Talk:List of Italian composers

Should be organized by date of birth

The composers on this list need to be organized by date of birth within each section. —S.dedalus (talk • contribs) 05:42, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Both orderings are useful. There's now a "See also" wikilink to Chronological list of Italian classical composers. —Patrug (talk) 01:40, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Composers missing

What about Luigi Nono? —58.179.38.181 (talk) 11:19, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, what about Ottorino Respighi? —Jpholly (talk • contribs) 23:43, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Where is VIVALDI?! Where is SCARLATTI? (Hope I've added this correctly, as it's my first ever Wikipedia input. Despite browsing the Help, I don't find it particularly intuitive, and would appreciate some advice please.) —Terrypin999 (talk • contribs) 07:06, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

How about Nicola Piovani? —Wikeppe (talk • contribs) 00:51, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Belated thanks. All these composers are now included. (Anyone should feel free to edit the list anytime, to add any appropriate articles alphabetically.) This list should eventually include most of the names from Chronological list of Italian classical composers and from Category:Italian composers and its subcategories. —Patrug (talk) 01:40, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Classification of Italian composers

Hi Patrug,

Please, read the article: Giovanni Henrico Albicastro.

"He might be classified as a Bavarian-born composer of Italian music that was published in both the Protestant and Catholic Low Countries."

I think the most relevant point of view in their triple identity when classifying him is the musical style.

So I think he can be classified as an Italian composer.

Best regards, --Randushkesh (talk) 07:01, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

@Randushkesh: Thanks for your note. I enjoyed reading about Mr. Weissenburg/Albicastro. However, List of Italian composers does not refer to musical style. The first sentence clearly limits it to "composers from Italy" — so, he doesn't qualify. (Mozart composed some wonderful Italian operas, but this doesn't make him an Italian composer, either!) —Patrug (talk) 07:52, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Dear Patrug,

Thanks for the clarification.

Best regards, --Randushkesh (talk) 09:27, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Carlo Gesualdo

Hi Patrug,

Please, see the short biography of Carlo Gesualdo in the List of Italian composers: he is a "chromatic madrigalist, nobleman, murderer". Really, he had a tragic life but I think it is not so characteristic to him to be mentioned in a 4 word short biography ... What do you think about deleting the 4th word ? --Randushkesh (talk) 16:00, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

@Randushkesh: Thanks very much for your helpful updates to the list. As for Gesualdo, researchers seem to agree that the double homicide is one of the most notable facts about him. It had a strong influence on his musical career; it was very widely publicized; it's usually mentioned in even his shortest descriptions; it's at least as significant as "nobleman"; and it's been accepted in Wikipedia's List of Italian composers for almost 10 years by more than 100 editors. I think we should interpret this as consensus for keeping the information, though I'll change "murderer" to "killer" since the court concluded it wasn't officially murder. Hope this helps. —Patrug (talk) 23:04, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Tragedy of Mr Gesualdo: understood, thank you for the change. --Randushkesh (talk) 12:55, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Alphabetical sorting

As for the ordering of Mr Dall'Oglio: "Dall" is just a preposition so I think he should be ordered under "O". --Randushkesh (talk) 12:55, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

@Randushkesh: Different families have used different styles in different centuries in different Italian regions, so there's not really a consistent rule. I think we can usually judge from the person's WP article. In this case, the article always calls him dall'Oglio, and its Persondata template calls him Dall'Oglio, and DefaultSort alphabetizes him as DallOglio — he's never just Oglio. So, the List also shows him under D. The same is true for Dall'Abaco, so I just moved him to D, too. The opposite is true for composers like Giovanni de' Bardi, so he stays under B. If you're interested, a long & inconclusive discussion is archived here. —Patrug (talk) 09:18, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Dear Patrug,

"Dall'Abaco" is not a single word. These are 2 words separated by an apostrophe rather than a space because "dall" is an abbreviated form of "dalla"/"dallo" when they precede a vowel. "Dall" means "from" in English. It is just a preposition.

So, I think it is a better practice to order such names according to the noun part of them dismissing the preposition.

The French, the German and the Hungarian follow that way. --Randushkesh (talk) 16:08, 5 September 2015 (UTC)--Randushkesh (talk) 12:09, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

@Randushkesh: I understand the grammar, but I don't think we should impose an arbitrary rule about people's names. Some of my own relatives are the "De Giovanni" family from Italy, and they are always listed with the full surname starting with De, never called or listed under "Giovanni". When necessary, they write the name as one word "DeGiovanni" or even "Degiovanni" to make sure it's alphabetized under D and not G. Likewise, the Italian scholar Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi and the Swiss athlete Patric Della Rossa are consistently alphabetized under D, the French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen is always under L, the Dutch-American actor Dick Van Dyke is always under V, the Irish musician Mick O'Brien is always under O, and many similar cases. Also, there are medieval Italian names like Gherardello da Firenze which use a hometown rather than a true family name, and these are generally alphabetized by the first name (G in this example, not F).

When a Wikipedia biographical article uses a name that is treated consistently by the editors who have studied the reference sources about that person, I think our List should respect their decision for alphabetizing the name, unless we establish a general policy for English Wikipedia that overrides the informed decision of those editors — or would you be interested in organizing a more-general policy discussion? The current consensus says:

"Names with particles or prefixes are a complex field and there are exceptions and inconsistencies. Examples of particles are al, de, della, di, dos, du, el, la, and von. Whether or not to include the particle in sorting can be up to the individual's personal preference, traditional cultural usage, or the customs of one's nationality." See many more details at WP:SUR and its Talk page and its lengthy archives. —Patrug (talk) 19:22, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Dear Patrug,

I know this problem is deeply embedded in those languages using prefixes in their names.

As I see even the Italian order Mr Dall'Abaco under "D".

However, I don't think we have to follow their bad practice.

I think we have to consider if the etymology of the name is already forgotten so it is no more a composite of a preposition and a noun but it is one word "as is".

In such cases the name is written in one word without any separator: "Dallapiccola", "Degiovanni", "Dubois", "Duparc", "Duport", "Dupré", "Lebrun", "Leclair", etc.

In those cases when the etymology is still obvious I think better to dismiss the prefix.

Otherwise most of the French and Italian names will be ordered under "D". --Randushkesh (talk) 08:13, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

@Randushkesh: And alphabetical lists of Irish names have large concentrations under Mc and O' — a world of 7 billion people is a messy place! But even if you think this is "bad practice" for sorting, it's part of the current standard for English Wikipedia, according to the consensus of the senior editors who created WP:SUR, currently stating: "there are exceptions and inconsistencies... Whether or not to include the particle in sorting can be up to the individual's personal preference, traditional cultural usage, or the customs of one's nationality." If you'd like to propose any revisions to the WP standard, I'd encourage you to discuss with those editors at Wikipedia talk:Categorization of people. For now, I've added a link to WP:SUR so that all editors of List of Italian composers will at least be aware of these guidelines. —Patrug (talk) 09:56, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Dear Patrug,

I am not enough courageous to initiate a conversation with such high authorities.

I am afraid of being not enough diplomatic to find the proper way how to make such a suggestion.

Would you be so kind, please, to suggest them to include the "dall" preposition in the exceptions list ?

Thank you in advance. --Randushkesh (talk) 10:59, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

@Randushkesh: OK, I just added "dall" & "o" — let's see if they stay! —Patrug (talk) 22:26, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you very much ! --Randushkesh (talk) 22:32, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Patrug,

How long we have to wait for your change to the exceptions list gets confirmed ?

Will be an explicit confirmation ? --Randushkesh (talk) 09:12, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

@Randushkesh: No confirmation, but no waiting, either! Three weeks ago, I added "dall" & "o" to the exceptions list on WP:SUR and added the guideline to List of Italian composers. Nobody has removed or changed either of these additions, so it seems they were uncontroversial. Thanks again for the original suggestion. —Patrug (talk) 10:18, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

I thank you for managing this issue :) --Randushkesh (talk) 10:25, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

(Edit summary:) please follow WP consensus as we discussed... —Patrug (talk) 07:49, 4 October 2015‎

Dear Patrug,

I am afraid, I cannot understand you. I thought there was a consensus in the above question. --Randushkesh (talk) 11:00, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

The misunderstanding may be in the relevance of the exceptions list: it may have the opposite meaning than expected.

Then, I think, I have to ask you for removing the "dall" prefix from the exceptions list ... --Randushkesh (talk) 07:55, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

@Randushkesh: The exceptions list isn't a separate "rule"; it just calls for case-by-case judgments in these complex cases. This is the longstanding consensus of the senior editors of English Wikipedia who agreed on the WP:SUR guidelines, as I tried to summarize at the top of List of Italian composers. I really think it's more productive just to keep expanding the list, rather than telling Italians how you would prefer to alphabetize our names! —Patrug (talk) 22:32, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Dear @Patrug: I do not want to change the habits of the Italian.

