Talk:Piano Concerto No. 24 (Mozart)/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Tim riley (talk · contribs) 06:35, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Starting first read-through. More soonest. Tim riley talk 06:35, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Comments

• General
  • I'm not quite clear which variety of English the article is meant to be in. The date format is British, as are the spelling (metre, utilise) and punctuation (Hutchings's) but the technical terms are American (measures, sixteenth note).
  • As a general stylistic point (and not something that affects the promotability of the article) we have "commence" seven times, and a plain "begin" or "start" would be a welcome change here and there. There are seven "howevers" too, most of which weaken the prose and would be better removed.
• Lead
  • WP:OVERLINK – piano and orchestra (in my opinion) and Vienna and British (unquestionably) should not be linked. As to the last, why tell us that Hutchings was British, anyway?
• Background
  • "Vienna" – overlink again: see the MoS: we don't link "everyday words understood by most readers in context or the names of major geographic features and locations…"
  • In 1800 Constanze was Mozart's widow, rather than his wife.
  • "Scottish" – overlink.
  • "German" – ditto, though why is his nationality relevant anyway?
• Exposition
  • "measures" – link needed for the benefit of non-American readers
  • "British" – overlink, and Tovey's nationality is irrelevant.
• Development
  • "Sixteenth notes" – link needed for non-American readers
• Recapitulation, cadenza and coda
  • "The wide range of thematic material presented … presents" – too many presents
  • "The last theme to be recapitulated is secondary theme" – is there a definite or indefinite article missing here?
  • "cadenza" – duplicate link: we've already linked from the "First movement" section.
• Second movement
  • "Austrian" – overlink, and besides, once again, the person's nationality is not relevant to this article. Brendel's views would be just as ad rem if he were from Outer Mongolia.
• Third movement
  • "The British pianist Angela Hewitt" – another nationality that we don't need.
  • "over an string and wind accompaniment" – either "an" should be "a" or there is an adjective missing after it.
  • "cut common time" – we've already linked to this earlier.
• Critical reception
  • Another gratuitous "British"
  • "Keefe … writes that the No. 24 is the "climactic and culminating work" – no he doesn't. He writes that it is "a climactic and culminating work" – which is not the same thing as "the climactic and culminating work".
  • "Mozart's piano concerto oeuvre" – Keefe italicises "'oeuvre" and we should follow suit in the quotation here
  • And another unwanted national tag, for King.
• References
  • "The two WP:Bare URLs within refs 6 and 7 need fixing.
• Sources
  • No OCLC numbers for the older books?
  • Some publishers are given locations, and others are not: either is acceptable but be consistent.

This is a longish list of queries, but there's nothing there that can't be fixed reasonably easily, and so I am putting the review on hold for a week to give you time to address these points. – Tim riley talk 08:04, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks for the review, Tim. I have little doubt that I will be able to correct these problems within a week, if not considerably sooner. Regarding your first bullet point, I use British English but prefer American terminology for musical notation. The term "crotchet" will mean nothing to an American, but the term "quarter note" is descriptive and meaningful - a British-English speaker could discern what it means. Does the use of British English for spelling and punctuation mean that the musical terminology also needs to be British? If so, I can of course change the terminology. On an entirely unrelated note, I hope the music theory parts of the article were not too dense and technical. That was my main concern when writing the article. Syek88 (talk) 08:18, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Your rationale seems wholly sensible now you explain it, and I see no reason why you shouldn't use the American technical terms within a BrEng article. But please link them as suggested above. If you want the rest of the prose to be in BrEng, though, you should change "Variations II through VI" to "Variations II to VI"; and the usual British form of adjective for the composer is "Mozartian" (the OED confirms this). To my mind you have the balance of technicalities just right: enough technical information to satisfy readers who know their music theory, but not so much as to overwhelm the lay person. Tim riley talk 09:05, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, again. I have made all of the amendments, including the two additional ones (Variations II to IV and Mozartian). As you foreshadowed, it was a long list but only ended up taking a couple of hours. I found OCLC numbers for the older books; I had to reverse-engineer them from WorldCat though. I hope that is acceptable. As for the bare URLs, I simply removed them. Thank you in particular for correcting me on the Simon P. Keefe quote. Syek88 (talk) 10:34, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Good. I always go to WorldCat for OCLC numbers – can't think of any better way. Your article had me looking through my accumulated concert programmes: I find I never heard Brendel play K491 in the concert hall, but I did catch him in Beethoven 3 in 1974. Delighted to have had the pleasure of reviewing this article. – Tim riley talk 12:39, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Review summary

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail: