists in articles on orchestral works. Some of these are harmless but pointless – changing "double bassoon" to "contrabassoon" or "cor anglais" to "English horn". Some appear to be increasing precision – changing "tuba" to "bass tuba" or "trombone" to "tenor trombone". However, most appear to be simply arbitrary and wrong. For example, this editor added bass tubas to the instrumentation of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, written decades before the tuba was invented, and added contrabassoon to the instrumentation of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 15, even though the article specifically draws attention to the fact that the score doesn't use a contrabassoon. When he (yes, I think it is a "he") changed the line-up of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 from four horns to eight horns and I reverted, he came back and changed it to six horns. His edits appear to be arbitrary, fanciful, and totally unreliable, and I feel they should all be reverted, in itself not easy as he keeps changing his IP address. Listed above are some of the addresses I have spotted him using in his latest bout of editing. The reason I say "he" is because I'm fairly sure this is our old friend CameronPG (talk · contribs) back again. He seems to have lost his interest in Disney and dinosaurs, which is maybe consistent with him now being seven years older, but the patterns of editing instrumentation of orchestral works and not engaging in talk page discussion seem consistent with his behaviour under that user name and the many IP addresses he has used since. I plan to look through the contributions of the above addresses and revert recent edits. Apologies if I inadvertently revert good edits – there are many to work through! --Deskford (talk) 14:54, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

The latest batch of these edits has been from the above username. Again I have reverted them all as they are unsourced, unexplained and apparently unreliable. --Deskford (talk) 07:07, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi Deskford. The last IP on the list, 145.53.125.174 (talk · contribs), is probably unrelated. All the others and the newly registered account edit via mobile phone. The IPs are all based in the northeastern US. The IP 145.53.125.174 edits from Rotterdam. From the type of edits, topic, and their obsessiveness, I suspect it is more likely to be Cmach7 (talk · contribs), blocked in 2012 (but still socking through 2015 at least). For background on this editor see User talk:Antandrus/Archive37#User Cmach7. Antandrus may have some insights on this. Voceditenore (talk) 09:59, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
I'm at a conference this week and don't have much time -- but briefly looking at this (I read it day before yesterday) yes, my first thought was Cmach7. Obsessive, fanciful, refuses to engage, lots of tiny edits. Not certain without some more work. His IPs used to be in Waukesha, Wisconsin, but he was 13 then and has probably changed location. Antandrus (talk) 13:40, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks both! Yes, I think I added that last IP address in error. There is only one contribution from that address, which I also reverted, but it doesn't fit the pattern of the others. I've struck it from the list above. I also remember Cmach7 – there are similarities between the two cases – but this one to me seemed more like CameronPG, who was blocked in 2010 but was still using IP addresses in 2014, then went quiet. There's a bit of background on CameronPG here: User talk:Drmies/Archive 72#Problematic IP editor. I don't think I followed up Drmies's suggestion of taking this to WP:LTA. It would have been useful to have collated information on these problematic users in a single place rather than having it scattered around multiple talk pages and their archives. --Deskford (talk) 19:30, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

There has been another batch of these edits from ElliAhia4088 (talk · contribs) over the last 12 hours. Some had already been reverted by others; I've reverted the rest. I also reverted a couple made on 11 July from 2600:1017:B119:DBC7:B8DF:6777:B661:CEEF (talk · contribs) that seemed to have been missed. --Deskford (talk) 11:27, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Area for research - Orchestrations of Beethoven Sonatas

I was reading in a history of German symphonies in the period between the death of Beethoven and the first performance of Brahms's 1st Symphony, that in the 1840s there was a fashion for orchestrating Beethoven sonatas and performing those in concerts. Two that are specifically mentioned as receiving this treatment are the Sonata Pathétique (Orchestrator not named) and the Kreutzer Sonata (Orchestration by Eduard Marxsen). This looks to be an area for future research as neither article mentions this. Graham1973 (talk) 01:47, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

