Talk:Die Harmonie der Welt Symphony

Title

I'm not sure the current title, Die Harmonie der Welt Symphony, is the best choice. I'd like the French Wikipedia's approach fr:Die Harmonie der Welt (symphonie) better, because the current title is a mixture of German and English and not a title used by its publishers. I'd prefer Die Harmonie der Welt (symphony). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:01, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

I guess I'm not in favor of using just "(symphony)", since the title of the symphony is already different from the title of the opera: the word "symphony" is, in fact, used in the title of all the sources I've used. Now, I agree that there seems to be some confusion. In Symphony: Mathis der Maler, they used a colon. Schott used the German title and not the English one, as far as I know. However, they did use "The Symphony ‘Die Harmonie der Welt’", so I'm not sure what would be the best option here. In any case, there is a distinction made in both titles to refer to these two compositions in German, so I would oppose using symphony in parenthesis. Ron Oliver (talk) 19:16, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Well, if most scholarly sources give the title as "Die Harmonie der Welt Symphony", we have to go with that, although I'm not convinced they do. Bruhn is half-hearted, Bonds doesn't, hindemith.info uses ≪Symphonie „Die Harmonie der Welt“≫, as does Schott. Which sources use "Die Harmonie der Welt Symphony", a grating construct because of its language mixture. BTW, Mathis der Maler (symphony) was once the title of that article (which is remarkably poorly sourced) and that seems closer to hindemith.info's ≪"Symphonie „Mathis der Maler“≫ than the current name in 2 languages with a colon. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:56, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

I meant they used the word symphony in some way in order to tell these two works apart. As long as the word symphony remained as part of the title, I would not oppose. For instance, I would take your point if we were talking about Shéhérazade_(Ravel). However, there is a reason why The Firebird refers to the ballet and The Firebird Suite No. 1 doesn't. In that respect, Die Harmonie der Welt is not a nickname, like Symphony of a Thousand in the case of Symphony No. 8 (Mahler). In my opinion, the word symphony needs to be present as part of the title, not only because such a distinction is made in most reliable sources, but also because one work is derivative of the other and should not have the same title. Ron Oliver (talk) 18:14, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

My concern with the current title is about its grating mixture of German (Die Harmonie der Welt) and English (Symphony). My proposal is to move the article to Die Harmonie der Welt (symphony). Such a move would then also require a slight rephrasing of the 1st sentence, e.g. "Die Harmonie der Welt, IPH 50, is a symphony by German composer Paul Hindemith composed in 1951, which served as the basis for his opera Die Harmonie der Welt (1957)." If you think a wider discussion is needed, you might want to raise this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:51, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

I understand what you mean. My problem with it is that Die Harmonie der Welt is not the title of the symphony, but the title of the opera, so that statement would be slightly incorrect and need clarification right off the bat. As for the mixture of German and English, I agree it feels strange, but Die Harmonie der Welt has not been formally translated into English as far as I know. At this point, I believe we could use some extra help with this. Perhaps Symphony: Die Harmonie der Welt would be the middle ground position here? Ron Oliver (talk) 04:54, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

This meta-discussion is a little baffling - as though a medieval text were being analysed by nineteenth century scholars. Hindemith was, among other things, an American citizen when he composed this work. What did HE call it? I remember hearing an early live broadcast under Furtwangler in which the BBC (which in those days was world-class for pedantic accuracy) was happy to give (orally) the title as "Symphony -pause - "Die Harmonie der Welt"". All the same, this article tells us much more about the opera than the opera's own Wikipedia article - except that the third movement, according to the BBC at the time of the Furtwangler performance, was a passacaglia, and to me at any rate still sounds rather like one.Delahays (talk) 12:34, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

I provide my own reply. Schott's miniature score has ""Die Harmonie der Welt"Symphonie". The IMSLP list of Hindemith's works (they do not seem to allow you to download the score itself these days unless you are in Canada) has ""Die Harmonie der Welt" Symphony for Orchestra". Like it or not, both Schott and Hindemith seem to favour the opera's German title. But the IMSLP list, which presumably has been checked against Schott's catalogue, presents an informative solution and I can't see why it shouldn't be accepted. It makes clear that the Symphony is NOT the opera, which is exactly what a library catalogue should make clear. And - though no-one would say "Symphony for orchestra' in normal conversation, these days it's by no means to be taken for granted that anything calling itself a "symphony" is invariably a composition for full orchestra. If Hindemith had other views about the correctness of a possible title, he doesn't seem to have put them to Schott, who would probably not have ignored him.Delahays (talk) 22:01, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

The title page at IMSLP, from Schott 4061, reads: Symphonie „Die Harmonie der Welt“, as used in the article's 1st sentence, and which is exactly what hindemith.info uses and IMSLP gives that as "alternative title". After replacing the curly quotation marks with straight ones, I suggest the proper title for this article is Symphonie "Die Harmonie der Welt". This name is authoritatively sourced, and avoids the German/English mixture that we have now. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:33, 21 July 2022 (UTC)