Talk:Dies Natalis (cantata)

Move

I truly hope I haven't stepped on any toes with this move, since this group of articles was obviously crafted with care. It's just that I don't see the cantata as meeting the criteria for primary topic. There are more articles that link to the concept in ancient Rome (which is incubating as a potential article at Glossary of ancient Roman religion#dies natalis), as I discovered when I searched "dies natalis," or that use the phrase for the saint's day (see Calendar of saints), which is an early Christian adaptation of the Roman commemoration). Cynwolfe (talk) 19:43, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I think that a better title is Dies Natalis (Finzi), like Requiem (Verdi), Requiem (Mozart) and Requiem (Fauré). Mathsci (talk) 23:31, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Shall I move it and fix the redirects now, or wait for other opinions? Cynwolfe (talk) 23:43, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

(ec) As far as I know, the distinction by composer, is only applied if there are several compositions of the same name, as in Requiem. But look at Lohengrin (opera). - Dies natalis is better Latin, like Missa brevis, - as long as it's not English, I don't see why English title capitalisation should be applied. Therefore my title would be Dies natalis (cantata), --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:47, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

ps: can we first discuss? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:48, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

The Boosey & Hawkes edition uses capitalisation on the cover, but "Dies natalis" in the text. Organ concertos, Op.4 (Handel), Organ concertos, Op.7 (Handel), Concerti grossi, Op. 6 (Handel) are examples. There are no other organ concertos Op. 4 or 7 although there are the Twelve concerti grossi, Op. 6 (Corelli). I don't particularly like the title with cantata in brackets. Mathsci (talk) 00:14, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

This is interesting. I tend to use lowercase Latin titles because that's what I'm used to, but I would've sworn I was flying under the radar contrary to consensus: see De Legibus (actually all the titles at the list of Cicero's works, though the actual article titles are inconsistent), De Civitate Dei. So Dies natalis, then? And wouldn't a difference be that concerto grosso is not a proper noun, but rather a form? (I see that List of concerti grossi is not consistent.) When I search Googlebooks for Finzi + "dies natalis", I get mixed results: some capitalize the N (that is, they treat it as a proper title and capitalize according to English style), some not. Again, when a consensus is reached I'm happy to fix the little mess I impetuously made, and I have no opinion beyond needing to disambiguate. Cynwolfe (talk) 01:37, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

In the published letters of Gerald Finzi and Howard Ferguson, Finzi writes "Dies Natalis" in his letters to "Fergie". Sometimes he writes just "Dies". The texts of Traherne are in English, so the title was Finzi's own creation. It's not really comparable to "Missa brevis", etc. It's probably closer in many ways to Requiem (Britten) which is anyway a redirect to War Requiem. Or more to the point Missa Brevis (Britten), which is not a redirect. Mathsci (talk) 03:26, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

If Finzi wrote Natalis, that should be used, sure. If the title (!) of Britten's piece has Brevis, that is correct, - as long as a general Missa brevis will stay lowercase, similar to Organ concerto. We have both dabs, (cantata) and (Finzi), for the search function, the question is only which is the article and which the redirect, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:32, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Not sure where we are on this. If we stick with the capital N, then it's clear that it's a title, so having the disambiguator (cantata) doesn't create the impression that a dies natalis is a kind of cantata. If (Finzi) is the disambiguator, then either style of capitalization could be used. So it's more a matter of which disambiguator is more commonly used with titles of musical works that are the same for various composers. Other options can be created as redirects (we still have one red link above, for instance). In either case, the Dies natalis part should be italicized, and I would have to look up how to do a partially italicized title, since I can't recall doing one before. Cynwolfe (talk) 00:20, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

It is just like italicising any text on WP, cf BWV 152 or BWV 105. Mathsci (talk) 02:06, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

It's the "display title" template I needed, since {{Italictitle}} is what I usually use to italicize the entire article title. Thanks. But first, what did the two of you decide about what this article's title should be? Cynwolfe (talk) 03:44, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia, no single people can "decide". We have both ways now, it can stay that way, if you ask me, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:50, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't understand your curt tone, but I am indeed asking you and anyone else who cares to "decide", since any edit results from a decision. If an editor or group of editors doesn't "decide," no action is taken. But I'm not trying to decide anything. I took a bold action in moving the article when I hadn't contributed to it, but I'm trying to respond to the views of those who are better informed about the stylistic issues regarding similar titles of music compositions. I'm happy to move it again if that's the consensus of editors who watch the article. You can have redirects for any number of other likely search terms, but only one can appear at the top of the page as the article title. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:46, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry that you probably got my tone wrong. (I don't know "curt", English is not my first language.) What else can I say than repeat that the current situation - the title with two capitals, as the composer wrote it, "(cantata)" to distinguish from the broader meaning of the Latin phrase, a redirect for the same with the composer's name - can stay, if you ask me, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:41, 18 January 2013 (UTC)