May be entering the grey area between real content and trivia. I once heard a version for voice an piano, if I remember well, of the Moonlight (arranged by Hermann Zilcher and performed by Cathy Berberian? [1]), with a spoofing announcement something like "so that it wouldn't lay waste as a mere piano piece" (even the NYT was humoured). Funny (or, at least: exotic), but probably of no consequence for Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven)#Influences (although that currently seems very limited as a reception history section). BTW, here is proof of exactly one performance of Marxsen's Kreutzer "Symphony" arrangement, in 1837. Liszt made piano versions of Beethoven's symphonies, which may be notable in their own right, but I don't know whether a garden variety arrangement, with little or no reception history, would be more worth mentioning than, for instance, well-documented popular versions (as in: the kind of trivia we easily throw out of composition articles).
For comparison, I recently rebooted a discussion here; And after cutting out most of the trivia here, I stumbled on the proverbial iceberg here (still wondering what to do about it – I fear drastic action may be warranted). --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:49, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for locating that Leipzig concert, the book I was looking at "The German Symphony between Beethoven and Brahms" by Christopher Fifield mentioned a Berlin performance of the Kreutzer Sonata transcription for orchestra with Mendelssohn as the conductor, but he does not give the date of the performance. I've also posted a query on the IMSLP to see if the score was published and if so by whom. Graham1973 (talk) 14:09, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
I have played the string quintet arrangement two cellos) of the Kreutzer Sonata, available at here (look on the "Arrangements" tab). Ravpapa (talk) 08:06, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
Yes, and what about the wading in near-trivia territory? --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:32, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
It goes to something that is not really covered in the article. It took a long time after the first performance for the sonata to find acceptance, one of the key events in that process apparently being a performance by Pierre Balliot (Violin) and Ferdinand Hiller (Piano) in Paris in 1834, transcriptions for orchestra of works considered unplayable by mere chamber musicians was a way of spreading the music to a wider audience. As playing skills improved, the need for such things died out. This is one of those things people tend to forget, in his own time Beethoven's music was not only considered controversial, it was considered to be beyond the capabilities of any but the very best. Graham1973 (talk) 08:08, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
I have added a link to a 2013 thesis I located that touches on two specific chamber music arrangements of the Sonata for other forces, one by Carl Czerny for Piano Four-Hands, the other by an anonymous arranger for String Quintet which was published by Simrock in 1832. It looks to have much useful background on the sonata and the context in which these and other arrangements were made.Graham1973 (talk) 09:05, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
I don't see this topic as trivia, particularly as a handful of notable works have resulted. Remember that in the 19th century there were all sorts of adaptations of all sorts of works, whether it be operas for small forces, or piano works for larger forces. At least one adaptation of a Beethoven piano sonata (Op. 14, no. 1, E major) is considered to have been arranged by Beethoven himself as an illustration to would-be adaptors. The famous Weingartner transcription of op. 106 was done out of the conductor's belief that Beethoven really wanted the forces of an orchestra since the piano could not give him what he wanted. At the very least, this material is near-gospel to orchestration classes in conservatories. - kosboot (talk) 02:29, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
(How unfortunate, unless it is given as an example of things that simply don't work orchestrated! ^_^) Double sharp (talk) 13:38, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
While we are on the subject of arrangements, one phenomenon - much more common than symphonic arrangements of piano sonatas - was the arrangements of operas and symphonies for string quartet (or for piano four hands). In the mid to late 19th century there were thousands of these arrangements, and they were, in fact, the only way many people could ever hear what the original work sounded like. I mentioned this in the article on Chamber Music but perhaps it is worth an article of its own. Ravpapa (talk) 08:06, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
Re. "...thousands of these arrangements, and they were, in fact, the only way many people could ever hear what the original work sounded like" — followed by, more or less in chronological order:
  1. thousands of piano rolls
  2. thousands of phonograph cylinders
  3. thousands of separately copyrighted cover versions
  4. thousands of 78 rpm discs
  5. thousands of sound films
  6. thousands of LPs, 45 rpm singles and EPs
  7. thousands of tape recordings and cassettes
  8. thousands of CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays and other types of optical discs
  9. thousands of WAVs, MP3s, and other digital storage formats
So which of these thousands and thousands (easily a few dozens across all formats/versions and eras of how "many people could ever hear what the original work sounded like" for any moderately famous pre-1850 composition) merit a separate mentioning in an article about a composition? E.g. the IMSLP page on Beethoven's Kreutzer (linked to above) lists around half a dozen score editions, some 10 arrangements (including an incomplete orchestration by Tchaikovsky), and over hundred recordings in various formats/versions (without even hinting at the Marxsen arrangement which apparently can be documented via multiple other sources): which ones of the formats/versions do we mention in the article (i.e., if the goal is to write a more or less balanced reception history narrative, separating trivia from noteworthy content)? For instance, are we going to let such decisions be influenced by whether or not a Wikipedian ever performed a particular version of a composition? (disclosure: I recently tagged a composition article as POV for that reason) --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:32, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
I feel it comes down to notability. The 2 arrangements I mentioned above (Beethoven's transcription of Op. 14, no. 1 and Weingartner's op. 106) are certainly notable, both having been recorded multiple times and written about. One could do separate articles on each; but if one instead chooses to do an article on "Arrangements of Beethoven sonatas" then lesser-notable cases could be included. - kosboot (talk) 12:20, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
I would also agree that it comes down to notability, but given that these arrangements largely gain their minuscule notability from the original works (and don't seem to be played terribly often now), I would think that we could cover them with the originals. As a non-Beethoven example, Liszt's transcription of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique was often played by him and was a revelation in recreating the sound of an orchestra on the piano; despite this I cannot imagine that one could cover this work without a great deal of overlap with the article on the Symphonie fantastique itself. And the same goes for those arrangements, except that we then don't even have much in the way of a history of public performance after their heyday, and even when they were performed it says rather little about the individual sonatas but rather more about the tastes of that period. So I would suggest Piano sonatas (Beethoven)#Arrangements as a worthy home for all of this material. Double sharp (talk) 13:43, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
I agree with regards the arrangements/transcriptions of the piano sonatas, with regards the Weingartner transcription of Op. 106, should the recording history be included as well, that helps to establish noteability. With regards my planned addition to the Kreutzer Sonata, it will be a paragraph on the contemporary views of the pieces difficulty and then the two transcriptions covered in the thesis I have located with some brief notes on their characteristics and the intended audience. Graham1973 (talk) 14:43, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
That one is solved. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:25, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Myrkir Musikdagar

Ran into this annual Icelandic festival (after reading [https://www.icareifyoulisten.com/2016/03/dark-music-days-2016-recap-day-three/ this review), which may deserve an article. Also, your help at Þráinn Hjálmarsson is appreciated. Drmies (talk) 14:49, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Mark Stephenson

There's a newly created article on Mark Stephenson (conductor) but the content was copied directly from his website. On the basis of his founding of London Musici and his recordings of Andrzej Panufnik, Malcolm Arnold and others for Conifer Classics I would say he is notable, but without work the article is liable to be deleted. I don't have time to look at it at the moment, but if anyone else has a moment to spare and feels so inclined I think it would be time well spent. --Deskford (talk) 09:23, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

I put a link to his recordings on that talk page. It is from a vendor, so not appropriate for an article but it might help getting it started. I think all we need here is a stub. Where did he go to school. Which orchestras has he played in and conducted in? Right now, it just says that he was born. DavidRF (talk) 15:48, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

John Serry Sr.

