Talk:Anthony Payne/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Tim riley (talk · contribs) 11:20, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Review

Comments after first read-through

This article is clearly of high quality, and has the potential to go to FAC; I am therefore being as pernickety as I can. Some of my comments below are not strictly related to the GAN criteria (and so are doubtless ultra vires) but I hope they will be useful nonetheless.

Lead

Besides opera, his own works include – This needs to make it clear that he didn't write an opera, and I suggest something like "Apart from opera…".

Definitely better your way

he made significant contributions to orchestral and choral repertoire – what did they signify? Gowers says of "significant": "This is a good and useful word, but it has a special flavour of its own and it should not be thoughtlessly used as a mere variant of important, considerable, appreciable, or quite large". I think you want "substantial" or some such here.

Hmmm good catch—I've just shared this helpful characterization with a friend of mine....

Born in London, Payne studied music at Dulwich College – Hmm. This reads as though that's all he studied at Dulwich, whereas the main text tells us that it was a small part of his studies there (as one would expect at an English public school).

Indeed, changed to "first seriously studied music at Durham University", though there may be a better option available.

English poets, particularly … Thomas – I doubt if Thomas would have thanked you for calling him English. "British poets" might be safer here. I'm not sure "Thomas" tout court will do for the poet in question here, blue link notwithstanding. The first poet with the surname Thomas who leaps to mind when I read the name is not Edward but Dylan.

Changed, I'm regrettably not familiar with these poets as much as I should be...

Youth and education (1936–1964)

experienced classical music from a radio recording of Brahms's Symphony No. 1. – the source doesn't say it was a recording. It could equally well have been a live concert broadcast. (A little detective work in the Radio Times leads me to think that the performance was by the BBC Northern Orchestra conducted by Charles Groves, but even it if was, the Radio Times doesn't say if the performance was live or recorded.)

An oversight on my part—changed to "broadcast". Ugh, it would be great to include the conductor and orchestra...

No, I'd say. I am confident there was only one BBC broadcast of Brahms 1 in the 12 months after AP's tenth birthday, but who cares? The work is what matters. I am leaving you a note on your talk page with irrelevant but possibly pleasing detail on this point. Tim riley talk 18:54, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

working with musicologist Peter Evans – as the article is in BrE it would be as well to eschew the clunky AmE/tabloidese false title and call him "the musicologist Peter Evans".

Indeed!

largely ceased composition activities – in plain words he largely stopped composing.

Simplified as such

Emerging composer (1965–1980)

An acclaimed work – who says it was acclaimed?

No one, least of all me (rather a clunky work when I listened to it)

due to it being – this is not the Queen's English. In the first place "due to" is not accepted in formal BrE as a compound preposition on a par with "owing to", and in the second "it being" ought to be "its being" as the second word is a gerund. Better to use plain words such as "because it is"

Thanks—I'm (demonstrably) ill-informed of the Queen's English

Payne was married, in 1966, to the soprano Jane Manning – he was married to her in every subsequent year of his life, too. A simple "In 1966 Payne married the soprano Jane Manning" would be clearer.

Changed

in which a synthesis of the aria and toccata forms in dominated – a typo? Should the second "in" be "is"?

Yes!

a house in Islington, where they lived until at least 2013, but presumably until the end of his life – I see from Ancestry.uk that Manning and Payne both died in Islington, and so I think you can reasonably dispense with the "at least" and "presumably". The website of our local Islington paper seems to confirm that Payne was an Islingtonian to the last. [Afterthought: I don't know if last week's Prom tribute to AP mentioned in the article is worth a mention, but you may like to consider.]

Thanks for more detective work—I've removed "presumably" in the text but kept it in the note

all texts by English figures: …. The Sea of Glass (1977, text from the Book of Revelation) – I don't think St John the Divine was an English figure (I also don't think he wrote the book, but that's another matter). I take it that Payne used the King James version, and I suppose that's a text "by English figures", but even so…

Changed, but I may have made it clunky

English Romanticism (1981–1992)

His subsequent compositional output throughout the 1980s was largely non-unified—genre-wise – eh? Does this mean he wrote in various genres?

Simplified

1985/6 – the MoS would have you write this as 1985–86.

Changed

New South Wales, Australia – if you're going to tell us that New South Wales is in Australia, you'd better also explain to us that California is in the USA.

Indeed.... (removed)

his wife, the soprano Jane Manning – you've already told us who his wife was and what she did for a living.

