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Chord chart

Does the Chord chart article belong in the Category:Chords, please? What about the Roman numeral analysis? Thank you and best regards, Cote d'Azur 13:07, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, both articles have to do with chords, I suppose. I'm not sure what the criteria for inclusion in Category:Chords are supposed to be. On the other hand, both of those articles are very badly written. The Roman numeral analysis article, in particular, is both confusing (if it is about Roman numerals, why does it spend most of its time talking about Arabic numerals?) and makes inaccurate claims (carated Arabic numerals, for example, are not used in Schenkerian analysis for chord-root designators). I have been blissfully ignorant of both of these articles up until now, but thanks for bringing them to my attention.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:28, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
Yes, they have to do with chords but the real subject of those articles is not chords, like in the rest of the topics on that list; one of them is about musical notation, obviously. I do not understand the criteria either, that is why I am asking. Thank you for looking into the matter and best wishes, Cote d'Azur 04:40, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Fresco

Thanks for another good Stockhausen! Do you also think that Wangenheim should have an article? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:57, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

You are welcome and, yes, I think Wangenheim merits an article. In fact, I made a very quick search to see what sources I could find. It appeared possible though not easy to find sufficient sources, so I decided not to follow through on creating an article for him right away. I had not previously realised that he is a composer as well as an oboist and conductor. If you have the time, please feel free to go ahead and create an article on him.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:06, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
Not now, I am absorbed at the other end of the musical world, Messiah structure started, concert in September, my first, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:57, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Enescu article

Well - the University library is closed Fri-Sat until after August 10th, so that was a wasted side-trip today. I hope you are gleaning some good bio material for the article. So far I haven't been much help. Still want to get a look at the 2001 print-copy of the Grove.  :-) HammerFilmFan (talk) 20:55, 5 August 2011 (UTC) HammerFilmFan

I've been out of town and only just returned home so, no, I haven't made a huge amount of progress on Enescu. There is an enormous amount of information in the anthology edited by Voicana, but it needs sifting, since it is spread out over hundreds of pages, and Romanian is not my strongest foreign language.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:29, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Pieta

Thought of you when I heard yesterday (traveling, by chance) Pieta from Dienstag aus Licht. Serene, especially the Flügelhorn. (some festival concert from Cologne) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:43, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

That must have been the musikFabrik performance of 7 July at the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter, part of the Romanischer Sommer festival. I saw that it was broadcast recently. The soprano was Agata Zubel and the flügelhorn was played by Marco Blaauw. I heard them perform Pietà on the 9th of this month at the Stockhausen Courses in Kürten. It was quite extraordinary. Although I have heard it performed more than once before (and of course many times from recordings), I don't think I have ever heard such an intense interpretation. "Serene" is not a word I would use to describe the Kürten performance, though the anguished affect was made in part through gestures and facial expressions. Perhaps on the radio it would have been different. Gisela Schwarz compared it with Bach's Passions: http://www.rhein-berg-online.ksta.de/html/artikel/1312975147583.shtml .—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:18, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
This reminded me that this scene had no description in the article on Dienstag aus Licht. I have now remedied that situation.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:39, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
Thank you! Just one word for a complex scene is of course too short, but the very spiritual (literally) sound of the Flügelhorn struck me most. Again too short: like the ease of His yoke is easy. At the end of that movement I can't help feeling a shift from light=leicht to light=Licht, which takes us back to Stockhausen. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:11, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
Aha! Yes, spiritus is "breath", and the sound of the flügelhorn here is often breathy, and so is the singing of the soprano, by compositional design. On Wikimedia Commons I have just found a particularly appropriate image to illustrate this scene, and added it to the article on Dienstag.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:05, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Arkady Luxemburg

Accidentally I came across this composer without birth date who wrote a sinfonietta, strange, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:24, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Why strange? A quick check of the article reveals he was born in 1939, which puts him well into the period when this form had become fashionable. It would have been strange indeed if he had been born in 1739 instead!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:58, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
The birth date was missing — I added it to the article today based on his Romanian wikipedia entry and a couple of other sources. (RT) (talk) 19:17, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Punkte

Hey Jerome Kohl, I just wanted to let you know that I tood a look at your recently created article Punkte--However, I think the article seems to contain a few errors: the references in the article do not follow Wikipedia guidelines. There is a tutorial on formatting citations at Wikipedia:Referencing. Kind regards and happy editing! Amy Z (talk) 19:28, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi Amy Z. I'm looking right now at the tutorial, specifically the section Wikipedia:Referencing#Parenthetical_referencing, but I do not see what error I am making. Perhaps you can be more specific. I might also point out Wikipedia:Citing sources#How to present citations. What am I doing wrong?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:37, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Josef Tal

Dear Jerome Kohl,

You removed Category:Modernist composers, arguing "removed cat not supported by article content".

Looking at List of modernist composers I found some of Tal's generation or older. A few of them share(d) Tal's artistic views either verbally or in their own compositions. That is of some significance if "modern" refers to the calendar chronology or arbitrary grouping.

If we refer to the term itself, we can find the following: "Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice… The most controversial aspect of the modern movement was, and remains, its rejection of tradition. Modernism's stress on freedom of expression, experimentation, radicalism, and primitivism disregards conventional expectations. In many art forms this often meant startling and alienating audiences with bizarre and unpredictable effects, as in the strange and disturbing combinations of motifs in surrealism or the use of extreme dissonance and atonality in modernist music." I think that Tal definitely belongs to the group defined.

If Tal wrote "modern music" he must have been a Modernist Composer, mustn’t he? There is a myriad of references to support this, some of them are cited in the article itself, for example:

1. "…As might be expected from a man of his candor, Tal is completely undoctrinaire about electronic music and broaches its problems with the same healthy skepticism that has marked his approach to the twelve-tone method or the issue of a "national" Israeli style… Imbued with the kind of realism found only in the true idealist, Tal is indeed a liberal in a realm of artistic endeavor where extremism often goes on a rampage…" (Ringer, Alexander L.: Musical Composition in Modern Israel. The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 1, Oxford University Press (Jan., 1965), pp. 282-297)

2. "As expressed in his colorful, thought-provoking autobiography and elsewhere, [Tal's] ideas are similar to those of Schoenberg’s in Style and Idea: against nationalism in music that is based on folklore, and (implicitly) supporting German hegemony in music. Tal’s works, mostly atonal and serial, expressionist and meticulously structured, post-Bergian with soft Darmstadt influences, have indeed gained a considerable reception in Germany no less than in his own country…" (Seter, Ronit: http://www.jewish-music.huji.ac.il/thesaurus761f.html?cat=9&in=9&id=687&act=view )

Please re-evaluate your editing.

Kind regards Etan J. Tal 16:47, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Writing "modern music" does not qualify a composer as a "modernist" which, as your argument correctly assumes, is a particular aesthetic attitude, rather than an historical era. The rest may well be perfectly true and I have no difficulty believing that Tal possessed modernist attitudes, but it does not change the fact that the article nowhere identifies Tal as a modernist, nor do any of the quotations you offer. I removed this category from about a dozen other biography articles as well (including Arnold Schoenberg who appears to be the key to your deduction—this is termed "original research" on Wikipedia—in point 2, above) as well as from Anton Berg, who was not even a composer, let alone a modernist. From what you have said here, I should probably prune that list of modernist composers, as well. Since you so strongly believe that this category applies to Josef Tal, I suggest you try to find a source that declares him a modernist and add it to the article. I have been unable to find such a source, but I would cheerfully re-evaluate my edit if one could be found. The rule is, "The threshold for inclusion on Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth". Unfortunately, this means that the use by a single journalist of "modernist" in a newspaper review as a term of savage condemnation may be sufficient reason to label a composer as such on Wikipedia, without necessarily taking into account a broader critical perspective.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:37, 24 September 2011 (UTC)


Thank you for your prompt and detailed answer.
The two following book & reference were cited in the article. I copied the relevant passages which (I hope) satisfy the needed requirements.
1. The International Conference of Composers. Held 7-14 Aug 1960 at Stratford, Ont, under the direction of Louis Applebaum, and the co-sponsorship of the CLComp, the CBC, the Canada Council, the Stratford Festival, CAPAC, BMI Canada, BMI, ASCAP, the AF of M, and the International Music Council. It afforded composers and others closely associated with contemporary music an opportunity to exchange ideas, and presented Canadian points of view and Canadian music to an international group. Composers from 20 countries participated, among them Henk Badings (Holland), Karl-Birger Blomdahl (Sweden), Klaus Egge (Norway), Iain Hamilton (Scotland), Roy Harris (USA), Vagn Holmboe (Denmark), Ernst Krenek (USA), Otto Luening (USA), Elizabeth Maconchy (England), Zygmunt Mycielski (Poland), Hermann Reutter (Germany), Gunther Schuller (USA), Josef Tal (Israel), and Edgard Varèse (USA)… The book The Modern Composer and His World (Toronto 1961, reprinted 1978), edited by John Beckwith and Udo Kasemets, gives an account of the proceedings and excerpts from the discussions. (http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0001707)
2. … "Josef Tal (1910-) emigrated to Palestine from Berlin in 1934 as a successful young pianist and conductor and though one of the pioneer generation, espoused a modernist style distinct from Ben-Haim’s ‘Mediterranean’ school. Tal pioneered electronic music in Israel and his extensive oeuvre includes several operas, concertos and electronic works." (Malcolm Miller: Between Two Cultures: A Conversation with Shulamit Ran - Tempo 58 (227) 15–32 © 2004 Cambridge University Press p. 29)
Etan J. Tal 21:02, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
The second citation addresses the issue perfectly, thank you. The first does not attribute either a modernist attitude nor a "modernist style" (whatever that is supposed to be) to any of the named composers, some of whom, at least, it would be absurd to claim were modernists (e.g., Roy Harris, Iain Hamilton).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:16, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for your careful reading - it was a pleasure to have this short discussion. Please comment on other topics and details to be improved in this article. I do not have any professional knowledge in music, but I have access to the relevant sources. Etan J. Tal 22:14, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
You are very welcome. I will cast an eye over that article and see whether I can find anything that might be improved.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:59, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Stocky

