Talk:Structure of Handel's Messiah

A fact from Structure of Handel's Messiah appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 18 July 2011 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Handel's oratorio Messiah is structured in three parts, with a libretto about the Christian Messiah drawn from Bible verses, mostly taken from the Old Testament?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2011/July.

Wikipedia

Classical music

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Classical music, which aims to improve, expand, copy edit, and maintain all articles related to classical music, that are not covered by other classical music related projects. Please read the guidelines for writing and maintaining articles. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.Classical musicWikipedia:WikiProject Classical musicTemplate:WikiProject Classical musicClassical music articles

Original name

In order to understand the following: the content of this article was originally part of Messiah (Handel). When that was made a Featured article, this article was split off and named "Messiah structure", in an attempt to keep it close to the related article, as simple and uncluttered as possible, and show as a suggestion in Search if you type Messiah. This was discussed in Classical music. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:45, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Title

Wouldn't Structure of Handel's Messiah be a better title for this article? – ukexpat (talk) 15:25, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are welcome to think about a better name! One objective is that "Messiah" is the first word, so that people who search for something around Messiah will find it. Feel free to create redirects as you think fit, including as the one above. You know that those work even if the article gets moved. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:38, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, it needs to be moved. The current title sounds forced and gives no information about which Messiah - it could be about the alleged Messiah himself. Also, why does "Messiah" have to come first? The "of" structure is better English. – ukexpat (talk) 16:17, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What do you think of Messiah (Handel) structure, then? There is no doubt about the "of" structure being better English. But this is in keeping with, for example, Mass in B minor discography, opposed to Discography of the Mass in B minor. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:25, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with UKexpat & moved. The B Minor mass one is just about acceptable, if not strictly good English. Johnbod (talk) 22:44, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think you misunderstood me. In question is not the Mass in B minor, but it's discography, which should be found under Mass in B minor, - best if it starts that way. Who will ever look for "Structure of ..."? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:53, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It should come up on searches, and can be linked to. Article titles are titles, not index entries, and must be grammatical. Plus the redirect is still there.Johnbod (talk) 01:10, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are right, but I still have concerns: 1) The article comes up in the search function if you already know what to search for. It doesn't show as a suggestion - as so far - if you type "Messiah". 2) I don't see people using this grammatically correct name, it seems needlessly complicated to write a pipe link. If you want to write a pipe link to Messiah, you could so far type Messiah and get this suggestion, now you have to remember that it starts with structure and then comes Handel, and then finally ... 3) The page history is lost. 4) I don't think the title Messiah (Handel) is grammatical. 5) If Handel has to be mentioned at all (which I doubt, there is no disambiguation needed), shouldn't he appear at least similar to the Main article. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:00, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The page history is not lost at all. Given the huge list at Messiah (disambiguation), disambiguation is certainly needed. The Messiah (Handel) followed WP:Title rules for disambiguation, & grammar doesn't really apply to a disambiguated name. It is true some search prominence is lost, especially on WP search, but the article is still no 2 on google (to the main one) and likely to stay there I would guess. Johnbod (talk) 09:57, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Page history: what do you get as a number of views for which page? - WP search should be much more important on WP than google search. - I am a writer who will have to write many complicated pipe links, any comment to that? - When after a long discussion St. Matthew Passion (Bach) was moved to St Matthew Passion, the goal was "the least clutter", make unpiped links possible, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:53, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The edits history (what is normally meant by page history) is not lost - the views history remains at the old title, and existing links still work. We all have to do piped links, and I can't see any discussion at St. Matthew Passion - links convenience should only be a minor factor in such a discussion anyway. Johnbod (talk) 22:42, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The debate about the Bach Passions was at Classical music, because it related to more than one article. - Of course we have to do piped links, but it's a difference if you just add one letter to the word you aim for (s in this case) and get the right suggestion, or if you have to remember and type some of "Structure ...Handel". - I finally see your point about "structure" being too ambiguous a word, do you have a better one? ("Discography" seems an accepted exception from correct grammar.) I raised that question at Classical music when the topic was considered to be much for the main article, but got no answer. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:13, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't actually see the inconvenience of piping mentioned there at all - it was all about choosing the WP:COMMONNAME etc. I agree the "name discography" style seems an accepted exception, but this search shows pretty clearly that there is nothing comparable for "structure". So I'm afraid I don't have a better suggestion. Johnbod (talk) 10:50, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Title again

I am still not comfortable with the laborious title, can we think of a disambiguator instead? Messiah (structure) suggested, improvement welcome. If it's not too long an article, it could contain Parts I to III as Messiah (text and music). (But I'm afraid it's too long.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:36, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That would be right for a structure called "Messiah", which is also what the old name suggested. Johnbod (talk) 22:43, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Instruments in Infobox

In this case - even more so than in Bach's Mass in B minor and St Matthew Passion - I think it is helpful to stress that Handel asked for a very limited orchestra, later people (including Mozart) added clarinets and more. Please find a way to show that, - just saying instruments is not enough, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:35, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Per your suggestion of linking to instruments, that's done. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:40, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nice try, but links within the article are against the MOS, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:54, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You did suggest that elsewhere anyways, though. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:29, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, sometime ago. I still think it would be a good idea to link to an existing navbox, but was told not to do so. I try to learn, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:32, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox

This article is not about Handel's Messiah per se, so I wonder if having an infobox is appropriate. It doesn't really seem to have any purpose anyway. Should we remove it? Thanks. --Klein zach 02:26, 7 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This infobox (actually the one a few edits before) would make more sense in Messiah (Handel), you are right. This infobox only summarizes facts from this article, not "Handel's Messiah per se", --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:12, 7 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, the article would be better without that template. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:49, 8 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do you suggest to combine the four articles - this one and Messiah Part I, II, III - to one? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:45, 8 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Can you explain why you make this suggestion? Nikkimaria (talk) 18:43, 8 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I read in the above that this article is not about Messiah per se as a reason not to have an infobox, so I asked if a combination of the four articles in one (which seems to long, therefore they are split) would be more of Messiah per se. (Repeating: when we wrote FA Messiah, the two main authors felt that too much music would be too much for it, - that's why Messiah per se is not in Messiah, as Mass in B minor per se is not in Mass in B minor.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:26, 8 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You're correct in saying that the combination would be quite long. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:53, 9 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For me - very personally so - Messiah per se is He was despised, written in bitterness when BarkingMoon left two years ago, unhappily applied to many others who left, and sung to never be forgotten by Andreas Scholl, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:48, 9 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some errors that I discovered that are here too coming from the "Messiah Part II" article

The following text is the one that I posted there in the talk page, but as this article contains a listing of the sections I see many of the errors duplicated and some worth of discussion:

"As a conductor studying this work I found that i this article cointains some errors of information. The ones that I've identified:

- The section 39 (Novello numbering) is described in form as a Tenor Arioso. This is deeply wrong, this section is a Chorus. The description of the section reinforces this error, that's why I believe it was a intetional messing up. This error is also present in the "Structure of Handel's Messiah" article. - The section 38 contains an error almost equal to the former; while it's in reality a Soprano Aria is described as a "Duet" between Alto and Chorus. Again, this error is present also in the "Structure of Handel's Messiah" article.

Both errors can be verified in music scores, here's IMSLP as example: http://imslp.org/wiki/Messiah,_HWV_56_%28Handel,_George_Frideric%29

- Section 24 in all editions that I have in hand its title is written "Surely, He hath borne our griefs" instead of "grieves". I myself consider this an error, what about you?

- While not an error per se, sections 31 and 32 are designated in some editions as a "Tenor or Soprano" Aria, instead of just Tenor. This is a considerable observation because there are tons of complete recordings where this movement is sung by a soprano (e.g. René Jacobs with the Freiburger Barockorchester)" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.23.41.72 (talk) 09:35, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for detailed observation. Handel wrote several movements in several forms over time, changing a recitative to an aria, for example. This article follows the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe (which differs from the score you cite), but has the alternatives also. Feel free to add them in prose to the articles on the parts, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:47, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]