Simplified; I think originally I had an awkward "personal life" section so had to introduce her here

music by Purcell, Elgar, Frank Bridge, Grainger, Webern, Schoenberg and Maxwell Davies – not sure why Bridge is given his first name and the others are not.

Standardized

to represent the enormity of the subject – a strange use of the word "enormity" – the OED has it as meaning "extreme or monstrous wickedness" rather than mere bigness.

Urgh, but its such a great word! Hmm, changed to immensity

Elgar's Third Symphony (1993–1997)

Payne's realisation – if you insist on "characterized" and "individualized" (a thoroughly outdated usage in BrE, though the Oxford University Press is still clinging to the old -ize forms) then why write "realisation"?

Changed the other two

sketches for Edward Elgar's incomplete Third Symphony … When Edward Elgar died – perhaps we can be on surname terms the second time?

Done

the sketches would come out of copyright anyways – I had to look "anyways" up. The OED says "Chiefly North American (colloquial and regional)". And it is not needed here: the sentence is just as clear without it.

Removed

Hall, London by Andrew Davis and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. – You might give Davis his title here. (And in the list of recordings his title comes and goes seemingly at random.)

Adjusted all

with philosopher Roger Scruton declaring it … – why quote a philosopher? His opinions on music are about as valuable as, say, Nigel Kennedy's opinions on Schopenhauer, or Lang Lang's views on Plato. Plenty of professional music critics to quote, surely?

Well, while not a critic, Scruton is rather established as an authority on the philosophy of music (see The Aesthetics of Music), but if you insist, I have no issue removing the remark, I included it only because I enjoyed the characterization

It is beyond my powers here to "insist", but I'll give you a hard time if the fatuous Scruton is still here when you come to FAC. I'm sure you can find a better quote from a WP:RS. Tim riley talk 21:12, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Later career and death (1998–2021)

Payne found initially difficulty – strange phrasing. One would expect "initially found" rather than "found initially"

General character

Payne began to more readily engage with more modernist aesthetics, looking for musical content by more narrow means. A lot of mores. Less is more, as the saying goes.

Removed the first two

Aside from opera – the BrE idiom is "apart from", not "aside from".

Adjusted

Though on composing Payne said "Still, you do it for love, don’t you?" – It doesn't bother me, but this is not a sentence, and grammatically should run on from "He was forced to supplement…"

Have attempted to smooth over

Legacy and reputation

his straddling between the worlds – does one straddle between worlds rather than just straddle them?

I sure hope not!

described Payne as "a quiet but thoughtful presence in British music always strikes me as a kind of anchorage in sanity, confirming the continuing life of trusted values". The quote disturbs the syntax of the sentence and needs [which] or [that] in the quote, immediately before "always".

Good catch, added a "that"

Payne made significant contributions – as above: what did they signify?

Fixed

Notes

Note 9 could do with a citation.

Added

That's all from my first perusal. The article seems to me of, or approaching, FA rather than just GA standard (with one exception: you wouldn't get away with "Selected" recordings at FAC, though they are fine for GAN, where completeness is not a requirement.)

Over to you. I shan't bother putting the review on formal hold unless you'd prefer me to. – Tim riley talk 11:20, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Have addressed everything, I believe. I'm happy to remove the Scruton quote, but I left my (rather weak) rationale for its use above. On BrE, I am—perhaps unfortunately!—American, so my attempts to utilize BrE are poor, as is apparent. I do have one further query for you, do you think it is criminal to say "his own works" in the lead? What I mean is, the Elgar symphony seems to be a great deal by Payne, so I wonder if saying "his own works" (and thus differentiating the Elgar symphony from Payne's "own work") does injustice to that—or perhaps I'm overthinking? Aza24 (talk) 20:26, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The "own works" seems impeccable to me. As to your difficulty in dealing with BrE I sympathise (or sympathize): I have ventured into AmE from time to time, e.g. with Cole Porter and Jerome Kern, where my friend and colleague Ssilvers has rescued me from inadvertent Anglicisms. Bed-time now, and I shall give the article one last read-through tomorrow before getting out the silver scissors in hopeful readiness for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Tim riley talk 21:28, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

All is fine now (though the "Payne found initially difficulty" could still do with tweaking). I have much pleasure in promoting the article to GA:

Concluding the review

Is it reasonably well written?
A. Prose quality:

B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:
Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
A. References to sources:
Well referenced.

B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:
Well referenced.

C. No original research:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. Major aspects:

B. Focused:
Is it neutral?
Fair representation without bias:
Is it stable?
No edit wars, etc:
Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:
Well illustrated.

B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
Well illustrated.
Overall:
Pass or Fail: