Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music

Requested move at Talk:Mozart's name#Requested move 26 September 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Mozart's name#Requested move 26 September 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 04:51, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

"Notable" recordings

I often consult Wikipedia for factual information about classical music composers and compositions. I noticed that many articles about compositions have a section called "Notable recordings". I have been searching Wikipedia to find the criteria for what is considered a "notable" recording, but to no avail. Please enlighten me. 2A02:1810:2423:3700:836:4A9B:C7CB:89A4 (talk) 21:07, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

You may be asking the wrong question. Most notable recordings were put there by editors who either a) had favorite recordings they wanted to include, or b) had opinions on which recordings were notable. Better-written articles will cite sources that establish notability for a certain batch of recordings. For instance Frédéric Chopin#Recordings cites this NYT article, which is a collation of choices from various established music critics. Another example, Josquin des Prez#Skepticism and revision cites 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die, a generally well-regarded publication.

So there's no Wikipedia criteria; we used reliable sources to establish notability, us usual, but given that millions of articles remain in a poor state, many do not follow suit. Aza24 (talk) 01:58, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

In articles I write, there's no "notable" nor "selected", but both words seem to indicate that the list is not complete, which may be a given for anyone with many recordings. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:31, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

For context, the IP user is probably referring to this edit on the Symphony No. 4 (Brahms) article (which is a good edit), since it's the only edit I could find in the /64 range that looks related. Out of curiosity, I checked out some of the other symphony articles from the top section of the {{Johannes Brahms}} template, and couldn't find any other instances of "notable recordings". Without further context or explanation, this post at face value comes across as a grievance against the format of one individual article that probably was built by a less-experienced editor in terms of familiarity with encyclopedic structure and writing. That Symphony #4 section appeared to be just a random indiscriminate unsourced list, whereas the two examples cited above by Aza24 contain meaningful heavily-sourced encyclopedic prose. As to Gerda Arendt's point, if there are concerns about the inherent incompleteness of a certain list type, then it may be appropriate to use the {{dynamic list}} notice in such situations. Left guide (talk) 12:03, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Discussion of interest

Project members may want to participate in this discussion: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers#Tabulating and ranking lists of composers – Aza24 (talk) 21:46, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Chamber Music Northwest

Chamber Music Northwest has been nominated for deletion, if any project members are interested in discussing or improving the article:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chamber Music Northwest

---Another Believer _(Talk) 19:49, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Künstlerleben

Hi all,

Looking for someone from this WikiProject to have a look at Künstlerleben; the entire article appears to have been lifted from "original text by Peter Kemp, The Johann Strauss Society of Great Britain. Used with permission." Nowhere does the article say what this original text is or provide any lroof of permission so the article will need a total and complete rewrite (the article itself is very peacock-y and has no other sources at all).

It is very clearly a notable topic, being a Strauss II waltz, so I'm loathe to bring it to AfD which would have been my first call if notability was unclear. CoconutOctopus talk 19:53, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

When you added {{Copypaste}} to the article, you didn't specify |url=, so it's impossible to verify any copy/paste. As it stands, the article ought to be tagged with {{Unreferenced}} instead. As you mentioned, AfD is inappropriate. Similar to thousands of other articles, this one needs improving. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:48, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

FA edits

I noticed today an unusual amount of edits to composer's featured articles, many of them being the first edits from newly created accounts. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but seemed weird. See Carl Nielsen, Francis Poulenc, Hector Berlioz, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Robert Schumann...

Some edits do not seem to match the quality expected for a FA, hopefully a more experienced editor can take a look. Some have been already reverted. — Gor1995 𝄞 22:07, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I looked. For Poulenc, there was one edit of many changes, some good, others less so. I explained the problem to the new editor, saying that all might be reverted if they didn't fix the problems. Schumann: an IP at work, wanting to add Tchaikovsky's view. I reverted that once, but IP brought it back, and now someone else fixed small unrelated formatting errors which makes reverting more complicated. I'd appreciate if someone else did it. The other three articles looked under control when I checked. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:48, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

ps: the same IP tried similar things for Schumann's Paradise and the Peri. Please watch that also for returning attempts. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:54, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Are these the edits made by the user Jevansen? They have made category changes to hundreds of articles.- 03:11, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Cleanup suitable for someone new to WP?

Hello everyone! I'm a pretty new editor with too much free time and a personal passion for classical music (I haven't formally studied it, though). Does anyone have any recommendations for getting started on improving WP's classical music coverage? Thanks, /home/gracen/ (yell at me here) 22:42, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Welcome! After getting familiar with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, a great way to start is by improving stub articles, specially on your favorite topics. Check out featured classical music articles for examples of high-quality work. You could also try fixing some articles with issues (see Tools to do the same for related Wikiprojects). — Gor1995 𝄞 01:07, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply and the tools! I suppose I'll just WP:BEBOLD and make some changes :) /home/gracen/ (yell at me here) 03:34, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

A caution is that web material on classical music is often wrong or out of date. If you can access Grove Music Online through your public or university library, you will have access to a source that, although not always fully detailed, is usually pretty reliable. Failing that, searching on Google Books or Google Scholar will usually get you better material than just regular Google. I hope this helps. Opus33 (talk) 22:36, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Proper movement titles of Tartini's 'Devil's Trill Sonata'

I am attempting to upload a recording of Tartini's 'Devil's Trill Sonata' (licensed under CC BY 3.0) to Wikimedia Commons so it can be used in the piece's Wikipedia article. However, I have encountered a problem: I'm not quite sure what the individual movements should be listed as.

I've cut the piece into its 4 movements, and I'd like to include the name of each movement in the corresponding file name, and changing a file name on Wikimedia Commons after it's been uploaded is a bit of a pain in the ass. But different sources give different descriptions of each movement.

The article on the piece lists the 4 movements (without citing a source) as:

I. Larghetto ma non troppo
II. Allegro moderato
III. Andante
IV. Allegro assai — Andante — Allegro assai

The 4 scores from IMSLP (1, 2, 3, 4) describe the 4 movements variously as:

I. Larghetto affectuoso
II. Tempo guisto (presumably meant to be "giusto"; some also include "della Scuola Tartinista")
III. Andante
IV. Allegro assai — Andante — Allegro assai — Andante — Allegro assai — Adagio (sometimes with "Trillo del diavolo al pie de letto" or just "trillo del diavolo" mixed in)

The recording I'm using (linked above) lists (in the video itself, not timestamped) only 3 movements (combining movements 3 and 4) as:

I. Larghetto ma non troppo
II. Allegro moderato
III. Grave — Allegro assai

And to top it all off, I left a comment on the video over a year ago (when I first found the recording) listing timestamps for 4 movements as:

I. Larghetto affectuoso
II. Allegro
III. Grave
IV. Allegro assai

(Not sure what my source was for that comment; I thought I looked through a score on IMSLP to find them, but going back over them now, I guess not?)

Do any of you know what each movement should be called, or what would be the most accurate? I'm pretty sure movements that bounce between various tempos shouldn't have more than 3 tempo terms in the title, so is the Wikipedia title for movement 4 correct? What about the others?

Any help with this is greatly appreciated.

Thanks. Toast for Teddy (talk) 01:17, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

The Decca Ring

I put together an article a couple of years ago about this milestone in the history of recording and was helped by advice here about how to title it. After a little buffing I've now put it up as a Good Article nominee. If any music lover who sees this would like to review it I'd be most grateful. Tim riley talk 12:22, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

My schedule will be become much freer around the 27th next week, so if no one else gets to it by then, I'd be happy to step in. Aza24 (talk) 19:26, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Splendid! Thank you. I'll keep my fingers crossed. Tim riley talk 20:25, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

List of classical music composers by era

Dear colleagues, there is an ongoing discussion at Talk:List of classical music composers by era. This list, with no sources and very unconventional formatting has been WP:BLARed with repeated reversals. More eyes might be helpful. Викидим (talk) 21:04, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Added {{uw-ew}} to the offending user's talk page. Sorry you've been caught up in this nonsense. /home/gracen/ (they/them) 21:22, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Proposed split on Clavier Ubung III

I have proposed that we split the article on the Clavier-Übung III by J.S. Bach into multiple sub articles. Please comment on the talk page NightWolf1223 <Howl at me•My hunts> 01:35, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Henry VIII

Henry VIII has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 23:13, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Feedback on sheetmusicx.com links?

Over the past month, John40332 has been adding to various classical music articles links to a music publisher called SheetMusicX. They are a publisher of public domain material, similar to IMSLP except that SheetMusicX is a for-profit business. Because this editor's recent edits consisted only of adding links to this publisher, it raised concerns of WP:REFSPAM. The matter has since turned into a bit of a back and forth. Even in instances where I've added links to the official publishers of various scores, this editor insists on including links to SheetMusicX. They have told me that they simply want to share links to public domain scores, but edits such as this which remove IMSLP in favor of SheetMusicX again raises concerns.

Perhaps my perception of these links as spam is incorrect, for which I sincerely apologize. I've tried to talk over the matter with the other editor, but to no avail. I'd very much like to get feedback from other classical music editors on what they think about SheetMusicX and this user's recent edits. Thank you. —CurryTime7-24 (talk) 07:53, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

You have hounded every single edit I've made. I provided correct, neutral information in my contributions and always cited reliable sources. First you said the publisher was "obscure", turns out they are active for 15 years (several links were provided and you ignored it). IMSLP wasn't removed in favor of SheetMusicX, you were asked to make your edits without deleting other people's contributions. The same could be said of you removing SheetMusicX in favor of Fidelio Music, maybe you're affiliated with them? John40332 (talk) 07:57, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any value in adding a sentence to compositions like "The score [and parts] was[/were] published by …" unless that is historically significant. Normally, an external link a publisher is enough. I only looked at 2 affected articles, a) Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1 (Shostakovich), and b) Carmen Fantasie (Waxman). In a), John added a sentence as described above, that didn't fit in the article's narration and it was reverted by CurryTime. A link to Boosey & Hawkes would have been preferable because their page also contains performance details. The situation at b) is much worse where the result of an edit war is the omission of (a slightly dubious) free handwritten score at IMSLP in favour of a $1,075 score at SheetmusicX. Again, I don't generally see any need to mention in an article's body the publisher(s); if their pages contain work details, they can be listed in external links. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 08:46, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

I noticed several reports for sheetmusicx.com at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports, summarised in Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/Local/sheetmusicx.com. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 08:55, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Situation b) wasn't an ommission of IMSLP, CurryTime removed what I added to include IMSLP only. I undid his edit and wrote in the comment section that he can make his contribution to the article without removing other people's contributions. He has been WP:HOUNDING me and chases every edit I make, this has nothing to do with what I added but him feeling like he owns the articles and that users have to consult him beforehand. John40332 (talk) 08:56, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

You're right; it wasn't an omission but you removed the IMSLP link. I can't see how that puts your edit in a better light. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 15:30, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Because I didn't click to remove IMSLP, I clicked to undo his edit, since he can add IMSLP to the article without deleting my contribution. He did the same a dozen times to my contributions for which he complained about the cited sources, and instead of discussing the source he removed everything. In some articles I included the full orchestration, he just wiped it and moved on to my other contributions and did the exact same thing, that had nothing to do with the sources I used or "I'm wiping it in good faith".

He will likely complain that I touched Tahiti Trot, because apparently Shostakovich articles belong to him and nobody can touch it without his consent. Boosey & Hawkes showed there's 1 Flute, 1 Piccolo. MAPESU Music showed there's 1 Flute, 1 Piccolo. I have the score on my hand, there's 1 Flute, 1 Piccolo. CurryTime7-24 doesn't like sources that aren't his own much less on his well guarded articles. John40332 (talk) 16:24, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Spam is spam. Stop spamming pages with unaffiliated commercial sites. If you keep making spammy edits, it's not hounding to follow you to remove them. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:30, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

A link to the publisher isn't spam, just because he called it spam doesn't make it so, it added relevant information for each article. It's WP:PUBLISHED and WP:SOURCEDEF, it doesn't get more verifiable than a publisher of the work in question. John40332 (talk) 13:45, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Links to commercial publishers are almost always spam, unless it's of historical significance or they are the copyright holders. Works without copyright are available on scores (SCNR) of web sites. Incidentally and apropos Waxman, all your edits, except one, since 23 November 2024 consisted of adding links to SheetmusicX – that's what we call a single-purpose account. I am not suggesting you have a conflict of interest, but you clearly conduct advocacy of sorts, and most editors take a dim view of that. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 15:30, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

I took a look at the edit record and I definitely come down on the side of CurryTime, Michael Bednarek, and Melodia Chaconne. WP has to defend itself against commercial exploitation, so perhaps the admin authorities might consider a block if this continues. Opus33 (talk) 17:59, 28 December 2024 (UTC)