Talk:Magnificat in A minor (Hoffmann)

Page move

I moved the page, while Magnificat (Hoffmann) is ambiguous (& now a DAB page), the other Magnificat composition by the same composer, BWV 189, being even better known, while published earlier, and for a longer period of time attributed to a more famous composer (i.e. Bach, for both Magnificats), before being attributed to Hoffmann. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:50, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Kindly clean up after such a move. The DYK section above is nonsense now. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:55, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Late remark: the DYK stats are of course also at the wrong page name: [1]. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:40, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Please also fix the cluttered opening sentence, mentioning Magnificat much sooner. Whether a paraphrase of the German Magnificat or not is of secondary importance, - it looks quite close to me. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:59, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah sure, was still in the middle of all that cleanup. Hope I did catch everything w.r.t. the DYK (not my speciality, also, not sure whether the editor who started the DYK on a confusing article title should expect co-editors to clean up after them). --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:32, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your kindness. I fixed my personal pages myself. Did it ever occur to you to rename before a move that breaks active links? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:07, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

??? I renamed as soon as I could after finding out the article was started. Besides, a few viable article titles for an article on this composition existed before you started to write it, including Meine Seel erhebt den Herren, BWV Anh. 21, created in 2014: did it never occur to you that you might have used such title instead of creating a new one, or, at least, re-redirect such titles immediately after creating the article? Or link the new article immediately in pages and lists where it was mentioned (at least at the old redirect targets)? Then I would have found out more than two weeks before the DYK going to the main page that this new article was started (!). --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:42, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Secondly - to the thread below - this.

1. I chose a title, not inadvertently, but after thinking: that our general readership would recognize "Magnificat" more readily than "Meine Seele erhebt den Herren", which is also much longer. There was no other article of that title.
2. "Meine Seel erhebt den Herren, BWV Anh. 21" serves well as a redirect, but is misleading as an article as making it look like a piece by Bach.
3. I am happy that you renamed it today, and not yesterday while on the Main page. Try to look at the statistics.
4. I have a list of planned articles on my user page, where I entered Magnificat (Hoffmann) a while ago.
5. Right, there's no deadline, so there was no urgent need to move this. You might have discussed. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:16, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt: Now that you've said all that, can you now please stop reproaching others? Tx. Your reproaches are unjustified, but I'm quite exhausted by your uncooperative MO. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:08, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

I see that more than 10 links are still "wrong", but am in the middle of food preparation, so can't do it now. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:10, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

I was in the middle of something *else* when I started to clean up the confusing lead of this article, so I made time. Everyone is all the time in the middle of something else, no need to remind others of that, that is the same for everyone else. See Wikipedia:There is no deadline. Do the clean-up in your own tempo, just don't expect others to clean up the consequences of a inadvertent choice someone else made. You can come across as a bit bossy in that department (trying to put it mildly). --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:42, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

I am sorry if I came across as bossy, when I was just frustrated (trying to put it mildly). I was plain happy to start the year with a Magnificat on the Main page, quite programmatically, and now this. - I think - quite generally - it would be good form to prepare a move without leaving a redirect by having the new title as a redirect, and replacing the link by the new title everywhere that matters before the actual move. I proudly told El C that I began the year with that Magnificat, and thank goodness he looked already yesterday when the link didn't end at a dab with no indication which of two German titles might be the one meant. HNY. - Also quite generally: never move a DYK template. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:16, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Please change your MO instead of your endless complaining. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:08, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Francis Schonken, the essay you cite actually does touch on DYK entries: Wikipedia:There_is_no_deadline#Deadlines_in_Wikipedia. Anyway, so long as a DYK entry is being displayed on the Main page, greater caution is expected. El_C 19:28, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but I only found out about the DYK after I had repaired the intro and moved the page consequently. This page should never have been mentioned on main page before it was properly linked from other articles. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:08, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

"Kleines" or "Kleine"

@Gerda Arendt: at List of masses, passions and oratorios by Johann Sebastian Bach you changed "An Investigation into the Authenticity of Bach's 'Kleine Magnificat'" to "An Investigation into the Authenticity of Bach's 'Kleines Magnificat'" ([2]). The first appears to be correct, see JSTOR 730970. Since one of the co-authors of that article (Alfred Dürr) is well-versed in German, I have no reason to doubt that "Kleine Magnificat" is how the German title of the composition would usually be quoted in an otherwise English-language text. So, why "Kleines Magnificat" which you seem to prefer, or am I missing something? Has something changed since 1955, when Dürr's article was written? --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:08, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Returning from church, this first: It depends on the pronoun you'd give to Magnificat. I have never heard anything but "Das Magnificat", which would result in "Das kleine Magnificat", which can be shortened to "Kleines Magnificat". Assuming it could be "Die Magnificat", it would be "Die kleine Magnificat", shortened to "Kleine Magnificat". Do we have the German title of Dürr? Because a translator could have gotten it wrong, or just the quotation marks wrong by omitting "Das" from the quoted title. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:53, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

No, I'm not going to do WP:OR on whether or not an English-language reliable source was a translation, and if so, whether that was in that case a problematic translation. "Kleine Magnificat" it is for mentioning the German name in English-language prose, until further notice (i.e. a comparable and/or more recent reliable source that says otherwise). --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:14, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

If you think native knowledge of a language is OR, perhaps you'll take publisher Carus, https://www.carusmedia.com/images-intern/medien//10/1013900/1013900x.pdf ? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:36, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

That is a publication exclusively in German, says nothing about usage in English, which is a language where the last letter of an adjective doesn't change depending on context, but where it is either always Kleine Magnificat or always Kleines Magnificat. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:44, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

If you want correct German it would be "Kleines Magnificat", as I tried to explain. Ask any German grammar book: der kleine Hund = kleiner Hund, die kleine Katze = kleine Katze, das kleine Tier = kleines Tier, or: in German, if you omit the article you have to change the adjective, or it's feminine (which sounds wrong).

Austrian library: Kleines Magnificat. Why would a name be different in English if the original name? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:05, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

others:

1. in Dutch (when it was believed to be by Telemann): https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/487222
2. 1978 publication of same: https://books.google.de/books/about/Kleines_Magnificat.html?id=HH45AQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y
3. University concert program: https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2004/11/2004-579.html
4. WorldCat: https://www.worldcat.org/title/kleines-magnificat-fur-sopran-flote-streicher-und-continuo-bwv-anh-21/oclc/246149350?referer=di&ht=edition
5. and Spitta himself: https://books.google.de/books?id=f8Ax8XOz5O0C&pg=PT964 --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:16, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Before edit conflict: RISM has this, - no mentioning of any "Kleines" or "Kleine" which made sense when misattributed to Bach and compared with his. If we followed that source, we'd arrive at Magnificat in A minor (Hoffmann), with the long German one a redirect ("Other title"). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:51, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

That was my first idea, and why I left the "in A minor" in the lead sentence in my first rewrite of the intro. Changed now. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:08, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Re. "If you want correct German..." stop, please stop, STOP! STOP!!! I want reliable English-language sources. The Virginia Tech concert program is English-language (the only one of those you list), but not nearly close as reliable as the Hudson/Dürr source. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:22, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Little Magnificat

I suggest that - as this is the English Wikipedia - we don't confuse the readers with the intricacies of German - but speak English: Little Magnificat. It should be noted that it may be little only in comparison to Bach's giant work, otherwise it's a fine extended composition with a lovely "Wie es war im Anfang", - nothing little about it at all. Please note that there has been no publication saying Kleine Magnificat, probably because it would be wrong German, and I won't stop saying so. Hänssler and Carus know that. It's sad that a translation that didn't go far enough - they could have translated the name also - has caused such confusion. If Dürr had published it, the title would not have been Kleine Magnificat, but either Das kleine Magnificat or Kleines Magnificat, and those are names we can use in English without changing for declination. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:25, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Re.

1. In the standard translation of Spitta it is "small Magnificat" (not "little")
2. Doesn't change anything that the reliable English-language Hudson/Dürr source calls it "Kleine Magnificat", and that this source is thus far, afaics, not superseded by any more reliable English-language source

What you're proposing is a solution in search of a problem. Can you please also stop making your fellow editors lose time by checking unnecessary/counterproductive edits. for clarity: there is no rule against linking an article via a redirect so such changes are, in fact, mostly WP:STYLEVAR infractions. Tx for stopping such unnecessary actions: all editors have little time (as has been said above), so don't use it for unnecessary (and often counterproductive) edits. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:42, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Today is Sunday. I understood the redirect link per your edit summary, but thank you for patiently explaining. Using "Small" would also work, I just found "Little" when trying to help with the clean-up. - Today, I will create an article, instead of further explanation that the journal title you cite again and again is a translation with a problem, using a declinated version instead of the nominative. For neutral words (article "das"), a preceding adjective in German has to be with an s when without an article to do the clarification, compare. Kleines Festspielhaus, Kleines Spiel. In some article header, you might find "Das kleine Festspielhaus muss saniert werden", but to derive from it that an article or redirect should be named Kleine Festspielhaus, or Kleine Festspielhaus be used to talk about it --- well, find a word. In the journal title, there is an article, just not within the quotation. Unwatching for today. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:10, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

At English Wikipedia, we follow what the preponderance of reliable sources in English do; even if they are completely wrong according to the grammar or orthography of the original language. This is why schadenfreude is not capitalized in English (or in French), this is why we say Carl Friedrich Gauss and not Carl Friedrich Gauß; and it's why we have dachshunds, doppelgangers, glockenspiels, hamburgers, hausfraus, lagers, neandert[h]als, and rucksacks. There is no point appealing to what is correct in German, because it's not relevant at en-wiki. The only difference with the Magnificat is of degree and not of kind; the same Wikipedia policy applies, which is that we use the term that is most commonly used in English, and we ignore German grammar (or for that matter, English grammar) when the most common usage in English varies from it. You can execute this search, which includes Bach-apostrophe-s to force English results, and includes a logical-OR expression to pull both kleine and kleines into the result set, and judge for yourself which one is more common in English. Mathglot (talk) 21:28, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Kleine(s)

This latest "smoother" version is much better, but still looks as if both were possible. However, it was dubbed Kleines Magnificat, and only with a definitive article it gets changed to other forms, such as "ich singe das Kleine Magnificat" (I sing the Small Magnificat), "im (short for: in dem) Kleinen Magnificat singt ein Sopran" (A soprano sings in the Small Magnificat), "Die Leipziger Neukirchenmusik und das "Kleine Magnificat" BWV Anh. 21". (my enphasis). The other forms are only valid together with an article, while without article, the s is needed to make the noun gender-neutral, not feminine. The translations "little" and "small" deserve a source. I'd prefer to list both, but take "small" if used again. - Many thanks for expanding the article, Francis! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:47, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

No, according to English sources, it's Kleine, and the German rule about orthographic change when preceded by a marked neuter article does not apply. See link above for sources for little. Mathglot (talk) 21:29, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

How about using English then and call it Small Magnificat, or Little Magnificat. What would you say if you were female, and by such a conclusion, you were made neutral, or male? Because that's what it is, even if the translation makes no difference because in English, words have no gender per definitive articles. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:59, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Regarding "Small Magnificat", we should call it that, if that's what English sources call it. But, they don't. I understand your pain, of looking at what are clearly German words carried over into English, and then, basically, mangled as far as the inflections are concerned. Native English speakers have the advantage, if you want to call it that, that we shamelessly steal words from every language, and then we change their spellings and their endings to use our grammar, and our endings, even if it's a bastardization of the rules in the original tongue. But actually, every language does that, pretty much; but unlike other countries, we have no French Academy, no Royal Spanish Academy, or even a "Duden", so it doesn't bother us. For example, we don't really care that the plural of Handy in German is Handys, when of course, since it's an English word, it "should" be "Handies". But, it's being used in a German context, and nouns in -y do not form their plural in German by changing to -ies, and English grammar and English usage have absolutely zero influence in what is proper on German Wikipedia in discussing an issue like that. Likewise, German grammar and orthography have zero influence here; the only thing that counts, is what English sources do with it, even if what they do is *wrong*.

Regarding your second question:

What would you say if you were female, and by such a conclusion, you were made neutral?

This made me smile, but with a rather poignant, ironic, or even twinkly smile. You see, you are paraphrasing a famous (in certain circles) quotation by Mark Twain, who spoke some German on his extended visit to Heidelberg, and wrote one of his funniest essays about his experience, after returning to America (in "A Tramp Abroad"). If you know Twain only from his more famous novels such as Huckleberry Finn, you might be surprised at this, but in fact, he spent a large portion of his essay about Heidelberg, discussing German nouns. And in fact, Twain anticipated your precise question concerning "a female who was made neutral". Here it is, if you are interested:

Excerpt from Twain's "A Tramp Abroad" concerning German nouns:

Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a memorandum-book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print--I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books: "Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip? "Wilhelm. She has gone to the kitchen. "Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden? "Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera."

Bottom line: I don't really support using "Small [or, 'Little'] Magnificat", because that's not what the preponderance of English sources do, so would be contrary to WP:DUE. We should follow the English sources, even when they are "wrong" per German grammatical rules. There's probably not one in a thousand viewers of the article who will care whether there is a final -s on the adjective or not, but for those who do, a link to German noun#Declension classes in an WP:EXPLNOTE is about as far as we have a right to go, in an article which is not chiefly about linguistics, declensions, or German grammar. Mathglot (talk) 09:06, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

I love Twain's essay (but this is not about the nouns, but the adjectives, which have to reflect the gender if no definite article is present). I also have little time for this. Short reply (and please don't say other things do exist): we have correct article titles which correctly label a neuter noun by the s: Altes Rathaus, Neues Museum, Großes Festspielhaus. Kleines Magnificat. Why not do the same here, and acknowledge the other form - which should never appear as title - as a declension. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:25, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

The Twain essay was about the "neutered female" comment which you raised, and was on point, so was worth quoting imho.

When you say, "and please don't say other things do exist", I assume you are talking about the Wikipedia essay WP:Other stuff exists. You're right to point that out, but you don't get to make the rules, and tell other editors that they cannot use an argument which invalidates yours. The current titles of Neues Museum and the others can be taken up by editors at their respective Talk pages if there is an issue with them. If they are incorrect, they should be fixed, but either way, the status of those articles have no influence on this article, which must follow all Wikipedia policies and guidelines, regardless how many failures to observe policy may exist elsewhere. "Neues Museum" is called that, because that's what English sources use when they talk about it. Since you brought it up, if you scan the English article, you'll notice that it is invariant: the article says "The Neues Museum" (not "The Neue Museum"), and "of the Neues Museum" (not: "of the Neuen Museum"), whereas the German article has 21 Neues Museum, 40 Neue Museum, and 32 Neuen Museum (and even one Neuem Museum) following the requirements of German grammar.

Why not do the same here, and acknowledge the other form - which should never appear as title - as a declension.

Because we don't follow German rules at en-wiki, and there is no such rule in English that a particular German inflected form may not appear as a title, so there is no point basing your argument on that. And no point basing it on how other articles about German topics do it, either. I don't know how to say this more clearly: this is en-wiki, we follow the way that English reliable sources do it; we do not give rules of German grammar preference over what the English sources actually do. I'm sorry if sometimes the Denglishy-looking results are jarring to you as a native speaker of German, that's just the way it is, I'm afraid. If it makes you feel any better, you can get plenty of support and commiseration from your French friends, who are plugging their ears and groaning, when they hear many native speakers of English pronounce (and write) chaise lounge. Mathglot (talk) 02:31, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't need comiseration, seriously. I am here for accuracy. The titles I gave you are all from the English Wikipedia. I'd not mind Kleine(s) if Kleine was the first case form (or however that is called, nominative?) and Kleines a declensed (or however you call that) form. But now it's opposite here, and the best way to show that would be to use the first case and make a fotnote about declension (only) when preceded by a definite article. Schönes Mädchen aus Arcadia, Grünes Gewölbe, Rotes Rathaus, - you would (hopefully) not go and say it should be Rote(s) Rathaus just because of things like this where it comes with the definite article. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:34, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Regarding invariant: yes, please, exactly, just the invariant thing should be Kleines Magnificat, exactly like Neues Museum. Thanks for supporting my point ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:38, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Please don't be here for accuracy; be here for verifiability of reliable English sources, wherever that may lead you. I've said my piece in all the ways I know how to say it, unless there's some new angle I haven't seen, or some new point to discuss. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 09:46, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

The sources: that seems to be one, where a translator didn't follow the "invariance" thingy when translating, and it was copied. Our chance to fix something. We have enough bad article titles due to translation errors, and this is just a redirect. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:21, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Michael Gläser - do you suggest that we name the article Michael Glaser because English-speaking refs have him that way? Also: a user whom I came to respect as an authority taught me back in 2009 that if a source is wrong (in that case a claim that Stockhausen composed music for Siegfried Palm) we don't have to follow it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:39, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Gerda, yes, you have to follow what the source says, even if it is wrong. (Of course, that raises the question, how do you know it is wrong?) If you literally mean, "a source" (as in, one source) then you have to follow it if it is the only source available, and it is reliable. However, many situations have multiple sources for an assertion, and sometimes they disagree with each other. If the clear majority of sources disagree with the one that got it wrong, you can just ignore the outlier, and say what the rest of the sources report. If it's more of a tie, or a majority-minority thing, then you have to mention both viewpoints, making clear which one is the clear majority if there is one. WP:NPOV goes into more detail about this. Wikipedia is a tertiary source, and we have to follow what the sources say; there's just no escaping that very basic fact. If you know personally, for 100% certain that something is false because you were there and the sources have it wrong (like I do, in the case of one long-ago event) then either follow the sources anyway, or leave it out of the article entirely. WP:OR prohibits me from "correcting" the sources and adding the facts the way I saw and experienced them.

With respect to your Michael Gläser question: if there is a clear preference in English sources for Michael Glaser, then, yes, the article should be renamed per WP:COMMONNAME. This case is no different, than the question of "Carl Friedrich Gauss", which is how we spell it in English.

The bottom line on this entire discussion, and I know it's a painful one for you, is that WP:COMMONNAME, WP:Verifiability, and WP:DUE have policy force on deciding this question, and conformance with German grammar has no weight at all in the discussion. I know that may make you tear your hair out; see chaise lounge, and a thousand other such examples. Go ahead, write, and say the English word doppelganger correctly: (rhymes with "topple-banger"). Mathglot (talk) 02:38, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

It hurts, but not enough to invest more time. Think of Paul and Paula, one name (in German) clearly male, one female, difference one character. Kleine Magnificat (without any article) is clearly female (wrong), Kleines Magnificat is clealy neuter (right). The one source USES AN ARTICLE so doesn't support a stand-alone Kleine. - I notice a tendency to use names as they were given originally, Zürich, Düsseldorf, - perhaps I'll live long enough to see München and Hannover. All these are just spelling, not grammar, which is of a different order for me. Perhaps we should come to think about if the (sometimes changing) popularity contest of COMMONNAME is really a good guide to article names. I'd never create an article Glaser knowing his name is Gläser, his passport says Gläser, and he published internationally as Gläser. Here are English sources: WorldCat, BCW, Carus. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:23, 16 January 2021 (UTC)