Classical accordion?

Dear classical music enthusiasts:

I have been working on John Serry Sr., editing it to be more neutral. I'm not sure what to do with the Musical Style section, since I don't know anything about classical accordion playing. I can see that it's not appropriate, but I don't know what to write instead, if anything. Perhaps someone who is familiar with accordion work in orchestras could look this over. Thanks!—Anne Delong (talk) 17:24, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Added a tag to the section (refimprove + primary sources). Not sure whether such a section is needed in a biography if no source ever described his style (that is, apart from the subject himself). --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:21, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
The section is more or less the same also German, French and Italian. French has 3 refs, all publications by Serry in the same journal, Accordion World, in three different years, two from the 1930s, one from the 1960s. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:28, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
The French Wikipedia one was started last month as a translation of the English one, and has the same issues (that is, if French Wikipedia has rules comparable to those of English Wikipedia): in the style section there it is also all unreferenced, apart from a few sentences referenced to the accordionist's own words (i.e., what is considered primary source material on English Wikipedia). Unless someone can find non-primary source material in reliable sources regarding the accordionist's style I think it far better to remove the entire "style" section of this article from English Wikipedia. There's little about the musician's style as performer or arranger/composer anyway: adopting different genres (as he apparently did) does not define his own style. Keeping to high standards does not define a musical style. Being expert performer on various instruments does not define a musician's personal style, etc. So it's three paragraphs telling little or nothing about the musician's style. Another option would be to merge the material that is now in that section to elsewhere in the article, so for the time being I'll leave it untouched: if nothing happens I'll remove it in a few days though (if someone finds sufficient references later they can always retrieve from page history). --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:18, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Transcriptions?

Dear music experts:

This article says it has "transcriptions". The Wikipedia article about transcriptions seems to indicate that they are sheet music, whereas this is a recording. I haven't heard the term used in this way before. Are these recorded arrangements, or cover versions? The picture shows a recording which says "Lawrence Welk", but the caption says John Serry Sr.—Anne Delong (talk) 23:09, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi Anne Delong, "transcription" is sometimes used to refer to musical arrangements. To me it suggest merely adapting the music to different instruments, but historically many notable transcriptions are in reality arrangements (much material is either added or elaborated or both). Personally I always prefer the word "arrangement." ("Transcription" is also often used to mean audio recordings made off-the-air.) Also when you say "sheet music," you probably mean published music, although in this case, the music appears to never have been published. (I've been meaning to work on the article sheet music, which is really published music of only a few pages.) The RCA Thesaurus appears to have been a record album of arrangements. - kosboot (talk) 23:25, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, kosboot. Yes, a few pages of music is all I am ready to deal with! I was concerned that maybe the caption on the photo of the record was wrong. What do you call written music that's not published?—Anne Delong (talk) 00:38, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
Merged this section to the previous, as it's the same topic area (John Serry Sr., in this case the accordionist’s arrangements).
not relevant
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Regarding the question at hand:

  • In this case rather "arrangement" than "transcription" I suppose, and I propose to use the word "arrangement" in the intro of the recording series article, like the person's article uses "arranger" (not "transcriber") in the intro.
  • There are minute differences (and these minute differences are explained differently depending on who explains them): transcription means that the musical material (melody line(s), bass line, chords,...) is not noticeably modified, only played by (a) different instrument(s). So, a piano reduction would usually be a transcription, unless, for instance, when the original is too elaborate, and the "reduction" has to leave out too much in order to be still playable by a pianist. An arrangement indicates some modification, e.g. make the accompaniment a bit more jazzy, modify the chord progression, add or subtract melody lines, whatever is changed beyond the necessities of making the music playable by a different (set of) instrument(s). There's more than a page of explanations on whether the compositions traditionally known as Bach's Weimar transcriptions are in fact "transcriptions" or "arrangements" in Schulenberg's book on the keyboard versions: he finds that most of them are indeed rather arrangements, but for simplicity and tradition he continues to use the word "transcription" for all of them in the remainder of the book.
  • The question "What do you call written music that's not published?" has little to do with the arrangement/transcription issue: unpublished music can be a "manuscript" (but then, facsimiles of manuscripts can also be published), an improvisation (which can be recorded, written out, published, etc), a score (no difference in name for published or unpublished), performance parts (the same: name not different between published and unpublished). Unpublished music is just called "unpublished", that is indeed the only word that expresses it (even "unprinted" is too relative nowadays: there are, for instance, hundreds of published manuscripts of cantatas by Stölzel, nearly none of them printed, but downloadable if you have a computer and internet). --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:06, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
PS this is a "record collector" question, not a music question. Plus, this RCA Thesaurus article is incredibly misleading. I may be wrong, but it appears it was created in reference to a particular release, which wouldn't pass notability standards. However, Thesaurus was a major supplier of radio station content from the 1930s to the 1950s, encompassing radio shows, music, advertisements, and sound effects. The article as it stands is rather misleading. The article should be more in line with World Broadcasting System. 78.26 (spin me / revolutions) 14:13, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, 78.26 and Francis Schonken. If the Thesaurus series is notable, then the article could be improved by expanding it to included other recordings and make it more balanced.—Anne Delong (talk) 17:23, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
Anne Delong, written music that is not published I call either "unpublished music," or "manuscript music" (if in fact it is manuscript - often not the case with today's music engraving software, which allows music to be self-published). Unpublished is probably best since it doesn't involve the question of how it is written or engraved - kosboot (talk) 17:36, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Removal of Warning Banner on John Serry Sr.

In so far as the entire Musical Style/Performance Style section of the article John Serry Sr. has been deleted as per objections cited above by Francis Schonken and Anne Delong, the removal of a banner which flags the article as a "personal reflection/opinions essay" which is founded upon "primary sources" published by the subject of the article should be eliminated. No other specific instances of the excessive utilization of "primary reference sources" or "personal refletons/opinions" within the main body of the article have been identified by either Francis Schonken or Anne Delong. Also kindly note that Anne Delong indicates on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music talk page that she is not an expert in classical music and is not comfortable making such sweeping changes to an article such as this ( See her remarks to Schonken & Arendt - "Francis Schonken and Gerda Arendt, I appreciate your input and participation. I am not an expert in the area of classical music (I am more into traditional folk genres) and I am a little uncomfortable in making so many serious changes to a B class article. There's also some relevant discussion on my talk page if you are interested.—Anne Delong (talk) 17:23, 29 August 2017 (UTC)"). Apparently, serious changes to an article which has been posted on Wikipedia for several years is not required in the view of this editor. With this in mind, kindly reverse the imposition of the warning banners cited above. Thank you for your kind consideration. Respectfully yours 104.207.219.150 (talk) 15:51, 5 September 2017 (UTC)PS

What on earth does any of this have to do with classical music?--Smerus (talk) 16:01, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
Well, the article is tagged for this project, and he is categorised as a classical accordionist. I think the detail of this would be better discussed on the talk page of the article though, rather than in this project. (I've merged these discussions under a single heading. I hope that isn't an inappropriate thing to do.) --Deskford (talk) 16:11, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Neglected Article - Violin Concerto (Rubinstein)

This article has not been updated substantively since 2014. Only source is the liner notes for the Naxos Records Recording. Graham1973 (talk) 12:16, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

  • I just had a small whack at it. I worked over the text and converted the citations to inline form; the article was mostly a fairly close paraphrase of the Naxos notes, but I'm assuming some information about the work's publication and dedication, not mentioned by the Naxos annotator, must have come from the Rubinstein bio. I also added a tidbit I found regarding an arrangement by Wilhelmj. Please, somebody else have a look at what I've done and see whether any of those "this article is suspect" tags could come off now. Incidentally, I've been away for a (longish) while, and my grasp of note form, never terribly strong to begin with, is probably long out of date, so my reworking of the references probably will need some help from an editor more skillful than I. Drhoehl (talk) 21:36, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Chapel royal

I noticed this before chapel royal seems to be a concept dab sitting on top of Chapel Royal (UK). Given that France and Spain also had chapel royals, that first line needs forking out or making into a chapel royal (disambiguation) page. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:05, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

It's quite obvious what In ictu oculi means if you actually read the discussion at Talk:Chapel royal and the associated article. The situation is complicated, and it's not as simple as creating another disambiguation page and redirecting the current article. The discussion would benefit from the participation of project members. Voceditenore (talk) 08:31, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
Definitely. Thank you. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:49, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
Re. "It's quite obvious what In ictu oculi means if you actually read the discussion at Talk:Chapel royal ..." – yes, the WP:FORUMSHOPping was quite obvious: I preferred to give a meaningful answer to what was brought here, instead of focussing on procedural aspects. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:55, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
It is not "forum shopping" to notify relevant projects of ongoing talk page discussions for which they may have useful input. Note the linked heading. Nor was your reply remotely meaningful or helpful in terms of the actual issues being discussed on the talk page, which you seem not to have even read before making your reply. OK, so In ictu oculi expressed a preliminary opinion on one of the issues there, but instead of casting aspersions on a fellow editor, why not make a helpful contribution to Talk:Chapel royal#Requested move 25 September 2017? Voceditenore (talk) 10:09, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
Disagree, it is forumshopping (and rather inappropriate WP:CANVASsing) 1.0 while giving the poster's POV (instead of being neutral), and while starting a separate discussion on something which has still an open discussion (in this case a WP:RM that is still at least a few days away from formal closure) elsewhere. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:27, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
Francis Schonken come on, it's (was) an RM that needs input from Classical music editors, but anyway that is achieved as you have taken interest in spades, I'm off. Thanks for your attention. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:25, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
Quoting from above "...The situation is complicated..." — did any of you wonder how that came to be? And whether the situation would ever have become thus complicated without any forum shopping (don't take this personal, there had been a few rounds of forumshopping before and after, none of these rounds initiated by anyone posting here)? It was easy enough to de-complicate the situation (which I did in a few steps), which I think much preferable above rampant forumshopping. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:37, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
Francis Schonken did you get out of bed on the wrong side this morning. This is the Classical music project, there's no need to go "rampant" and bite people who reject matters from Classical music pages to the talk page here. Thank you again for your activity on the article. Have a good day. I'm off. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:46, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
See above: "I preferred to give a meaningful answer to what was brought here, instead of focussing on procedural aspects". Inviting to take part in multiple discussions about the same topic which are going on at the same time in different places is a procedural aspect. Once that was brought up it seemed best to qualify that procedural aspect for what it was, i.e. forum shopping. Sorry about the "rampant", but as said that part wasn't directed at you, nor at anyone else taking part in the discussion here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:01, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