But I do not think we have to follow their illogical way of sorting their names.

I thought there was a consensus between you and me on the proper way would be to sort Mr Dall'Abaco under "A".

As I understood (maybe misunderstood) the only counterargument against doing so was the "Dall" prefix was not included in the WP:SUR exceptions list.

Then you included it.

And now the situation is still the same as was before: the logical ordering is not conform with the WP:SUR guideline ... ? --Randushkesh (talk) 15:58, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

@Randushkesh: Dozens of editors of English Wikipedia focused on Evaristo Felice Dall'Abaco and created his article with title, text, PersonData & DefaultSort that consistently start his name with D. (As you observed, the editors of Italian Wikipedia agree, too.) We should interpret this as a strong consensus by the editors who researched the particular case of this composer. His son Giuseppe spent much of his career in England and adopted the name Joseph Abaco, so dozens of editors of English Wikipedia consistently start his name with A. This is also a strong consensus. The WP:SUR guideline accepts that "there are exceptions and inconsistencies. Whether or not to include the particle in sorting can be up to the individual's personal preference, traditional cultural usage, or the customs of one's nationality." This is why Evaristo is under D and his son Giuseppe/Joseph is under A, consistent with the WP:SUR guideline, and consistent with the consensus by the editors of each composer's article. I hope this father-&-son example makes it a little clearer how Wikipedia wants us to do the sorting. —Patrug (talk) 07:58, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

@Patrug: Yours is one of 2 possible approaches.

The name "Dall'Abaco" physically starts with D and logically starts with A.

The editors of enwiki and itwiki follow the 1st way, the editors of dewiki, frwiki and huwiki follow the 2nd one.

As I see your main argument is you want to follow the way of the Italian when sorting their names.

Therefore I think I have to convince the Italian about changing their minds in this question ... --Randushkesh (talk) 17:48, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

@Randushkesh: Or better, you can respect the consensus of dozens of senior editors of English Wikipedia, and tens of millions of Italians, and the WP:SUR guideline that urges us to follow "the customs of one's nationality". Your composer-of-the-day additions to the List are very helpful. Your endless argument about Italian alphabetization is not. Enough already. —Patrug (talk) 04:36, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

OK, thank you. --Randushkesh (talk) 06:25, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

How to decide about the prominence of composers

@Patrug: A suggestion: in the French List of Italian composers the names of prominent composers are emphasized. --Randushkesh (talk) 08:20, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Oh, your idea of portraits is much nicer! After reviewing the guidance at WP:ADDIMAGES and WP:IMAGE RELEVANCE and WP:NEUTRAL, I think it's best to limit these portraits to a small number (roughly 10) of world-famous Italian composers with multiple well-known works, giving a reasonably balanced representation of the different styles and centuries.

If you like, we can review the names here on this Talk page, to avoid changing the portraits too many times. I just removed G.Allegri, since he's known for just one major work, and I added short descriptive blurbs for Frescobaldi & Palestrina to explain their prominence. So, my proposed 10 composers are:

Palestrina (c.1525–1594)

Monteverdi (1567–1643)

Frescobaldi (1583–1643)

Vivaldi (1678–1741)

Scarlatti (1685–1757)

Rossini (1792–1868)

Verdi (1813–1901)

Puccini (1858–1924)

Morricone (b.1928)

Moroder (b.1940)

OK with you? Or another approach would be to rely on an external source like http://TheCultureTrip.com/europe/italy/articles/from-monteverdi-to-morricone-the-greatest-italian-composers/ and provide a citation for the choices, instead of relying on discussions among Wikipedia editors that might become too time-consuming. (This external webpage agrees with 8 of my 10 choices, but disagrees by substituting Pergolesi & Bellini for Frescobaldi & Moroder.) What are your thoughts? —Patrug (talk) 00:39, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

@Patrug: I don't see any reason for a strict limitation on the number of portraits.

There is a very neutral way of investigating the importance issue: the Google search.

According to it the importance list would be:

1) Rossini

2) Monteverdi

3) Puccini

4) Vivaldi

5) Corelli

6) Domenico Scarlatti

7) Alessandro Scarlatti

8) Bellini

9) Palestrina

10 Pergolesi

11 Respighi

12 Morricone

13 Gabrieli

14 Leoncavallo

15 Cima

16 Paganini

17 Trabaci

18 Gastoldi

19 Landini

20 Peri

21 Allegri

22 Caccini --Randushkesh (talk) 07:15, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

It's strange: why Verdi is missing from Google's list ?? --Randushkesh (talk) 07:24, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

@Randushkesh: The limit doesn't need to be "strict", but highlighting 20 or 30 Italian composers (like the French page) would become an "overload" of images, which is discouraged by the Wikipedia consensus at WP:IDD. If we go much beyond 10 or 12, we would be highlighting Italian composers whose music is unknown even to most professional musicians – composers who would be meaningless for typical readers, and who would distract from the truly world-famous Italian composers like Verdi. As you observed with Verdi, statistics from Google cannot be used to establish WP:IMPORTANCE or WP:RELIABILITY for encyclopedic purposes, as explained in more detail at WP:GNUM. Can you live with the list from http://TheCultureTrip.com/europe/italy/articles/from-monteverdi-to-morricone-the-greatest-italian-composers/ , or a similar list from another WP:PUBLISHED source? –Patrug (talk) 20:10, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

@Patrug: It's too hard to select only 10.

The French have selected 28 ... If it is already an "overload" then I think better to have no portraits at all. --Randushkesh (talk) 08:43, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Maybe prominence is not the best selection criterion ... It would be better to select the most good looking composers ... Maybe the female ones ? --Randushkesh (talk) 09:11, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

@Randushkesh: So far, the most-famous Italian composers have all been male, unfortunately! For at least half of the 28 "principal" Italian composers on the French list, their music is known only to specialists. (Seriously, would you recognize any music composed by people like Malipiero or Volpe? I'm sure they were fine composers, but they really shouldn't be highlighted with Rossini & Verdi.) For now, I changed two of our portraits to match the "top 10" list from The Culture Trip – which has also published similar thoughtful lists of German & British composers – and I added a citation & reflist. Based on the Wikipedia guidance pages that I cited above, this published list of 10 is preferable to our original 0 or 5, and certainly better than the French 28. And like the rest of Wikipedia, people will always have the opportunity to propose improvements. If you or anyone else finds 10 or 12 or 15 Italian composers in a published list that might be better for highlighting, we can consider an alternate published list anytime.

Thanks again for all your help with the page. With luck, maybe eventually we can merge it with the Chronological list of Italian classical composers, and set up a French-style table that can be sorted both alphabetically & chronologically, and ultimately develop the page to satisfy the WP:Featured list criteria. —Patrug (talk) 08:49, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Dear Patrug, I thank you for taking care of this topic. --Randushkesh (talk) 08:53, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

"Reliable sources"

@Patrug: I think your limitation to include only those "composers from Italy, whose notability is established by reliable sources in other Wikipedia articles" is too strict. Let me ask you for changing it to "composers from Italy, whose notability is established by reliable sources". This less strict limitation works well in other lists e.g. in List of Austrian composers. Thank you in advance. --Randushkesh (talk) 09:40, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

@Randushkesh: To include a name in our very long Wikipedia list, the standard is stricter (just Italian composers with English Wikipedia articles) because it's the most efficient way to maintain the quality of the page. The Austrian list is less than one-tenth the size.

The list-selection criteria for Italian composers are consistent with the Wikipedia guidelines at:

• WP:LISTPEOPLE ("In other cases, editors choose even more stringent requirements, such as already having an article written. This is commonly used to control the size of lists that could otherwise run to hundreds or thousands of people, such as the List of American film actresses.")
• WP:LISTN ("Editors may choose to limit large lists by only including entries for those with Wikipedia articles.")
• WP:Write the Article First ("Editors are encouraged to write the article on a given subject BEFORE adding a link to the article in list pages.")

For Fantini, you could probably write an English article quickly from a computer translation of the Italian version, and this would be a very good outcome for Wikipedia.

Hope this helps. —Patrug (talk) 20:24, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Dear @Patrug: My English is poor so I am not brave enough for writing Wikipedia articles.

I think reliably sourced red links could improve the quality of the list rather than lowering it.

Blue links give no additional value to the encyclopedia: they are simply redundancy.

