Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music

Richard McKay

Could someone from this WikIProject take a look at Richard McKay? Article was created directly in the mainspace by new account with their first edit, and it has already been tagged with {{Notablity}} and {{UPE}}. I'm not sure whether the subject meets WP:NMUSICIAN; so, it would probably be a good idea for someone more experienced in articles about conductors take a look at this to see whether the subject is at least Wikipedia notable. If they are, then perhaps any promotional text can be cleaned up. The article also needs categories. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:03, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

I disagree that the article isn't adequately sourced - the Dallas Morning News and Dallas News would seem to qualify in that regard. If anything, it's OVER sourced in places. The tone's not as NPOV as one would hope, but it seems a perfectly cromulent topic for an article.. PianoDan (talk) 14:21, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Update: the article was draftified as Draft:Richard McKay by MER-C for being "covert advertising". MER-C also subsequently indefinitely blocked its creator for similar reasons. Others might disagree, perhaps, but it did kind of had the feel of something that was created by someone with a strong COI and maybe even for undisclosed payments. -- Marchjuly (talk) 20:47, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

@Marchjuly and PianoDan: I've taken an axe to the "reception" section since it was filled with vague puffery, though as my edit summary says, anyone can feel to re-write and restore it with proper encyclopedic tone. On balance, the article subject is probably notable by Wikipedia's standards. Most major US city symphony conductors seem to receive decent secondary coverage; a cursory Google search turns up sources like this. Left guide (talk) 09:58, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

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)