The largest article on Wikipedia

See current discussion at Talk:List of compositions by Franz Schubert#This article is far too long — suggestions are welcome (there, not here). --Francis Schonken (talk) 04:27, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

May be too long in this case, but there's an underlying fallacy here. WP will always have a longest article and someone will always argue that it is too long. The fact that it's the longest at this very second is irrelevant; what matters is how the article is written.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:29, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Matthias Manasi at AfD

German conductor. The discussion is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Matthias Manasi. Voceditenore (talk) 13:04, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Various composer categories nominated for deletion

The discussion is at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2017 October 1#1 and 2 article categories named after composers. Voceditenore (talk) 06:41, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

All cantatas are Christian

On 9 October, User:Marcocapelle added the Category:Christian classical music to Category:Cantatas; this should urgently be reversed. A cursory glance through the items listed there shows that that category is inappropriate. For a start, there's Category:Secular cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, Academic cantatas (Sibelius), Alexander Nevsky (Prokofiev), Anti-Formalist Rayok at the beginning of the alphabet and The Whale (Tavener), Yellow River Cantata, Zdravitsa at the end; none of them are Christian. Once this has been reversed, several works where Marcocapelle removed Christian music categories need to have them restored. I left this note also at Category talk:Cantatas where further discussion should take place. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:05, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree fully. Just to add a case: there are not a whole lot of Jewish cantatas but I have always greatly enjoyed this one by Louis Saladin, written for a bris: [2]. The recording is by the Boston Camerata. Opus33 (talk) 04:53, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

8VA Music Consultancy paid editing

The subjects of the following articles on classical musicians and organizations are all clients of the PR firm 8VA Music Consultancy (8VA Client list) and have been confirmed to be created or heavily edited by a paid editor. I have checked Classical Movements and cleared it of the egregious advertorial copy which had been added. However, the remainder also need checking and "cleaning" where appropriate. On first glance and needless to say, they tend to make copious use of cherry-picked quotes from critics, plus the usual "prestigious", "renowned", and unreferenced laundry lists of associated conductors, orchestras, etc.

Voceditenore (talk) 08:27, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

The subjects of the following articles are also clients of 8VA. So far, they seem to have escaped their ministrations, but may have other COI editors and are worth keeping on watch and/or checking for neutrality:

These red-links are 8VA clients and should be watched for creation or re-creation:

Voceditenore (talk) 09:46, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Henri Mulet

Article without references or sources, save for comment at the end "Original source of this article is the Henri Mulet page at the Classical Composers Database (from January 2004), which was written by Ioannis Dimitroulis." This page seems no longer to exist. However User:Ioannisd has been involved with the article. Is this a case of WP:COPYVIO or what? --Smerus (talk) 12:30, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Smerus, the Wayback Machine's earliest capture for that source is from 2007 (and not credited to any author). However, it is probably very similar to the 2004 version, especially if you compare it to the first version of Henri Mulet from from 8 September 2005. The latter is a very close paraphrase of the Classical Composers Database entry, but it's really a small amount of material and probably not enough to bother about. The article is now vastly expanded, but remains virtually unreferenced apart from a list of putative sources. That is a problem. I also strongly suggest removing the comment "Original source of this article is the Henri Mulet page at the Classical Composers Database (from January 2004), which was written by Ioannis Dimitroulis." from the article itself to the talk page or placing it in a<ref></ref>. Articles shouldn't have stuff like that in the text itself. Voceditenore (talk) 11:39, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
Mmmmm. I've just had a look at the current state of the article. It's very essay-like with a good deal of personal commentary. Needs a good copyedit. I've also added some useful sources for referencing it in the "Sources" section. Voceditenore (talk) 11:58, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
OK I have had a go.Smerus (talk) 13:33, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

String Quartet No. 3 (Bartók)

Someone has placed a "notability" tag on String Quartet No. 3 (Bartók). Once I got over my initial indignation that someone could question the notability of one of the key works of 20th-century music, I read through the article and found that it actually makes no real claim of notability and says nothing to the non-specialist reader to indicate the significance of this work. The article is unsourced, and the only external link is to a user-edited and hence unreliable site. Bartók is a little outside my normal area of expertise – is there anybody here who might feel able to improve the article? --Deskford (talk) 11:08, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

I share your &%£$. I've dug up my copy of Chamber Music by Alec Robertson (Penguin Books, 1957, pp. 220-252 about the Bartók quartets), and will see what I can do. Narky Blert (talk) 02:55, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
@Deskford: I've slotted in my ref, and turned the no-refs/notability tags into {{inline}}. I can see why those tags got added – that's a personal essay, not an encylopaedia article. Narky Blert (talk) 03:27, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

WP:Articles for deletion/List of composers who died before age 50

Input welcomed. Softlavender (talk) 01:54, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Follow-up: "Musicians who died young" proposal

  • AfD closed with a delete. Closing admin proposed to make the page available in userspace for anyone wanting to develop it into something viable. I'm tempted (although not really having time for it), but not sure it should be revived as a list (e.g. "List of musicians who died young"), or whether rather an article (with probably some sort of listing included) would be more desirable (e.g. "Young death (musicians)")? What do others think? --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:06, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Also, I'd probably organise the listing by age at death, maybe something in this vein (proposed content now regrouped into single proposal, 14:32, 23 September 2017 (UTC)):

= Draft:Young death (musicians) =

A report on the young death of a musician often contains comparisons to similar earlier cases. Pergolesi, Mozart, Schubert and Chopin are classical composers mentioned more than once in such comparisons.[1][2][3][4] In popular music, a series of musicians who died at age 27, including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse, appear as a group.[5]

== List by age at death ==

Established musicians, i.e. engaged with music professionally and/or with a substantial published output, who reportedly died young, by age group.

{{incomplete list}}

=== c. 20 ===

=== c. 25 ===

See also: 27 Club

=== c. 30 ===

=== c. 35 ===

=== c. 40 ===

=== c. 45 ===

=== c. 50 ===

=== c. 55 ===

== References ==

{{reflist}}

{{stub}}

Category:Lists of musicians

(references are not so much to confirm dates & age, as to confirm the death was considered "young") --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:54, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
Terrible idea - absolutely pointless wiki-babble for its own sake, as per deletion discussion - what on earth is the justification for an article to comprise e.g. Mahler and Houston? If it's so important to have such "listings", why not create categories? (singers who died aged 21-30, composers who died aged 21-30, etc.). Smerus (talk) 11:57, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
The category opens no end of possibilities: List of left-handed composers, list of composers of non-male-female sexual orientation, list of composers of unkempt personal habits. Composers with hearing loss. Synaesthetic composers. Wow! I could go on like this for days! Ravpapa (talk) 11:02, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
Sorry to disappoint you, but we do have a List of works for piano left-hand and orchestra, which includes a List of composers for the left hand. The point being: if there's substantial coverage of a topic in reliable sources, Wikipedia can have an article or list about it. Thus we have a separate article about musical prodigies (see above), about "left hand" compositions, musicians who died precisely at age 27 (see above), and whatnot. Not about left-handed composers though, while not a topic in its own right in reliable sources (etc.: same for the other reductio ad absurdum proposals above). The AfD on the "died under 50" list showed clearly there is a reliable source base for the "musicians who died young" topic, so I'd go ahead with it. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:26, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
As for concerns about relevance: according to WP:Five pillars, Wikipedia is, among other things, an almanac, so this list is within its scope. As for the format of this list, may I suggest a template I cobbled together which will present the dates and ages in a sortable table. Example:
Name Born Died Age
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi[1][2] 4 January 1710 16 March 1736 26 years, 72 days
W. A. Mozart[2][3] 27 January 1756 5 December 1791 35 years, 312 days
Franz Schubert[1][2][3] 31 January 1797 19 November 1828 31 years, 293 days
Lili Boulanger[2] 21 August 1893 15 March 1918 24 years, 206 days
-- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:55, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f https://archive.org/details/jstor-737931
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j https://books.google.com/books?id=8HwWDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA162
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2012/feb/15/musical-life-cut-short-phenomenon
  4. ^ a b c d https://www.forbes.com/sites/laursonpieler/2014/03/02/in-memoriam_claudio_abbado_discography/#24fb33145664
  5. ^ http://www.cmuse.org/great-composers-who-died-young/
  6. ^ https://books.google.com/books?id=8WFNr4EZk2cC&pg=PA34
  7. ^ https://books.google.com/books?id=b04lBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA2
  8. ^ https://books.google.com/books?id=nVNzAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA222
  9. ^ http://goldbergfestival.pl/archiwum_2014b/badanie-usg.pl/fest3/index4859.html?page_id=24&lang=en
  10. ^ https://books.google.com/books?id=cCIlDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA248
  11. ^ http://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2017/06/07/531582661/fame-is-a-boomerang
  • Well, as you know I'm a huge proponent of the "massive sortable table" format, shooting a few of them into the "eye-brow-rising" top 5. I see a few contra-indications here though:
    1. there are some technical issues, including, but not limited to: musicians with unclear birth or death dates; meaningful position of the 27 Club link. There are ways to address these (huge tables usually have to face bigger problems), but I fear that it might divert from the main subject of the article, i.e. telling something about musicians dying young, not listifying whatever we know about that. As a minimum, I'd get rid of the birth dates column: "musician dying young" reports typically are published around time of death, not time of birth, so the birth date is quite irrelevant to the topic of the article.
    2. We'd need to be wary to keep list-cruftifying at bay, which seems somewhat less easy with a table than with a structured list: for instance a casual reader may see Mahler in the list, and reflect, I know a musician dying younger than that, and adding this one to the list regardless of whether or not there is a reference confirming that musician's death as "early" (references in the first column are maybe somewhat less prominent than references at the end of every sentence). Cruftifying is a much huger problem for lists with a less firm reason for existence, while it makes the route to "successful AfD" much, much, shorter (and would, for instance, also make me !vote "delete" again, like I did in the AfD that set this off).
    3. The most comparable current list (List of child music prodigies) partially uses tables, but imho makes apparent we'd rather avoid the format: its cruftifying includes mini-biographies in the "notes" column, etc, etc... I go from the assumption that death is generally regarded as a big equaliser: the untimely death of a musician is deplorable, as shown in reliable sources, regardless of genre, historical era, date of birth, etc. "(approximate) age at death" is maybe the most significant exception to that equalising effect at death: who cares about Hendrix and Winehouse excelling in totally different genres, but their names will be mentioned again whenever a musician dies at age 27. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:37, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Recreate in draft space?

@Ritchie333: you wrote "If anyone wants the content userfied to create a different article that is more likely to meet WP:LISTN, let me know" – I propose to undelete List of composers who died before age 50 to Draft:Young death (musicians) (and its talk page to the adjoining draft talk page) instead of in user space, so that we can start reworking it on the basis of the outline above. Whether it becomes viable for mainspace, and what its optimal mainspace title could be in that case, can then be determined via usual AfC procedures. I'd like a revival of the AfD'ed page while there was some interesting content/references, contributed by Voceditenore if I remember correctly, e.g. about age at death of 19th-century composers etc (which I'm now at a loss where to retrieve elsewhere). Tx. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:55, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

@Francis Schonken: No problem, restored as requested. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:58, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:03, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
I've dropped in a couple of popular music ones (outside of the 27 club) where I am certain they were part of the most commercially successful groups of all time and where their death was a major news event. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:28, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Opus XYZ

This could be a slow-burning topic, and may or will need input from WP:DAB regulars other than myself. I would be happy to coordinate.

What does Opus 111 mean to you? A string quintet? A set of piano études? A piano sonata with a surprising boogie-woogie moment? Or, perhaps, Opus 111?

If you've recovered from clicking on that link, I give you Opus 1 and Opus 40.

Imagine that you're a reader. You've just heard this terrific Op. 74 piece on the radio and want to find out more about it. Typing "Opus 74" into the search box shows the problem - the reader might not be able to tell between Haydn, Spohr and Beethoven, and that's only the obvious string quartets.

My proposal: if "Opus XYZ" is a possible search term and is ambiguous (which it almost always will be), then it should be a properly formatted WP:DAB page.

Opus 50 is IMO poorly laid out, but is closer than anything else I've seen to what a typical Opus XYZ page should look like. (There should of course be links in through Op XYZ and Op. XYZ to help with navigation.)

Thoughts welcome. Narky Blert (talk) 05:17, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Apart from the ill-conceived Opus 50 (and Opus 2), I can't see much wrong with the examples you cited. Opus 76, which survived a speedy delete and shouldn't have, is more problematic. Then there are most of the pages beginning with "Op. ", which seem pointless to me, but may be useful to others. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:47, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
  • A thorny problem, to be sure, but I don't know that we really want disambiguation pages for every possible opus number under the sun, and even if we did try to create them, making them complete would be an ongoing problem. For instance, just entry of "op. 111" in the Wikipedia search box reveals that besides the works already mentioned, op. 111 also can refer to a song by Schubert, a polka-thingy by Johann Strauss, Prokofiev's Sixth Sym., and a "Hero's Song" for Orchestra by Dvorak. Speaking of whom, he could be the poster child for composers with messy opus and work number situations, and thus a potential challenge in setting up disambiguation pages; for instance, what we call his symphony no. 5, op. 76, used to be his no. 3, op. 24 (or maybe I have the opus nos. reversed--see? messy and full of opportunities to go off the rails). Might setting up categories work better? Somebody finding Beethoven's op. 111 could look at the bottom of the page and call up a category "Works assigned opus no. 111" or some such. Just sending up a trial balloon here; if it turns out to be made of lead, do be careful not to stand underneath! [edit] Oh, yes, and one other potential fly in the ointment: what about composers like Czerny or Reger, who liked to publish collections with many pieces under the same opus, say, Czery's Art of Finger Dexterity, op. 740, which contains 50 numbers. Drhoehl (talk) 19:57, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

BWV number in Bach's works

Re: this edit.

The question is how to present the two items of the article title, Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit, BWV 14, in the lead. My decision was to have both parts bold, the incipit as the common title of the piece, the BWV number as an important redirect. Francis Schonken prefers to link the term BWV. We can't do both, as a link from a bolded item is not wanted. For readers who really don't know what BWV stands for I offer a footnote. I believe it's a valid editorial choice, nothing to edit war over. Thoughts? - I don't raise the question on the article talk, because it concerns all of Bach's pieces, such as Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:24, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Today: another

The edit summary claims project guidance in favor of not showing the prominent redirect BWV 2 bold. I don't know where the project would guide to not show at a glance the difference between Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein, BWV 2 to Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:30, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Today: this time a FA. The guidance I understand and follow was given here. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:26, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Women in Red November contest open to all


Announcing Women in Red's November 2017 prize-winning world contest

Contest details: create biographical articles for women of any country or occupation in the world: November 2017 WiR Contest

Read more about how Women in Red is overcoming the gender gap: WikiProject Women in Red

(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list)

--Ipigott (talk) 15:57, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Reformation

Approaching the celebration of 500 years of the Reformation on 31 October, I began (a while ago) a peer review for one of Bach's cantatas for the feast day. More input welcome, it's about images (choice and placement), and about unbalanced and missing sections. Please look if you can contribute! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:39, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

One week to go --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:03, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Further opinions requested

I have twice removed {{unbalanced}} and {{weasel}} tags from "Herr Christ, der einig Gotts Sohn". They have twice been re-added. All the discussions I know of can be found on my Talk Page, in the article's Edit History, and at Talk:Herr Christ, der einig Gotts Sohn (which is where all further discussion should take place).

I have nothing to add to what I have already posted. Other editors' opinions on whether or not those tags are justified might help in reaching WP:CONSENSUS.

Pinging @Francis Schonken and Gerda Arendt: the other contributors on the article's Talk Page, Narky Blert (talk) 20:31, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Maxim Rysanov

A single-purpose account (SPA) recently pasted a large amount of text from the subject's website into the article on Maxim Rysanov. It was first reverted by XLinkBot, then by me. The SPA added it again both times, the last time with the edit summary, "Mr Michael Bednarek, i am a personal PA of Maxim Rysanov. I am kindly asking You not to undo what i am changing here. These are last updates from MR personally! Thank You for understanding!" Could someone else please look at these edits and provide some guidance to that editor? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:57, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

I've left a message on his talk page.Smerus (talk) 13:34, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
I've left one too, playing bad cop to Smerus's good cop and emphasising the copyvio and paid editing. See also my comments at Talk:Maxim Rysanov#Copyright problem removed. Any further additions of that material can be removed on sight and are exempt from the 3RR rule. I'll keep an eye on the article, but the more eyes the better. Voceditenore (talk) 15:06, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Felix Mendelssohn

I've put FM up for peer review with a view to getting comments which could enable it to be taken up to FA. All opinions highly welcome.-- Smerus (talk) 14:41, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

I've weighed in, further to some discussion we had on my talk page this June. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 15:13, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

RfC which may concern this wikiproject

Here! Thanks for your participation. 135.23.202.24 (talk) 00:15, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Sketch (music)

While editing a music article, I found that I wanted to create a link to an WP article that would give background on the sketches made by composers in the course of composing; these are especially famous in the case of Beethoven, but many other composers made sketches. Is there really no WP article on this topic, or am I not searching carefully enough? And if there is no article, might some qualified editor want to take this on? Opus33 (talk) 17:35, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

This was a great interest of mine some time ago. But in the context of Wikipedia, I wonder if there might be a broader article concerning creation from which "musical sketches" could be forked. Musical composition would seem like a logical choice, but there's no mention of sketches there. (One might think the article on Ludwig van Beethoven would have something since no other composer's sketches have produced such a cottage industry, but there's only one mention of the word "sketches".) There is an article for Sketchbook, but it is almost entirely biased toward graphic artists (which I feel should be emended to include composers). Related to that, the page Sketchbook (disambiguation) could use some editing (and include the two-word form "sketch book"). I would be interested in working on a musical sketches article, although I'm about to go on vacation for 10 days. I have a feeling that User:Jerome Kohl might also be interested. - kosboot (talk) 18:10, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
I am certainly interested, thanks for pinging me. I am not especially interested in starting such an article myself, but would be pleased to be involved in a joint effort, or else just to be a kibitzer ;-)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:25, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
We have some articles on works that only exist in sketch form, like Symphony No. 10 (Schubert), but you are right: this is a ridiculous omission and I have no idea how we all failed to notice it for this long. Thank you, Opus33! And I think Kosboot makes some good points too. Double sharp (talk) 04:57, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
Thank you, all three. For what it's worth I just consulted the New Grove on line and there is an article I liked, "Sketch" by Nicholas Marston. I would hesitate to plunge seriously into this super-specialist area myself but might try to create a short summary of Marston for a WP article, if no one else takes this on. Opus33 (talk)
I'd go for Sketch (music) as title, to avoid confusion with Sketch comedy, which is one of the WP:PRIMARY meanings of "sketch" in UK, and can include musical performances. E.g., this is a musical sketch (and IMO both very cruel and very funny).
(FWIW, de:Skizze is all about graphic art, and links to Sketch (drawing).) Narky Blert (talk) 01:13, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
PS include the sketches of Mahler 10 and Elgar 3, for starters. Narky Blert (talk) 01:36, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
PS2 Short score looks to me like a poor or insufficiently explained redirect. And, in the case of Symphony No. 10 (Mahler), is just plain wrong. There's a huge difference between a draft and a reduction. Narky Blert (talk) 02:44, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
To be fair, only the first two movements and the opening of the third of Mahler 10 exist in orchestral draft; the others only in reduction, mostly on four staves. Double sharp (talk) 11:19, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Ah, but they aren't reductions. There never was anything more detailed.
An article about musical sketches should also mention composers who composed in their head, and who did not write sketches. For example: Mozart, Saint-Saëns (I think I've heard), and Britten. Narky Blert (talk)
Thank you, Narky; I agree this should be included, and if you can think of sources I could look at for Saint-Saëns and Britten I'd appreciate it. For Mozart, you may be oversimplifying a bit -- I understand that he did skip the sketching when he wrote for solo piano, but for other genres there are lots of surviving sketches, even sketches for simple things like rounds and dances. (I learned about this while researching Mozart's compositional method, Difficile lectu, and Mozart and dance.) Regards, Opus33 (talk) 22:28, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
@Opus33: I remember Walton saying, or someone quoting Walton saying, that he'd never been properly trained because, unlike those three, he couldn't compose in his head.
This is, of course, a can of worms. Compare K. 580a and K. 618. Narky Blert (talk) 05:22, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

I put up a little draft article and I think I am giving up on it at least for now; since it's not an area where I know a lot. Hopefully others will make revisions or add more material (Editor FrancisSchonken already has.) Two items that seem important to me:

  1. . FrancisSchonken helpfully responded to my request to put reference sources on all contributions, and I hope this standard will be maintained.
  2. . I think it inconceivable that the need to remember (i.e., remember the tune you just made up) is not a reason that composers make sketches, but at present I can't source this claim (so many things seem to be too obvious for professional musicologists to say them!). FrancisSchonken rightly tagged it. If someone can find a source that would be great. Opus33 (talk) 18:37, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
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