Reliably sourced red links would add new content. --Randushkesh (talk) 20:56, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Before I started the cleanup & expansion of this list, it had many red links, and most of them were living composers who were advertising their own names with little evidence of notability. At WP:Write the Article First, these problems are described as being quite typical, unfortunately:

"Lists, both stand-alone and embedded, are often prone to spam and red-linking. In many cases, nearly half of the edits are limited to adding spam and red links to the list. A large proportion of the later edits will be removing them, which, while critical to maintaining the quality of the page, is a tremendous waste of WP editor resources... Ask any editor who watches list pages – they will likely have had the same experience. Far too many lists are full of this spam, with no end in sight."

Since 1,000+ Italian composers are notable enough already to have their own articles in English Wikipedia, there would be little value in listing the lower-ranking composers who don't. However, Girolamo Fantini seems notable enough that I'll try to translate his article next week for you, and then we can add him as a proper blue link. —Patrug (talk) 21:49, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

It's an absolutely false premise that red-linked composers are necessarily non-notable – all a red link means is that an article has not yet been written here (no-one's seriously suggesting that our coverage of Italian composers is already complete, right? Especially if we only have articles on one measly thousand of them.). Red links are an aid to the expansion of the encyclopaedia. As an example, please take a look at the List of music theorists – many of those without an article are Italian composers, all are notable (I know because I checked that every single one of them had an article in Grove).

There's little point in translating it:Girolamo Fantini, as it is without any vestige of a reliable source; it'd surely be preferable to write a new page from scratch, based on reliable sources. A possible interim solution is to use an {{ill}} template to redlink the article here, but bluelink the Italian version: Girolamo Fantini. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:57, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Nobody said "red-linked composers are necessarily non-notable." I merely pointed out that on this particular list, more than half were promotional listings for living composers – and WP:WTAF agrees that for large lists, such red-links typically waste more editorial time than they're worth, and that "with the English-language Wikipedia at 5,111,968 articles, list articles with many red links are less essential in leading to the creation of new articles."

Anyway, I put Fantini back on the list, following your suggestion of the template linking to his Italian Wikipedia article, and I struck through the word "English" in my first comment above. The template link technically satisfies the stated criteria for the page, and is reasonably consistent with WP:LISTPEOPLE, WP:LISTN, and WP:WTAF, without increasing the maintenance burden for the page. Thanks for the suggestion. —Patrug (talk) 00:25, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Dear Patrug: I thank you ! --Randushkesh (talk) 09:26, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

ToC

Dear @AtticTapestry:,

I don't see any reason for removing the compact ToC.

When using a relatively wide screen it has no effect on displaying the pictures.

Do you use a mobile device for viewing the list ? --Randushkesh (talk) 05:21, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Of course my edit can be reversed, but the display was not satisfactory for all devices. I hope that, in general, it looks better now. AtticTapestry (talk) 06:28, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

@AtticTapestry: What do you think about placing the compact ToC above the pictures so that it stays visible even on narrow screens ? --Randushkesh (talk) 05:51, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

That looks all right, probably better in general than the vertical ToC. I have updated the page accordingly. AtticTapestry (talk) 06:53, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much :) --Randushkesh (talk) 07:06, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Dozens of film composers

In case someone has time to review these before I do, it looks like dozens more names should be added to our list from Category:Italian film score composers. —Patrug (talk) 07:24, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Done.

@Randushkesh:: In the past few months, it looks like you've been making most of your edits as User:Rendes Kis. Since editors can receive administrative trouble for using multiple accounts, even when it seems harmless, I'll just suggest that you read & follow the WP:ALTACCN policy for Alternative Account Notification, to minimize the risk of any problems. Thanks & köszi! —Patrug (talk) 02:07, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Dear @Patrug: Thanks for warning me.

I have created the Randushkesh nick for international use before the interoperability between wikis was here.

But now I got tired of constantly log out and in.

Is there a possibility for the merging of separate identities to one ? ... --Rendes Kis (talk) 11:10, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

@Randushkesh and Rendes Kis:

According to m:Help:Unified login#I have two or more accounts with different names. Can they be merged into one account?, the answer since 22 April 2015 is: "No, but this feature will be available soon."

For now, it's probably best to follow the recommendations at WP:ALTACCN — log in as Randushkesh; edit your page User:Randushkesh to add {{User alternative account name|Rendes Kis}} ; create the page User:Rendes Kis and put {{User alternative account|Randushkesh}} ; and edit your page User talk:Rendes Kis to become #REDIRECT [[User talk:Randushkesh]] .

I hope this helps a bit. —Patrug (talk) 17:20, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Dear @Patrug: Thanks a lot. I am going to do so. --Rendes Kis (talk) 18:31, 23 August 2016 (UTC)