Ciao! OK, I've seen that (strangely) that format is also accepted here, although I don't like it. Anyway I've restored some other format changes that I had made (newspapers and journals in italics, blankings etc) that you had also mass removed with your revertion. PS: no one mentions Franco Battiato? From what I read in an interview book about him, he studied under Stockhausen, and, curiously, learnt traditional notation from him. Ciao and good work. --'''Attilios''' (talk) 09:22, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you don't like the established citation format in the article on Karlheinz Stockhausen, but I feel exactly the same about ugly, intrusive footnote numbers and the need to flip back and forth between locations while trying to read an article. The reviewers who conferred Good Article status did not have any problem with this referencing format, which is used in hundreds if not thousands of articles on the English Wikipedia. As for Franco Battiato, I had never heard of him until now but he does appear to be a notable individual and, if there are reliable sources documenting his studying with Stockhausen, it might be worthwhile adding mention of him, preferably more than just a listing in the "students" section. It does seem surprising that Battiato would have learned traditional notation from a composer famous for—amongst other things—creating non-traditional notations.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:05, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Did you delete a bit much yesterday? the line under controversy about sirius is followed directly by a list of names. the previous version had a section for honours as well as the heading for notable students. (edit - logged on) Ronster76 (talk) 23:51, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the "heads up". The edit history does not show this wholesale deletion, and I certainly did not make it. I will restore the missing material immediately.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:58, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
PS: I found the problem, which involved a format marker that I had not noticed. I have corrected my error. Thank you again for your vigilance.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:41, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Die Reihe

Hi, this is becoming one of the better articles on academic journals, good work! One suggestion: I think the lead is getting too large and should perhaps be limited to the first paragraph only. I've been thinking about a subject heading for what follows, but "History" doesn't quite seem to catch it. --Crusio (talk) 06:54, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I agree entirely about the lede, which of course is no such thing as it presently stands. I nearly added a "History" header myself, but hesitated for exactly the reason you mention. Since there is really still quite a lot more to add, I thought I might see how the prose shapes up, hoping this will suggest what the appropriate section titles should be. At the moment, it falls into three sections, of course: one on the origins and history of the journal, one on the focus and substance of the eight issues, and one on reception. The latter two headers are already in place, but I am having some doubts about just where some material not yet added really belongs—particularly about the differences between the German and English editions, which is both about history and substance, but also affects reception.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:14, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Source: Music of the Avant Garde

Hi, Jerome, I'm writing to ask if you would agree to review the Source: Music of the Avant Garde article I wrote last month? I've submitted it for review in the Good Article's music section (#45 at the moment) but didn't get any feedback. I've seen your contributions to the Milton Babbitt, Aleatoricism and Stockhausen articles, and feel you might be interested by Source. Thanks in advance. Tellus archivist (talk) 16:28, 11 October 2011 (UTC) (from France)

I am very interested in the article on Source, of which I was unaware until this very moment. I will be happy to review it. Thanks for calling this to my attention.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:30, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
Fine. I'd happily welcome any suggestion you'd make to improve the article. On a side note, you might want to check the review I wrote about the Douglas Kahn Source anthology, published this year. It appeared on my blog on this page.Tellus archivist (talk) 19:26, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
This gets better and better. I did not know about the anthology, though it is disappointing to learn that the publisher felt themselves unable to print the items on fur! I have had a quick look at the article, and I see a number of problems, some serious. I don't want to jump in unprepared, as I have never done a formal review of this sort before, so it may take me a day or two to prepare what I hope will be a balanced report. However, you may want to look here, under the thread headed "Tables of contents" for a recent discussion that bears directly on the Source article.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:40, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
Take your time with the review, I'm in no hurry. I just read the discussion you pointed to regarding Table of contents. I guess I'll have to make my point on this later. One more thing: if you eventually proceed to review the article, would you mind saying so on the Nominations page by clicking on the Start Review link, to let other potential reviewers know the article is already under review. Thanks. Tellus archivist (talk) 21:25, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Tombeau

Hi Jerome -

I've just now found your edit Revision as of 05:55, 19 January 2009 where you have posted a ((fact)) "citation needed" in the middle of a direct quote from a referenced source, with the note "Fact|date=January 2009 !--This certainly leaves out of account Leclair's op. 5, no. 6, at least.--" This is in the paragraph "Interestingly, tombeaux flourished in Catholic territories, where there was dearth of elaborate funeral music." I just wondered whether this was what you had intended. It seems that if the quoted source is inaccurate or questionable, a different sort of notation might be provided, but I don't know what kind. I notice in several other places "[sic]" has been added, but that probably wouldn't work here. The best solution might be a footnote calling attention to the problem.

Also, the WP article is copied in full from the website, omitting only its opening paragraph, but I see this issue has already been addressed. My "Concise Oxford 3rd" reads "Fr. 17th-cent. composers' term for memorial works", [etc, giving the example of Ravel]. The website text is certainly useful and helpful, but I wonder if any other source might be used to supplement it - perhaps Grove? Milkunderwood (talk) 03:19, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

That was quite a while ago. All that I can now remember is that the entire article was copied without proper acknowledgment from a website that was mentioned as either a general source, or an external link. After a bit of a scuffle, another editor claimed that the person who had written the website article had given permission for the entire thing to be copied onto Wikipedia. I can't recall whether this was ever confirmed, but I think that I ended up putting quotation marks around a lot of the material and ascribing it to that website, because by that time I had supplied a little additional material. In fact, I think the scuffle originally involved some objections to the text being tampered with at all (a rather odd thing to say on Wikipedia!). I agree with you that the website article seemed both useful and helpful though, as I recall, the quality of the prose left something to be desired (as it was translated from German by someone with a less-than-perfect command of English), and the sources cited there were only sketchily identified. In other words, it did not really amount to a reliable source. I haven't returned to that article for a long time now, having found plenty of others to keep me busy. I shall try to find some fresh material, but please don't let this inhibit you from carrying our investigations yourself.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:56, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Oops, we both posted at the same time. I had just added my suggestion of a footnote. I don't know anything at all about the topic, assumed you might. Milkunderwood (talk) 04:59, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
I was aware of the term from Ravel and Falla, but had now gone to that article from having made a couple of small edits to Partita for Violin No. 2 (Bach), where the Bibligraphy gave the English translation as ("Ciaccona: Dance or Tombeau?"), and I wanted to link to that term for explanation. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:19, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Uh-oh. Helga Thoene is the only reference cited for Bach's Ciaccona? In that case I would say that the Partita No. 2 article is in more urgent need of attention than the one on the Tombeau. She is the violin professor who perpetrated the sensational "Morimur" hypothesis, which was soundly refuted three or four years ago by scholars with actual credentials in musicology and music theory. No doubt this is the origin of the ridiculous "tombeau" association.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 15:29, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
You're WAY out of my league. I guess it's good that I brought this to your attention. (Also there's a lengthy essay on the Talk page that may be utter nonsense - I ran across a duplicate post of it somewhere else too, but now not sure of the location.) Milkunderwood (talk) 16:22, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for mentioning the Talk page, I'll have a look. In the meantime, I've collected some ammunition.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:03, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
It was the Busoni "myth" essay. Question: the reason I had wanted to link to Tombeau was because Thoene's title had also been given in English translation, and it's a confusing word. Now that you've left the titles in German only, I wonder if that link would still be useful - I would tend to create one link at its first occurrence, unless you disagree. Milkunderwood (talk) 18:15, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
I just added the term and a link in the lede. If that does not seem appropriate, please feel free to change it. If you still think it should be linked in the bibliography, please feel free to do that, as well. Since the controversial nature of Thoene's claims have now been mentioned in the lede, I think it will be necessary to add a section in the main body of the text, where tortillas and the name of Florence Nightingale may come up ;-) —Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:10, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
No, that's good - the lede ref/link is perfect. Thanks. Milkunderwood (talk) 19:28, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Jerome, it suddenly occurs to me that as I understood it, Thoene's thesis was that only the Ciaccona was supposed to be a "tombeau" rather than the entire partita. If true, then your lede may still need work - could just move down to "The Ciaconna" section.

That list of violinists is pretty silly as it is; I want to try to move all that to a separate Recordings section, but it will involve looking up all that stuff. I added some more names that I was aware of. A little surprised that Lydia Mordkovitch doesn't yet have an article, but I don't have any info at all for starting one. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:49, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

If I understand her correctly, Thoene believes the entire Partita is a memorial piece, but with special emphasis on the chaconne. The list of violinists is indeed silly—and was even sillier for leaving out the violinist who almost single-handedly revived the Sonatas and Partitas in the early years of the 20th century (Enescu). Wikipedia guidelines discourage lists like this, so a proper discography would be a big improvement.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:23, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Taking into consideration:

I'm going to simply delete that list rather than moving it down to a new Recordings section. It will be there in History if anyone feels strongly enough to resuscitate it. Milkunderwood (talk) 15:44, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

That's fine with me. I suspect that this list mania comes from the popular-music side of things, where everything seems to be driven by statistics. To me, this appears like insecurity over the issue of notability, but somehow I don't think that J. S. Bach needs to prove anything in that department. As with any truly notable person or event, a description of Enescu's contributions should be placed in the main text (in my opinion, lists of this sort are for "also rans"), though in this case it would be best in the article Sonatas and partitas for solo violin (Bach), since he did not concentrate only on the Second Partita. I notice he is mentioned there only in an External link, and under the French spelling of his name. There is no section in that article on the performance history of the Sonatas and Partitas, which might be worth adding. Regarding your last point, it is not true that data cannot be found on all of these recordings. If these violinists all made commercial recordings of this Partita, the data can easily be found on the Library of Congress OCLC. However, this is now a moot point.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:19, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

OCLC

I'm feeling especially stupid, but OCLC, as you suggested searching - in the section immediately above this post - is somehow not cooperating with my query. What I was trying to find was their entry for Chopin Op. 13, Grande fantaisie sur des airs polonais. I just typed in Chopin in their search box, and got only three returns, none of which made any sense. I had expected to drill down through thousands. Is there a trick to this?
(In the meantime, having decided that Grand Fantasy on Polish Airs, as I've found on a CD, was preferable to Fantasia on Polish Airs as had been listed at List of compositions by Frédéric Chopin by opus number, I went ahead and changed it there since there is no WP article for it yet. If I'm wrong it can be reverted easily enough.) Milkunderwood (talk) 05:57, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but I only just noticed your message here. I cannot understand why you would have gotten only three hits on OCLC if you entered "Chopin" in the "author" field of their search engine. When I do this, I get 71,448 results, starting with Kate Chopin's story "Storm" in The Oxford Book of American Short Stories. A "title" search produces about 29,000 hits, and a "keyword" search about 106,000. Naturally, putting "Chopin" into the "ISBN" and "year" search fields produces no results. Putting "Chopin" in the author field and "Grande fantaisie sur des airs polonais" in the title field produces 199 results: 106 recordings, 79 scores, and 14 "internet" items (whatever that means). To judge from the content of the entries, the LoC standard title for this work is "Grande fantaisie sur des airs polonais". It would never have occurred to Chopin, of course, to title the work in English, though it is standard practice to give genre titles in the normal English form. "Fantasy" by itself would fall into this category, but "Grande fantaisie sur des airs polonais" would not. This would argue in favour of the French form of the title.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:48, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
I guess the "trick" I'm looking for is, how do you get into the thing? Just going to "OCLC" presents you with a screen with "OCLC - The world's libraries. Connected." at the top left, and a Search box with a "Go" button at the top right. It's this search that still returns the same three useless entries. Otherwise, apparently you need to log in with a password, which of course I don't have. Where did you find the Author, Title, and Keyword searchboxes? Milkunderwood (talk) 13:49, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Oops. I was assuming that you had access through an institutional library, as I do. You are almost certainly correct that you would otherwise need an account with a password. Do you have access to a nearby library with public terminals? Often these are on accounts with access to OCLC.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:36, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Oh bummer. Yeah, there's a library I could go to, and I think it might have a public terminal. But I wouldn't be able to get any of my cataloging work done there, unless I could just sign up at the library and then log in with my password on my own computer thereafter. I figured there must be a trick somehow. But thanks for putting me onto this - I'll give it a try. (I have looked up stuff at LC, but didn't seem to find music recordings, unless you know there's a way to do that also.) Milkunderwood (talk) 18:28, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
And you think I ought to go back and list that Op. 13 with the French title, and no English translation? Milkunderwood (talk) 18:32, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Another possibility is to use the online catalog of a large university library, most of which are public-access. I used to use Melvyl at the University of California system regularly, because it is a union catalog of all of the constituent libraries, and therefore provided a very large database. You can access it at http://melvyl.worldcat.org/. A quick test search for "Grande fantaisie sur des airs polonais" obtained 110 hits. I think I stopped using it only because OCLC proved more comprehensive, and my own university library joined their catalog to a similar multi-library system. OCLC and these other university systems all access recordings as well as book, newspapers, and other media. For example, those 110 hits I obtained on Melvyl include 64 recordings, 51 musical scores, "downloadable archival material", and a few odd items. As far as the title goes, I would say that it should be given in its original French form, if for no better reason than that this seems to be the standard for English-language libraries (well, American ones, at least). This makes things slightly easier for readers who want to pursue things beyond the pages of Wikipedia. A translation should be provided, of course, but only in the body of the article—not in the article title. This translation may also include a caution that the word "Grande" is not always included, especially in the English form of the title.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:19, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes, Melvyl does the job - thanks very much for that tip. And I've been using IMSLP fairly often to find tempo indications, especially when the CD or LP I have at hand differs from whatever may be given here. (You do understand I'm not a musician? I'm just trying to catalog a fairly large collection for someone, and keep letting myself get distracted with Wikipedia. I've been trying to fix obvious problems as I run across them, but otherwise am just looking for information - or getting into arguments about notability of classical recordings. Or about that useless Rubinstein discography.) Milkunderwood (talk) 19:58, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
You are very welcome. I did not have any idea one way or the other about your background. I have seen your handle frequently in edits to articles and talk-page postings, so I know you are quite active in the classical-music quarter of Wikipedia. I don't think there should be any arguments about notability of classical recordings. They are all notable, and every single blessed one of them should have a very long Wikipedia article written about it ;-) —Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:09, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Citation style in Rawsthorne article?

Thank you for trying to tidy up the citation format in this article. As I am no expert, to say the least, on WP style conventions, I will take some time trying to get my head around the rationale for all the changes. So, please be patient... Straight off, I do have some concerns about bundling small essays such as CD booklet notes together with full books in a bullet point list of references (ie classic Harvard style of referencing throughout). Personally, I would prefer to cite smaller sources, such as booklet notes etc, within a 'Reflist' format, while keeping the bullet point list for the principal sources, while using 'Reflist' footnotes to specify page numbers referred to at particular points in the text. In other words, something a bit like the sort of approach used in this article—one which in principle I feel fairly comfortable with both as a Wikipedia reader and as a content editor. That sort of citation style would perhaps also simplify some formatting issues, for example by helping avoid a potentially cumbersome format for the booklet notes to Naxos Records 8.553567, which you tagged with "full citation needed" in the bullet point list (the source is already clearly identified by the catalogue number and the CD does bear the title 'Orchestral Works', albeit on the back cover). I also initially felt that the dentistry quotations would appear more appropriately in footnotes rather than the main text (although that feeling was mainly due to the overall brevity of the current draft): I realise that this sort of approach would require use of a footnote list ("n 1", "n 2" etc) alongside the 'Reflist' and I still have to learn the details of this formatting system. More generally, could I ask you whether you are interested in helping build content for this article? If you are, then I would do my best to fit in with your own formatting preferences. If not, I would find it easier to try to select an acceptable formatting system which I feel comfortable with, even though this will take a little time and I'll doubtless make mistakes along the way. In any case, I also have to thank you for the attention you've given to the issue, which has alerted me to the need to come to grips with the WP:CITE style guide you linked to. Thank you--MistyMorn (talk) 06:49, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

PS I've just spotted this conversation above about the Stockhausen article. I agree that it's a question of individual likes and dislikes. However, unlike you, I don't feel comfortable with Harvard style throughout: in the electronic format, I like to be able to click back and forth to visualise particular references; also, on cognitive grounds, the bibliographic references are easily confused with parentheses deployed for other purposes, such as specifying publication years etc. (Actually, my preference extends to academic journals, especially scientific ones, where one's reading is frequently interrupted mid-sentence by several lines of biblio.)--MistyMorn (talk) 08:31, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Since you have already read my thoughts on the matter, I will not need to repeat them here. I am a little puzzled, however, by your reluctance to list CD booklet citations "together with full books". How else would you list them, in a "second-rate sources" category? It is perfectly standard practice to list all cited sources together in a single list (or, when there is no list, to list all sources in the same stream of footnotes) regardless of the forms of publication. Indeed, it would be chaotic to list journal articles in one list, newspaper articles in another, books in yet a third, and so on. (My request for a "full" citation on that one CD was mainly aimed at the lack of a title, since it appeared that "Orchestral Works" referred only to the title of the essay in the booklet, though full-blown bibliographical references usually include the place of publication, if known, and the name of the publisher, which is usually but not always the same as the record label. It is not a great big deal.)
To answer your question, of course I am interested in "building content", as you put it. In fact, up to this point I believe I am the only editor to have done so after the creator of the article, even if my efforts been comparatively modest.
On a related matter, may I ask your opinion on the Evans article in The New Grove? This whole line of activity started when you objected to Evans's characterisation of Rawsthorne's abandoned studies in dentistry and architecture, and I got the impression from your remarks that you do not regard this article as being particularly sound. Certainly McCabe's full-length study is bound to be more comprehensive than any encyclopedia article can be, but do you have grounds to suspect the content of Evans's article?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:53, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
First, a rapid reply to your last query: No, I have no reason at all to suspect that Evans's article is anything but sound. Having recently read WP:PARAPHRASE, I was merely concerned about the possible implications of lifting phrase(s) word for word from Grove. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of attempting a risposte in dubious humour, which obviously failed to communicate on every level (and for which I apologise). I've now been able to borrow a library copy of McCabe's biography, which I'm finding a joy to read (although I'd say his editorial organisation of the notes/references is scarcely up to par in either your reckoning or mine). I would very much like to go on helping to expand Rawsthorne's biography, based initially at least largely on McCabe's work. However, I have to admit that I am somewhat concerned about our currently unreconciled differences as regards references and annotations. WP:CITEVAR encourages me to believe that solutions I find more amenable to work with, such as in this FA-class article on Percy Grainger, are fully acceptable on Wikipedia, despite the reasoned objections you set out above. I really wouldn't want to get into some sort of an editorial dispute (or whatever) with you. Having found the ongoing infobox RfC on the Richard D'Oyly Carte talk page singularly depressing, right now I'm concerned not to let any sort of dispute (however low key) regarding article format undermine my personal feeling with Wikipedia. I hope you can understand what I'm trying to say and where I'm coming from. Regards--MistyMorn (talk) 21:11, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification on Evans. Not all articles in the New Grove are as dependable as the reputation of that resource would have us believe, and though I had no reason to suppose Evans was less than fully reliable, I am by no means well-acquainted with either the details of Rawsthorne's biography, or of his musical œuvre. As to reference formats, of course there is absolutely nothing at all wrong with the one used in the article on Grainger, which appears to be MLA-footnote style. I don't like "footnotes" (which can never be footnotes, but in fact must be endnotes) on web pages, for reasons that I have explained elsewhere, and you have made it perfectly clear that you do not like parenthetical referencing. As far as MLA style goes, I have reservations abut it, too, particularly because in my own area of specialization it is common to be citing three or more sources by the same author. MLA solves this problem by falling back on author-short-title citations, which are less compact than the Chicago author-date style which I prefer, but this is quite beside the point. Editors are bound to have different preferences, which is why Wikipedia has settled on the "established style" policy. When I contribute to an article like Hurrian songs, which was begun by another editor, I maintain the established style, even though it is (to me) the most horrific of them all: the old-fashioned full-reference-embedded-in-the-footnote format, which on Wikipedia results in massive clutter due to the virtual necessity of repeating all of the bibliographical data every time a different page is cited in a source. The upshot, I think, is that we must all be prepared to work with a variety of format styles, however much we would like to change them. When we create an article, or edit a pre-existing unreferenced article, that is the time to exercise our preferences—indeed, we have to choose some referencing style, and must make it consistent within the article to the best of our abilities.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:24, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick and thoughtful reply, which I appreciate. I agree that the subject matter of the Hurrian Songs article seems much more attractive than some of the referencing. A rapid query (as it's getting late here): Do you think you could kindly suggest a feasible alternative to the full on Harvard which would perhaps be amenable to both of us? I have used Harvard style through three decades of scientific writing and editing, but just can't seem to 'see' it in this setting. My problem, no doubt... And sorry to be picky. I just like to have a good feel with what I'm doing. Regards--MistyMorn (talk) 22:44, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't understand what you mean by "full-on Harvard" style. First of all, there is no such thing as "a Harvard style". The term covers a large number of styles which have author-date referencing in common. The style I adopted for the Rawsthorne article is one of the variants defined in The Chicago Manual of Style. There are a number of features characterizing this style, starting with a list of References with (1) entries in alphabetical order by authors' last names, (2) year of publication immediately following the author(s) and not enclosed in parentheses, (3) the title of the reference, italicized if a book, enclosed in quotation marks if an article, dissertation, or other unpublished manuscript, etc. Already by this point there are a number of divergences from other "Harvard citation styles". Another feature is the use of parenthetical referencing, with particular rules for punctuation, etc. What "feasible alternative" do you have in mind? There are dozens and dozens of "feasible alternatives" that are acceptable on Wikipedia, but it sounds to me like you are suggesting the format should be changed to something othe than what it now is. While I see no reason to do that, I am willing to listen to persuasive argument.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:03, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

No, sorry, I give up. I have no persuasive argument to offer. At least for tonight... And probably not tomorrow or the next day either. Since you seemed to be somehow dictating terms on format acceptability, it was I was asking you to suggest a feasible alternative that we could both agree on so as to be able to work together happily. Basically... put really bluntly, perhaps because it's late... when I started to work quite intensively on what was frankly a rather messy page that had been tagged for maintenance, I was somewhat surprised to find myself being told what formats I should and shouldn't adopt, based largely on somebody else's personal preferences. If I plan to put a whole lot of work into helping to expand an article in this way I really don't feel like finding myself having to justify every formatting preference that I adopt while drafting (after all, neither of us 'own' the article). Or risk getting into some sort of an edit war just so as to be able to work in a format I feel comfortable with. As much as I'd like to help transform the current mess into something which could do a bit more justice to this fine composer, I've got to an age when I'll settle to read McCabe's biography just for my own personal pleasure and leave the job of correcting and expanding the article to you and anyone else who wants to contribute. Please, don't take offence. That's honestly how I feel. Over to you. Regards--MistyMorn (talk) 23:45, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

tempo question

If you don't mind me bugging you, I'm not sure how to interpret this tempo marking of "Allegretto. (Andantino.)" on Chopin's Impromptu No. 2, Op. 36: [1]. Allegretto quasi Andantino? Or Andantino will come later? Or they skip back and forth? Surely not "Allegretto o (ou) Andantino ad lib". Milkunderwood (talk) 00:45, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Why not "Allegretto, which could also be understood in this musical context as Andantino"? Keep in mind that these words do not have precise metronomic equivalents, for a start, and that they are in fact Italian words with particular significations that are not entirely to do with speed. The verb "andare" means "to go", but in the sense of "a walking pace". The diminutive suggests an easy walking pace. "Allegro", on the other hand, means "merry", and the diminutive "allegretto" could be interpreted as "somewhat merry". These are not incompatible ideas. There are certainly other pieces in the repertory that bear double markings of this sort.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:16, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for this explanation. I had it in mind that they were incompatible, but I see your point. And yes, I didn't see any conflict with Chopin's Op. 49 Fantaisie, marked as Tempo di Marcia. (Grave.) Milkunderwood (talk) 06:45, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Indeed, there is nothing astonishing about a "serious" march (which is, after all, what grave means). It is important to realize that many so-called "tempo indications" were in origin actually indications of character or mood (adagio = "settled", largo = "broad", vivace = "lively"). Though we usually think of andante as indicating a slow(ish) tempo, it may actually indicate a fast one, as in the second movement of Handel's Recorder sonata in G minor (HWV 360).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:17, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Alan Hovhaness question

Hi Jerome--

Kleinzach has suggested that I bring this question to you, and it's probably easiest to simply link to there: User talk:Kleinzach#Alan Hovhaness compositions.

The following appends to that discussion rather than repeating it:

I'm not sure he understood I would propose to only add a list of solo piano pieces, arranged by opus number, and only those available on recordings. I think this would need to be a third separate subsection, following the Alan Hovhaness#Partial list of compositions arranged by date, and then the Alan Hovhaness#Symphonies arranged by symphony number. (His composition dates, opus numbers, and symphony numbers don't match up neatly at all.) There's no way I could undertake any sort of major rearrangement of his works generally, because I don't have the information (nor the time, or interest, I have to confess.) My only real concern was that anyone looking at the Hovhaness page could come away thinking that his output was nearly all orchestral, with no clue to his solo piano pieces. Very frankly, I'm too lazy, and busy, to try to research this fully, but such a list from CDs would not only provide some balance on the page but also indicate that these are in print and available to interested pianists or other readers. I was thinking I might just ref the CD info itself, and link each to Amazon. Please let me know what you think. Thanks very much. Milkunderwood (talk) 02:57, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
Whew! This could be a nest of worms in the making, but I have to agree that Hovhaness's piano music has got to be more important than it usually is portrayed—since it usually is not portrayed at all. (I don't think I've ever heard a single piano piece by Hovhaness myself.) Part of the problem with Hovhaness is his huge output, which creates a certain resistance to making complete lists of his output—or even of definable segments of it. I think what I am trying to say is that you have got a good idea here, to add a partial list of piano pieces to the list of selected compositions. That said, I think that using availability on record as a criterion is justified for piano music less than just about any other genre, since even people with minimal keyboard skills can get some idea of what the pieces are about, without having to hire an orchestra to conduct, and the likelihood of a piece cropping up on an accessible live performance is considerably higher than, say, a piano quintet, or piece for SATB choir with contrabass sarrusophone, banjo, and bagpipes. Now, first, I think it is not a very good idea to provide links to Amazon, since that is fairly blatantly commercial. Why not links to Barnes & Nobel, or ArkivMusic, or CD Baby, etc.? Second, if (purely hypothetically) your recordings include two of the Sonatas op. 299, it would look odd not to include the third one, as well. Because he did not number his piano sonatas (unlike his symphonies), I suppose few people would notice if you did not include all 23 of them (assuming the list in New Grove is accurate). As to listing opus numbers but not dates, it should be very easy to supply the dates as well. If you do not have access to New Grove, I certainly do, and the years of most of the piano compositions are given there. I think Kleinzach has the right idea: don't make a separate ghetto for the piano pieces, but rather add them as part of the "select" list.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:10, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
:-) It's a nest of worms and a can of snakes, probably with some centipedes thrown in. First, you really ought to look at my "credentials". Second, my entire reference library consists of a Schwann Opus, a Schwann Artist issue, a Penguin Guide to CDs, a Jim Svejda and a Concise Oxford, all from the 1980s-90s, plus Nat Brandt's book on the Budapest Str Qrt and John Hunt's discographies of Arrau/Cziffra/Horowitz/Lipatti/Rubinstein. Plus David Hall's 1940 The Record Book. To save me typing all the names of pieces, here are the full contents of these three CDs, by number only: Fire Dance ~1926 (no Op. #); Opp. 6 #1; 10 #1; 16; 22; 36; 37a; 52 #2; 52 #s 4-6; 52a; 55 #2; 64 #1; 85 #6; 96; 102 #2; 144a; 144b; 145; 152; 176; 210 #5; 299 #2; 301; 303; 327; 335; 340; 346. As far as I know, these are the only solo piano pieces available on disc. It sounds pretty useless to me. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:29, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Milkunderwood (talk) 07:18, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough, though I think you may have missed Op. 405 on this recording. I'm afraid I don't understand what it is that you find "pretty useless", but the recording with "Fred the Cat" appears not to be available on disc any longer. This is one big problem with tying listings to recordings: they go in and out of print so quickly. Personally, I'm still patiently waiting for Sony/CBC to reissue the recording of Virgil Thomson's Cello Concerto, with Luigi Silva and the Janssen Symphony Orchestra of Los Angeles. Knocks the socks off those two recent upstarts, but it went out of print about 1957 and hasn't been available since, and my old LP copy is now very badly worn. Any day now, it's bound to reappear.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:46, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks - I did miss Op. 405. I have the same Khaldis Op. 91 on LP, and never bothered to duplicate it on this CD; also I now notice the Op. 16 Fantasy is here played by Hovhaness. The great advantage of Amazon is that you can find nearly anything, even long out of print, from resellers. A while back I looked for the Lousadzak Op. 48 piano concerto played by M Ajemian together with the Op. 89a violin concerto played by A Ajemian, and at that time the only copy on offer was listed at over $5000. But I see that now that listing has attracted two more copies at $19 and $20. Keith Jarrett also did the Op. 48, but his is very un-Hovhanessian in concept.
So if your impression is that these, plus the Op. 405, are not "useless", does that mean you think they should be listed up in the Partial list of compositions? I note that Arkiv gives composition dates for the CDs they list, but I don't necessarily trust theirs as opposed to Grove; and anyway I still don't have any dates at all for the third one. I could type all the names in at his page if you want to give me all the verified dates.
By the way, never bother to wait for Sony. They are absolutely infuriating. They are just sitting on their vast and irreplaceable Columbia catalog, with no understanding whatever of its importance. They throw together bits and pieces of things - excerpted movements from here and there, as in a "collection" of Rudolf Serkin. In a reissue of the Budapest Str Qrt Brahms Op. 67 they went so far as to simply chop off the last third of the III Agitato - Allegretto non troppo, even though there was plenty of room on the disc, and there were no audio problems with it. They came to a relatively quiet place, did a quick fadeout, and that was it. I would love to wring their scrawny necks. Milkunderwood (talk) 19:24, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
With Hovhaness it is very difficult to draw a line between what should be listed and what can safely be left out of a partial list. New Grove has what is meant to be a complete list, so why should Wikipedia be any different? However, such lists are not supposed to be included in the main author biography. But to address your question here, I would suggest including all 23 sonatas (since the sonata is a major form), unless some criterion can be found to separate them into "major" and "also-ran" groups. For the remaining pieces, many have got to be occasional pieces or for some other reason identifiable as "minor works", and these should be omitted, even if recorded.
You got me a little excited there, when I thought I might be able to sell you my copy of Lousadzak and the Violin Concerto at the "bargain price" of only $4,990, but at an offer of just $20 I think I'll keep it. I think I must have that LP with Khaldis, as well, since I remember the piece with some fondness, but I just ordered the CD reissue on the strength of the Hovhaness performance of the Fantasy. And I am very aware of the utility of Amazon's search engine, even if I do think that Wikipedia has no business being used to promote Amazon.
I must also learn to put irony marks on statements intended as irony. The day that Sony/CBS (not CBC) reissues the Thomson Cello Concerto, I shall start building a landing field for all the flying pigs.
As far as the work-list is concerned, why don't you just go ahead and add some of the major piano pieces, with opus numbers if you have them. I or some other editor with access to New Grove can add the dates of composition later.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:09, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

The reason this won't work is that although it's pretty easy to distinguish "major" from "minor" works just by looking at the timings, first, the only sonatas or other longer works I have access to are (by length): 299 #2 @ 5'15"; 6 #1; 36; 96, 301; 340 @ 10'; 346; 145; 176; 16, jumping up from 10' to 20'; 303 @ 22'; and 335 @ 28'. Second, since that list is organized by date and I don't have dates, this would look strange indeed. I could use Arkiv for some dates, unverified, but still not all of them.
It's not Amazon's search engine at issue, although it does perform much more efficiently than most others, but rather the fact that they have listings for so many OOP items. ArkivMusic isn't nearly as well known, but they are just as much in the business of selling CDs. I'm in no way shilling for Amazon, but you takes 'em as you finds 'em.
I wish there were "irony marks" - sometimes I get in trouble for being flippant, which doesn't translate in print. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:03, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I should have taken a closer look at that work list. How about this: add in the major piano works with your best guess about the year of composition, with a question mark, like this: "1947?". Other hands can then correct the dates as necessary.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:51, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
Okay. "Whew", indeed. Trying to list his stuff by composition date is a nightmare, because he kept revising everything, years later, and his opus numbers don't make any sense that way. I've now copied that whole list as is into my sandbox, and am going to rearrange it by opus numbers. He has a very good website [5], with dates. It's obvious that a lot of WP list entries are already taken from there. I'm going to expand the list by adding "major" - longer - compositions that are published (many are not); and put dates at the ends of the entries. Going to take me a while. Milkunderwood (talk) 02:07, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
If it helps at all, New Grove gives the following dates for the piano sonatas: Sonata Ricercare, op. 12 (1935); Sonata, op. 22 (1937); Sonata, op. 145 (1956); Lake of Van Sonata, op. 175 (1946, rev. 1959); Madras Sonata, op. 176 (1946, rev. 1960); Poseidon Sonata, op. 191 (1957); Bardo Sonata, op. 192 (1959, rev. 1960); Three Sonatas, op. 299 (1977); Sonata "Fred the Cat", op. 301 (1977); Sonata "Ananda", op. 303 (1977); Sonata "Mount Chocorua", op. 335 (no date); Sonata "Blue Job Mountain", op. 340 (1979); Sonata "Caramount", op. 345 (no date); Sonata "Journey to Arcturus", op. 354 (1981); Sonata "Hiroshige’s Cat Barhing", op. 366 (no date); Sonata "On the Long Total Eclipse of the Moon July 6, 1982", op. 367 (no date, but surely must be 1982); Sonata "Tsugouharu Fujita’s Cat", op. 368 (no date); Sonata "Lake Sammamish", op. 369 (no date); Sonata "Cougar Mountain", op. 390 (1985); Sonata, op. 399 (1986); Sonata "Mt Katahdin", op. 405 (1987).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:32, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Jerome, I'm starting to make a bit of progress. Before I get any further, I wish you would please take a look at what I have, and tell me whether I'm on the right track, or make any suggestions. Thanks very much for your help. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:35, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Oops, we were both editing at the same time, and I didn't see yours. Thank you - that's another good source. I very much appreciate your taking all that trouble. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:37, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikijargon is "edit conflict". That's perfectly all right. One formatting suggestion: drop the boldfacing of titles. If works are described by genre (symphony, concerto, string quartet, etc.) the titles should be in Roman type; if they have particular titles (e.g., Wrack and Ruin, Ruminations on Assorted Elocution Lessons, Spanner in the Works) then they should be in italics. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:50, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
I think that's what I've done - changed formal titles from bold to italics. The top part of my sandbox page is mine, the bottom part is what I had found. Click the word "progress" above. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:55, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
Please excuse my haste in examining your sandbox. If I had read the note at the top, I would have realised what you were doing, and you are perfectly correct about the bold type being distracting. It is nevertheless still the case that titles such as Trio, Piano Quintet No. 1, and so on, should not be italicised. This is not just a peculiarity of Wikipedia, but is a general principle in English-language publications.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:54, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


A specific problem with Hovhaness is that he's so idiosyncratic with his titles. For instance he has

  • "Trio" [violin, viola, cello - not in title], Op. 403;
  • "Trio I" [(Roman numeral); in E Minor; violin, cello & piano], Op. 3;
  • "Trio for 3 saxophones", Op. 331;
  • "Trio for violin, viola & cello", Op. 201

or

  • "Three Songs" [for voice & piano], Op. 95
  • "Three Songs for Low Voice and Piano", Op. 425

or

  • "Four Songs" [for low voice & piano], Op. 238
  • "Four Songs" [for low voice & piano], Op. 242

but then in other places he uses numbers - 4, 7, 12, etc.

  • There are eleven numbered concertos, all for various instruments such as the "Concerto No. 2" [for violin & strings], Op. 89 No. 1, which you have on LP - but then there is also "Violin Concerto No. 2", Op. 431.
  • Two of these eleven numbered concertos, Op. 123 No. 3, and Op. 413, are both "Concerto No. 10".
  • Then there are four unnumbered concertos with "for ... [etc]" in their names, not to mention the named concertos such as Lousadzak, Op. 48, on that same LP.
  • The upshot of all this is that I don't know what to leave in Roman type and what to italicize. Do we want to try to regularize his titles into standard forms, or assume that each of his assigned names is a "title" and thus put in italics, or something in between? It's as if he was defying anyone to come behind him trying to catalog this stuff. My own instinct here is to ignore standard formatting, and to italicize everything shown as being a "title", and to leave comments that I'm putting in [square brackets] in Roman type. Milkunderwood (talk) 19:03, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
I hadn't said so, but having found his official website and list of works, I might as well put in major works of all types, again defining "major" as indicated at the top of my sandbox. I'm sure this will mean having to eventually split off the list as a separate article.
In which case (or perhaps in either case) I had better leave a note on the appropriate talkpage advising people to first check the formatting at his website before changing fonts, capitalization, or any other formatting used in the list. Part of the problem, too, is that in many cases Hovhaness also gave formal subtitles to works. Then his website puts "Instrumentation" in a separate column. This gets to be far too confusing and duplicative for a WP list, so I'm combining and rephrasing this information, sometimes also including from the "Comments" column as I think appropriate. Milkunderwood (talk) 19:54, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
I can tell you've never worked as a librarian ;-) Yes, I can see from your examples that the formats on that website are inconsistent. This is a bit different from saying that Hovhaness was idiosyncratic in his title usage. If he wrote one trio in 1937, and another in 1978, there is no cause for alarm that the exact form the titles took in his manuscripts might not agree! Neither is there any reason to expect that different publishers will adhere to a consistent title formatting style, even if the composer does so in his manuscripts. Librarians stay up far into the night trying to regularize things like this. Still, when all the book-dust settles, there are going to be cases where there may be doubt whether a composer is simply using one of several variants of a genre title format (e.g., Symphony No. 3 vs. Third Symphony) or concocting a "true" title that resembles a generic one. (My favorite example is Ezra Sims's String Quartet no. 2 (1962), which was actually composed in 1974, is not a quartet, and is scored for mixed winds and strings. The title is an affectionate joke, poking fun at an uncharacteristic mistake make by Nicolas Slonimsky when editing Sims's biographical article in Bakers Biographical Dictionary.) I don't think we need to adhere to LOC standard titles here on Wikipedia, but we should at least be consistent within one article or list. As for the erratic numbering of the concertos, I imagine if I had written as many as Hovhaness did, I might have trouble remembering where I was in the series, myself. You might also glance at the next item on this talk page, concerning the piano sonatas of George Enescu. There are just two: Nos. 1 and 3.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:39, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
Okay, look where I've got to now, including my new note at the top, still incomplete, because I was going to list some examples of concertos. Idiosyncratic was just used between you and me, not for posting. If you want to give me a specific guideline on the italicizing or not of titles, I can certainly try to follow it. :-) Milkunderwood (talk) 00:10, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Sure, I understand about "idiosyncratic", though sometimes that is the word used in contrast to "generic" for titles. The titles in your list that should not be italicized are opp. 3, 6/1, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17/1, 18, 21, 23, 61, 70, 79, 88, and 89/1. It appears that Hovhaness numbers his concertos (by intention, at least) independently of the solo instruments for which they are written (rather in the way that Debussy numbered his Sonatas). If this is the case, then you have got the right idea here: it would be misleading to use a title such as "Violin Concerto No. 2" if there is no Violin Concerto No. 1.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:28, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Thank you - I'll make these changes, and then see how it goes from there.
(EDIT: But I sure don't much like "Trio I" in a Roman numeral, or Op. 21 "Suite in D Minor" being treated as generic names rather than specific titles. And then the concertos get even more complicated - see right below where I was talking about Trios and Songs, above. I fully understand your point, but I definitely get the impression that what's given at his website are Hovhaness's own titles (and subtitles).] Milkunderwood (talk) 00:32, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Hold on there a minute. If you don't like using Roman numerals, then don't use them. In fact, Roman numerals in a work list like this are extremely strange, to my eye. Consistency would demand that, if you use "Trio I", that you also use "Concerto VIII", "Symphony XXIV", and so on. I don't understand why you think "Suite" is any less a genre name than "Symphony", "String Quartet", or "Sonata". It really doesn't matter whether Hovhaness was consistent in his formats from one score to another, so far as generic titles are concerned. (See the example I gave above, Which could here be expanded with other variants such as "Symphony III", "III. Symphonie", "Tercera Sinfonía", etc.) In the context of an encyclopedia article or library catalog, a consistent form should be used.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:48, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
But dammit, that's the title of the work - not "Trio 1" or "Trio No. 1", but "Trio I". That's just my point. I can't go around changing his titles. Can I? And it wasn't the "Suite", it's the "in D Minor" - that's part of the title. Milkunderwood (talk) 04:22, 29 October 2011 (UTC) [EDIT: In the meantime I've done some more fixing up.] Milkunderwood (talk) 04:28, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

According to his website, he assigned specific titles, and frequently also subtitles. These are different from the descriptions of the works, and forces, which are given in separate columns. Try looking at his website [6]. Milkunderwood (talk) 04:41, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know. There are worms, snakes, centipedes, spiders, and who knows what else coming out of this thing. This is a project worth doing, but I'm feeling sorry for myself for having brought it up. :-( Milkunderwood (talk) 04:59, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
You're making this more complicated than it needs to be. When we talk about Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, for example, "F major" isn't part of the title: it is the key in which the piece is written. Why should Hovhaness be any different? I have looked at his website, and I do not see that there is any problem. Subtitles are subtitles, and there are conventions for handling these. You should look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music#Classical music titles. It will help you to understand how all this works.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:37, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay. I'll just try to follow your lead here. In the meantime, I keep running across abbreviations like this:

  • "orchestra [11(eh), 11 1110 timp perc hp strings]"

What I've done so far is to ignore the 11 1110, etc, designation, and just put "timpani, percussion, harpsichord, strings"; but I have no idea what the "orch [11(eh)]" can mean. If it's essential to describing forces in addition to those I've listed, I can go back and put these in. Thanks again for your help. (Also, I've been linking to his names of people and places where I'm quite sure I've got the correct reference; also to less familiar names of composition types.) Take a look again at my revised sandbox. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:11, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

It looks good to me, at a quick glance. As far as interpreting the scoring abbreviations are concerned, lists like these don't usually go into details when orchestral music is under discussion. Chamber orchestras may be another matter. The convention is to list instruments in the order used in orchestral scores, which is: flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, trombones, tubas, percussion, harps, keyboards, first violins, second violins, violas, cellos, double basses. Any other instruments, such as saxophones, English horn, bass clarinet, Wagner tubas, accordion, viola d'amore, are outside of this convention, and must be specified in some other way. The example you give is an orchestra with on flute, one oboe doubling English horn (if there was an English horn in addition to the one oboe, the abbreviation would not be enclosed in parentheses), one clarinet, one bassoon, one horn, one trumpet, one trombone, no tuba, timpani, percussion , harp (not harpsichord, which is usually abbreviated "hpsd"), and strings.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:37, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Ah - thanks for that correction - I'll go back and fix those. Since Hovhaness very rarely used a conventional "orchestra", it seemed important to specify his instrumentation. And I understand also the conventional listing sequence, but here again, I think he is putting them in the sequence of his own unconventional saliency, which ought to be preserved. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:12, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
Just a clarification: I didn't mean to suggest that idiosyncratic instrumentation should not be specified—especially in chamber-orchestra configurations. In fact, I had begun typing in a qualification, but decided not to complicate things at that point. What I meant to say is that a full orchestra already comprising 3333 4331 timp perc 2hp strings does not require specification of additional instruments in a list of compositions. In an article on a specific work, the full complement of instruments may well be listed, as for example in the articles on Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder, or Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony. Hovhaness often uses a small orchestra comprised of the usual strings plus a very few wind or percussion. You have several examples already in your list, and I would advise keeping the instrumentation there.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:24, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
Whoof! I was not cut out for this. I've tried making the corrections you gave, since you last looked at what had been saved - but am I now doing too much? (EDIT: FWIW, I wouldn't be copying and pasting from the H website even if it allowed, which it doesn't; but my bigger problem is that I'm not only a one-fingered hunt-&-peck typist but an extraordinarily clumsy one at that.) Milkunderwood (talk) 04:19, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
Also changed the top section - check that out too please. Milkunderwood (talk) 04:22, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
In Op. 143, I assume that "orchestra [33(eh)3(b c1)3(c bsn) 5331] was supposed to be a lowercase "cl" instead of a "c1", and it would be a "b clarinet" and a "c bassoon"? Should these keys be converted to uppercase? That is, if I'm not deleting these details? Milkunderwood (talk) 04:35, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
I would have to suppose you are correct. An abbreviation of "b c1" (that is with a numeral 1) would make no sense at all.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:42, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Another possibly dumb question: unless I'm confused, I had been under a general impression that the instrumentation called for or used in an orchestra is referred to as "forces", but I'm not finding that definition anywhere at all, either here or in any dictionary I've tried. Do I just have the wrong term? The Hovhaness Symphony No. 18, Op. 204a, is the same as Op. 204, but uses [2222 2231 plus celesta] as opposed to [1111 1111] (omitting celesta) in Op. 204. If I want to list only 204a, I had proposed to say (paraphrasing info at the website) "a slight reworking of a ballet with smaller forces, Op. 204, originally written for the Martha Graham Ballet Company".

However, I am now finding at least this sentence:

  • "The so-called "standard complement" of double winds and brass in the orchestra from the first half of the 19th century is generally attributed to the forces called for by Ludwig van Beethoven."

If this is the appropriate term after all, the WP entry on Force (disambiguation) should probably be updated; also perhaps Wiktionary. Of course I do not have usable information for correcting this myself, especially absent any dictionary definition. Milkunderwood (talk) 19:50, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

And please do tell me if I'm providing so much detail that it's likely to get wiped out by someone - this is an awful lot of work to just turn around and find it later deleted. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:32, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
How extremely odd. I had expected to find the term "forces" defined this way in the OED, but it's not there in this sense—at least, not exactly. It does show an American usage of the singular form, "force", to refer to a body of labourers, and at a little greater distance, in the military and police sense. However, dictionary.com supplies this definition as sense 10: "any body of persons combined for joint action: a sales force." Other terms are also used for the makeup of an orchestra, such as "instrumentation" or "scoring", but I would say that "forces" is the better choice, regardless of the shortcomings of Wikipedia and the OED. As to whether you are including too much detail, I would say not, but opinions are bound to vary.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:47, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
Oh, one other thought: you might wish to consult some of the extant "List of compositions by …" items on Wikipedia, to get a feel for what is likely to be regarded as an appropriate level of detail. See for example List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach, List of compositions by George Frideric Handel, List of compositions by Béla Bartók, List of compositions by Heitor Villa-Lobos, and List of compositions by Arnold Schoenberg, to get some sense of the range of different styles that are found.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:56, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I'll do that - thanks. In the meantime I've expanded the note I propose to put at the top of the talkpage for this discography, to include:

  • Composition titles are given here exactly as shown at the Hovhaness website, including capitalization, in order to follow the composer's own specified titles, regardless of how they may be listed on various recordings. In a few cases these may be thought to conflict with Wikipedia's standard style guidelines for composition titles, but this is only one of many ways in which Hovhaness did not follow "standard" conventions in his compositions.
  • Information found in the Subtitle, Instrumentation and Comments columns in his website is given either in square brackets or in parentheses, as seemed most appropriate, and may have been combined or rearranged from its presentation there, for clarity and consistency. Because Hovhaness chose unusual instrumentation in most of his works, this information is provided in detail for just that reason." Milkunderwood (talk) 21:31, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
Very good examples - thank you for pointing them out. One thing I very definitely do not want to get involved in is constructing a table, which I had already tried struggling with for the Rubinstein discography (q.v. in a separate sandbox on my user page). Anyway, the Hovhaness website is already arranged as just the same kind of sortable table, and that would look entirely too much like copyright violation. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:27, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
It is only my opinion (and after all, you are the one putting in all the work), but I do not think it is such a good idea to slavishly follow the title formats on the Hovhaness website, for several reasons. First of all, genre titles should be consistent within the list. Secondly, why should we suppose that the website faithfully reflects the composer's preferences? And finally, capitalization is more often than not a matter of typographical design (or in manuscript, handwriting style), rather than of a standard practice. If the titles are taken from the cover of a published score, for example, they may be displayed in full caps, caps/small caps, or even all lowercase, purely as a matter of house style. It would be unreasonable to carry over such idiosyncrasies into an encyclopedia, just as it would be unreasonable to insist of the particular font, type size, and colour (e.g., Pantone 300, 26-point on 30 Helvetica Neue bold, reverse-out).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:05, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
I understand the points you are making. This comes back to the question of his Op. 3, (supposedly) titled "Trio I". IMSLP doesn't even list his name, much less providing a scan of any scores, and I would have no idea where else to look. One, he probably just wrote in manuscript a vertical line that could be interpreted as a number "1", or a Roman capital i "I", or even a lowercase L "l". Second, we do know that the website abbreviated "cl" as "c1" in error. Still for all that, my own preference is to follow the website on the assumption that its builders know something that we do not; and we also do know that Hovhaness was not always very consistent in the titles he did assign. I'm guessing that most likely some wikipedian knowledgeable about classical music may come along and change or delete almost anything that I'm typing - perhaps you, if you're so inclined. I'm not at all trying to deliberately make more work for someone else to come clean up after me - I just feel better about constructing the list on the basis of the primary source available to me. I think you're right, though, that I ought to at least un-italicize and de-emphasize the "including capitalization" - or just omit that phrase.
Aside from this, I still have not entirely made up mind about all the extra work involved in typing out the instrumentation, which would bother me if it suddenly disappeared. And I'm quite unsure about what might be useful, and to whom, for me to create links. For instance I do know what SATB means, but I had no idea what, e.g., 3322 4331 might mean. Will everyone looking at this list know, or want to know, the precise meanings of (just starting at top) Missa Brevis; strings (in the context of orchestration); Ode; Toccata; Fugue; String Quartet; Prelude; Sonata; Ricercare; Suite; band; Fantasy; Concerto; Symphony; Variations; timpani; percussion; glockenspiel; horn, to distinguish it from English horn; Bagatelles; Alleluia; Rhapsody; Divertimento; Cantata; celesta; etc, etc? I don't know which of these possible links might be useful, or just eye clutter that someone would come along and delete. I do feel comfortable in linking to place names, or foreign terms or personages, etc, that he uses; but otherwise I have no idea where to draw a useful line. The thing is, I'm not a musician, and I feel like I should write this in a way that I would want to find it myself. I'm familiar with all those musical terms, but for the most part would not have known what they actually mean without looking them up.
So who is the reader? "The reader is the enemy", as has been said. Milkunderwood (talk) 00:45, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
I had been wondering about that for a long time. Thanks for explaining who this "reader" person is! Getting back to the subject in hand, I hasten to clarify that my remarks about standardizing apply to genre titles more than idiosyncratic ones. Still, the usual rules of English title capitalization should be followed (supposing the title is in English, of course). Thus, "Concerto for the Night Before Christmas", and not "Concerto For The Night Before Christmas" (to take a hypothetical example). Concerning links, I think the rule should be "when in doubt, leave it out", and certainly don't link the same word over and over, or you will have the Sea of Blue Brigade come down on you like a ton of bricks. In a list of compositions, I think you may assume that terms like "string quartet", "sonata", and "concerto" are common terms that should not require links. Words like "bagatelle" or "alleluia" might be a different matter.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:38, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
:-) I thought you might enjoy that. And thank you (yet again) - your suggestion comports with my instincts. Milkunderwood (talk) 02:12, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, the further down in this website I go, the less consistent it gets - as though someone (besides me) was running out of steam. So you were right all along. If I ever get finished I'll just post it as is, and then toy with it more later. But I'm trying to clean up some as I go. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:41, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Does this ref sound OK, or is it an invitation for trouble?
  • Detailed information is largely from http://www.hovhaness.com/hovhaness_works.html, cross-checked where available against various recordings on LP and CD. This list omits short works (five minutes or less), and unpublished works.
Milkunderwood (talk) 08:03, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Tell you what: why don't we cross-check everything against the work list in New Grove? That way, you can cite it equally with the (possibly flaky) website. You may not have access to New Grove, but I do. The work list there is very compact, though that means care must be taken to read the abbreviations correctly.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:17, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Jerome, this would be a great suggestion. Right now, if you care to look, I've done through Op. 284, which is roughly somewhat more than half-way (out of 434 listed at the website). Does this mean you would be willing to to do the checking against New Grove? I don't see how I could do that work. You certainly don't want to post New Grove for me to check, which would be an even more horrendous task for you. (In the meantime I've reworked the notes at the top of the page a bit, and have found several more useful links to Armenian names he used.) Milkunderwood (talk) 20:17, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

If you are suggesting that you would do the cross-checking with Grove, you could start at any time, and just make your own edits to my sandbox. I'm still not sure this is really what you meant. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:29, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
That is one possibility, and it should not be too difficult. As I said, the New Grove worklist is very compact, and does not include things like details of orchestral forces. The other option would be to send you the list to check yourself, but "many hands make light work" (when it is not a case of "too many chefs spoil the broth", at least). I imagine that any edits I make to your sandbox file will be evident in the edit history, so keep an eye out over the next day or two.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:05, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Well, your kind offer is more than terrific. I'm tied up with work for the next couple of days, but will make an effort to get along through the rest of the list as quickly as I can after that. I'm feeling pretty excited about giving Hovhaness a good article on his compositions. You go ahead and do whatever you want in any part of the sandbox. :-) If anything looks questionable or fishy to you, you could also look back at that website as well. One specific question I had was with Op. 226, a "cantata" w/o voices?? Milkunderwood (talk) 21:20, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
That looks like a cut-and-paste error, meant for Op. 227. New Grove gives "Vibration Painting, op.226, 13 str".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:36, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Then that answers the the question - they have both 226 and 227 shown as cantatas. I'll fix that, but then have to run. Be back with you when I can. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:44, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I've done a quick re-do of my sandbox page, adding a "Discussion" section at the top. This discussion here on your talkpage is getting to be much too long. Let's end this, and move everything further over there. I'm hoping I'll be out of commission for only about the next 24 hours - end-of-the-month chores. Milkunderwood (talk) 04:43, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'll see you over on your sandbox discussion page, then.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:19, 1 November 2011 (UTC)


Jerome, my senile dementia is setting in. Will it be okay if I just abandon this Hovhaness project to you? I really appreciate all the advice you gave me. In the meantime I've forgotten everything that I was working on last autumn, but I had taken it as far as I was able to. And in any case I never knew the procedures involved in creating the list as a new article. The existing Hovhaness article will need cleaning up, and some decision made about the symphonies and other duplication there. I would have had to leave all these sorts of things to you anyway. (And you'll remember, I never really wanted to get involved in this project to start with.) Milkunderwood (talk) 02:57, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

For someone who didn't want to get involved in this, you certainly put in a lot of work. Perhaps you don't remember this fact. Setting it up as a separate list-article is easy, and at this point it is probably time to do so. In the few times lately that I have vetted portions of the list, there were few additions to make, so I think any further amendments can best be made after the list is posted. The Hovhaness article shouldn't require too much adjustment, and other editors will probably have their own ideas about what is appropriate to keep in the partial list there. So, I shall copy the list from you sandbox into a stand-alone article, and we shall see what happens.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:00, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
Today I've done two things (the first edits I've made in months):
  • I copied the entire sandbox, as is, onto its heretofore unused talkpage, for my own private record. If your thought is to simply "move" the sandbox to an article by renaming it, be sure not to take the talkpage with it, but leave it where it is. I'm not sure what this will do - can I even have a talkpage without it being attached to a main sandbox page? Anyway, I want to keep that record somewhere in my own userspace. (If my doing this only complicates what you were going to do to create the article, just revert - as long as I can still retain one copy of my entire draft somewhere.)
  • Then on the main sandbox page I deleted all the discussion and questions from the top, so it's now more-or-less ready for publication.
There are still a couple of things that need to be done. There are two separate references to New Grove, the first in Cited sources and again in Notes that both still need to be properly formatted. And the References section is presently disabled with parentheses, as "(==)References(==)". Then there's also still a note at the top reminding of a See also note to attach to the main Hovhaness article. Besides these, I don't doubt there will still be some other minor cleanup to be done.
Once the list is published, I do want to delete the Symphonies entire "Partial list of compositions" section from the Hovhaness article, since it's not only incomplete but also wrong in a number of particulars. And the section preceding the Symphonies is arranged by date, which doesn't work because of all his revisions. Milkunderwood (talk) 16:14, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
I noticed you had moved this text, and hesitated to proceed further until I was sure you had no immediate intentions to make further edits. I can fix the New Grove entries and enable the References when creating the list-article. I will not disturb the file on your page, but only copy it to the new article page. You may then delete or keep, as you see fit.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:26, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
Again, thanks very much for your guidance through this snakepit. I think we came up with a pretty good and helpful result. :-) Milkunderwood (talk) 18:33, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

List of compositions by George Enescu Piano Sonata No. 2

For George Enescu's "Piano Sonata No. 2" I found the information on the Society Enescu. Here's the link : http://patachonf.free.fr/musique/enesco/discographie.php?p=autres They indicate sketches for a "Piano Sonata No. 2 in E flat minor" op. 24 and precise : composition : 1926-31. But they don't indicate the precense of a manuscript. The indication of the tonality of E flat minor and of the dates of 1926-31 is also indicated on this site : http://www.oocities.org/enesco_georges/enescu_works.html But on this site, it's indicated this sonata is only a blueprint. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.243.236.99 (talk) 09:09, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the links but, as you say, there is no real information about the existence of any actual materials. On that second site, "blueprint" is a very odd word, especially because, up until about 30 years ago, blueprint process was often used to reproduce rental scores. I doubt that this is what is meant here. Rather, I suspect this is a poor translation of something like French or Romanian plan (meaning an "outline" or a "scheme", or even just a "forecast" or "intention"). I believe that Enescu mentioned several times that he carried this sonata "in his head", and he may even have stated the key, but without evidence that anything at all survives on paper, it must be regarded at best as "lost", and at worst as never having been written. If a preliminary sketch of some sort survives, then it must be regarded as "planned, but not realised". In either case, there does not appear to be a Second Sonata.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:30, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Jonathan Harvey (composer)

This composer - so far unknown to me - was translated to German (user space), could you have a look at the English please, before spreading "him" further. (Stockhausen is mentioned.) The referencing looks mixed to me, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:52, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Harvey is the author of a well-known book on Stockhausen (which certainly ought to be mentioned, as should his writings outside the field of music, where he has a separate reputation). I have met him on two occasions—on two different continents!—and know at least some of his music rather well. You should at least get to know his best-known electronic work, Mortuos plango, vivos voco, which is a real stunner. That said, the English Wikipedia article about him is rather disappointing, especially considering his stature as a composer. I'm not sure in which sense you mean the referencing is "mixed". I might have said "scrappy", meaning that some references are much more respectable than others, and that the most obvious and perhaps most important one (the article by Arnold Whittall in New Grove) got left out. The article itself is barely more than stub-class, and looks suspiciously like the minimum excuse in order to list all of his compositions. The article on the Japanese Wikipedia looks much more respectable (from what I can tell—I don't read Japanese); the Dutch Wikipedia merely translates this rather shabby English version, which looks like another article that needs a lot of work.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:02, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Thank you, also for a new word, "scrappy". Now we look for someone to do a lot of work, right? Could you please add that most important ref, for a start? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:46, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes, well, that word "scrappy" is a bit colloquial, but useful, I think. I shall add Harvey's book on Stockhausen, right away. Perhaps I should try translating the Japanese article into a useful European language, such as Catalan. Then it might be accessible for translation into German, Dutch, etc.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:51, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
I wonder if "scrappy" in that sense might be a Britishism - in USEnglish I would think of "scrappy" as being ready for fisticuffs given any excuse. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:02, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
Well, who knows? And this was the first definition from American Heritage. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:08, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for adding, I take it to de. Will have to find out how they say "Further reading" there, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:17, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Don't be too hasty. As they say, "You ain't seen nuthin' yet!"—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:44, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Interesting what you call "a few more", thanks! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:54, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
I try not to exaggerate ;-)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:21, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Leslie Howard tag

Thanks for putting in the right tag. I had so much trouble finding the footnotes tag (why is that template called "footnotes" and other similar templates called "references" or "sources"?) that I didn't go the extra step to find the more instead of none version.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:16, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

You are very welcome. Those templates are sometimes infuriatingly difficult to find when you need them. I once came across another alternative using a word something like "inline", but I didn't make a note at the time, and have never been able to find it since.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:24, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
LOL, I was trying to do the same thing with "inline" and having no success, although I could swear I've seen it, and then I ran across the footnotes template. Well, the rest you know. Sometimes I think I should change my user page into documentation as to where things are so I can find them again - that includes policies, guidelines, essays, as well as templates.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:14, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

forces

I've been running around today making trouble everywhere instead of getting back to work on the discography, but you might want to take a peek at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music/Style guidelines#two easy (?) questions if you have time. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:08, 2 November 2011 (UTC)


In the meantime, I have added a redlink disambig to Force (disambiguation) (yes, I know it's against all the rules, but one does keep finding them) as a See also, viz.

  • Forces (music), the orchestral instrumentation (and voices) used in a musical production

(In fact this breaks two other rules, because a disambig is not supposed to be used to provide a definition, and such a page in all likelihood will never be created. I stumbled across these three warnings at various places wandering around in MoS and other WP:how tos, and would never be able to find them again.) Anyway, my feeling was that regardless of all these rules, this was a useful addition to the page.

My first question is, lacking any dictionary definition, can you come up with any better phrasing than mine as a definition? And also, is the word "forces" always used in the plural like this, never as a force? I was thinking I might submit the word and definition to Wiktionary, together with the two examples found at Orchestra:

  • Orchestra#Beethoven's influence: The so-called "standard complement" of double winds and brass in the orchestra from the first half of the 19th century is generally attributed to the forces called for by Ludwig van Beethoven, or
  • Orchestra#20th century orchestra: ... Mahler pushes the furthest boundaries of orchestral size, employing huge forces.

Since Wiktionary presumably won't have any better luck than us in confirming the usage, they're likely to reject it, but I think it's worth a try. Might New Grove use the term by any chance? This would certainly be more authoritative than just quoting from a Wikipedia article.

(BTW, most of my wandering around was in search of the actual mechanism for creating a new article, and I never did find it. There's tons of info on writing an article, what to include or not, how to organize it, etc, but nothing at all that I could find on how to actually post it. This Hovhaness composition list is going to be too long to simply post on his page in place of the much shorter list there now. Would it work to finish cleaning up the sandbox page, delete the notes at the top, and then just "move" it to a new name?) I'm also not sure whether the separate numerical list of symphonies ought to stay as is on the Hovhaness page, or be moved together with the new List of compositions - my inclination would be to keep it together with the list, as a separate section beneath it as it is now. Any advice, on generalities, or specifics? Milkunderwood (talk) 20:23, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

The easy question to answer first: I've created at least a hundred articles by now, and have used two methods (though they really amount to practically the same thing). First, if there is already a redlink somewhere to the article name you want to create, just click on it. A page will open saying something like, "No article of that name exists; you may create this article but …" followed by a list of cautions. The second method is to enter your proposed title in the Search box at the top of any Wikipedia page. This should lead you to the same message. In either case, then you enter your new article in the edit window provided. Your initial edit summary should say something like "Created article".
The more difficult question concerns the use of the word "forces". New Grove has not got an article titled "Forces", but has probably hundreds of articles containing that word. Some examples of the sort for which you are looking:
  • Raffaele Pozzi's article "Negri, Gino": "Negri composed almost exclusively for the theatre, particularly works for small forces, which he found most congenial"
  • A. Dennis Sparger's article "Hakenberger, Andrzej (Andreas)": "While a few multi-voice works are for a single choir, Hakenberger clearly favoured antiphonal forces. These opposing choirs, which may consist of instruments as well as voices, usually have an equal number of parts, but contrast between a high and a low choir is preferred to equal forces."
  • Gordana Lazarevich and Marie-Thérèse Bouquet-Boyer's article "Giay [Giai, Giaj], Giovanni Antonio": "After Fiorè died in 1732, Giay assumed the duties of maestro di cappella and was confirmed in the position by Carlo Emanuele III in a patent of 24 October 1738. In this capacity he directed the instrumental and vocal forces of the court and composed a large amount of church music."
  • Stephen Banfield's article "Lutz, (Johann Baptist Wilhelm) Meyer": "he became deputy organist of the Roman Catholic cathedral in Birmingham, St Chad’s, before moving to St George’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Southwark (London) as its first organist and choirmaster, in which post (1848–74) he gave performances of numerous orchestral masses, including his own, with professional forces."
  • Arthur Jacobs, Noël Goodwin, and Richard Wigmore's article "Maazel, Lorin (Varencove)": "His Covent Garden début was not until 1978 with Verdi's Luisa Miller, which he recorded the following year with Royal Opera House forces."
An example of the singular form, "force", in this context may be found in John Tyrrell's article, "Janáček, Leoš [Leo Eugen]", where he says, "After a few months he turned the male-voice Beseda choir into a mixed body, and, with help from the monastery choir and pupils from the institute, he mustered a force of 250 singers for large-scale choral works, Mozart’s Requiem (1878) and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis (1879)." This should be sufficient ammunition for your purposes.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:45, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Terrific - if you still have those handy, give me refs with page numbers [EDIT: also punctuation: Pozzi has [.] period. or [...] ellipsis?], and I'll post a recommendation to Wiktionary. But what about the definition? Just go with mine, or rephrase? Hm. I'm not coming up with something good for the singular yet. How about Occasionally used in the singular, as in [example]? Milkunderwood (talk) 23:50, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Encyclopedia and dictionary entries do not usually require page numbers (unless you are talking about Harold Powers's New Grove article on "Mode", which is practically a whole volume by itself). The Pozzi quotation ends with a period. I like your wording of the definition—I don't think I could improve on it. If it helps at all, the French equivalent for "forces" in this context is effectif, and the German is Besetzung.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:46, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Thank you. Refs & pg numbers are not for the Wiktionary entry itself, but for submission for entry, since the editors won't find the usage in any other dictionary - so we need to authenticate.
(Another question coming right up, on bassoons). Milkunderwood (talk) 05:06, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
With all due respect, if the Wiktionary boffos require volume and page numbers to find alphabetically ordered entries in a dictionary, then perhaps they also would like a map to a convenient library where the book in question may be found, a taxi to take them there, and a seeing-eye dog to help them find the front desk.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:15, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
No, that's the whole problem - I, at least, have never found that usage in any dictionary at all. But I haven't searched a gazillion of them (yet). Milkunderwood (talk) 05:19, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Hold on a minute. Do you mean to say if I led you by the hand to the 24 volumes of New Grove on a shelf in the library, you would be unable to find an alphabetically ordered article on "Maazel, Lorin (Varencove)" without my telling you which volume to look in, and what page in that volume it was on?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:26, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
How many editors of Wiktionary do you suppose are going to have a full set of New Grove sitting on a shelf behind them? If it were me, and some stranger came up and said, "This isn't in any dictionary, but here's an accepted usage", somehow I doubt I would spend more than a few seconds dismissing him as a crank. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:32, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Approximately the same number that have a complete set of back issues of the Journal of the American Musicological Society. In the case of a reference to that august journal, a volume number and page reference would be absolutely necessary, of course, and in my case, I could go directly to my office shelf and pull that issue down and look at the indicated page (because I do happen to own a complete set of back issues). Now, if you were to say to me, "You will not find that on any page in JAMS", but it is true, then of course I wouldn't take you very seriously. But if you said, "You can find this under "Maazel" in The New Grove, I would go to the shelf where the dictionary is, run down the spines until I found vol. 15: "Liturgy to Martinu" (assuming it was the second edition of 2001—the first edition of 1980 would be vol. 11: "Lindeman-Mean-tone"), open it up and flip through the pages until I found the alphabetical listing "Maazel, Lorin (Varencove)". The page number would be more of an encumbrance than a help under these circumstances but, if your inquisitors demand it I can, as I said, go look it up. Or, if you prefer, you can let your electrons do the walking, and have them look up the online version. If on the other hand they require a print copy of the entire dictionary be delivered to their desk by courier, then they can go whistle. I haven't got that kind of money.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:01, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
  • "New Grove has not got an article titled "Forces"" (JK, above)
Hmm. Perhaps I have been misunderstanding you. Are you asking me to find the page number in New Grove where this nonexistent article would have to be? I suppose I could do that, citing the titles of the two consecutive articles that would have to bracket it, alphabetically. I don't see the point of this, though.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:21, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Working on this assumption, New Grove second edition (2001), vol. 9, pages 84–85 has the consecutive entries "Forcer, Francis" and "Forcheim [Forchheim], Johann Wilhelm". If there were an article "Forces", it would have to fall between these two entries. Ergo: no article on that term in New Grove. On the other hand, the article on Maazel is in volume 15, on pages 443–44. The quotation cited above is split over these two pages, right in the middle of the title of Verdi's opera. The word "forces" therefore occurs on page 444. I hope this helps.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:38, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
:-) Not quite, but thank you. I'm adding a new section to your page, below. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:40, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

c bsn

In most places where Hovhaness call for bassoon, it's given simply as "bsn"; but in several pieces (Opp. 107, 143, 213, 222, 236, 311, 312), he calls for "c bsn", and sometimes (Opp. 165, 178, & 312 again (my eyes are playing tricks now) & 377) this is shown as "Cbsn" - which may or may not be the same thing. The Bassoon article discusses ranges, but I didn't see distinctions between different instruments, unless my eyes are getting boggly. I'm thinking there was another similar situation that I'm not finding right now, but if so will add here. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:08, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

That must be contrabassoon. It is usually abbreviated "cbn", but "cbsn" seems a plausible alternative.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:18, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks - hadn't thought of that. I'll fix these as cbn. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:21, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Actually, I'm going to need to go back and proofread everything, and fill in some "forces" that I had omitted; so I'd rather wait with that and first get all the pieces just listed. I'll probably have more of these questions as I go. One thing I hadn't bothered with so far is some instrument or other in B-flat or E-flat, I think. (Gotta go now) Milkunderwood (talk) 05:54, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
At his website, check out instrumentation for Op. 377, Sym #53. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:02, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Yes, "Cbsn" = contrabassoon. You can tell this from the position in the score order, as well, since it follows "Bsn" = bassoon. It is also true that certain instruments (clarinets, saxophones, horns, trumpets) come in different transpositions, though these are not always specified in lists of "forces". It is usually sufficient in the case of saxophones, for example, to specify "soprano", "alto", "tenor", or "baritone", even though there is such a thing as soprano and tenor saxophones in C, as well as the more usual instrument in B♭.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:18, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Hovhaness website has a discrepancy that perhaps Grove can resolve: Op 123 #3 Cto #10 for 2 pianos "reclassified as Sym #45"; but then Op 342 Sym #45 "orig titled Cto #10, Op 123 #2". (There is no listing for Op 123 #2; it lists Op 123 "Vision from High Rock", w/o a number, then Op 123 #3, Cto #10.)

(I'm sure I'll be back later with more questions on abbreviations, but for now I'm just trying to get stuff listed as best I can. If OK with you I'll post back in this same section instead of creating new ones.) Milkunderwood (talk) 20:03, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh, joy! Well, New Grove has got some discrepancies, as well, and guess what? One of the first ones I found is smack in the middle of your question. First, New Grove also has but one op. 123, Vision from High Rock, an orchestral work from 1954. However, the list of symphonies begins to disagree with the website list starting around Symphony No. 53. New Grove lists no symphonies at all with numbers 56 or 63, but assigns opus numbers slightly skewed with respect to the ones in the website list. I'll not go into detail right now, but I can say that Symphony no. 45 is op. 342 there, and scored for two pianos and large orchestra, composed in 1979. Concerto no. 10 is for piano and strings, bars the opus number 413, and was composed in 1988. I suppose it is entirely possible that Symphony no. 45 was originally thought of as a concerto, and may have been given a number subordinate to opus 123. The New Grove list probably reflects only Hovhaness's final decision, whereas the website documents the catalog's history in more detail, only with some mistakes or elisions (for example, perhaps Hovhaness at one point used op. 123 no. 2, and then revised the catalog making it op. 123 no. 3, and finally moved it to the list of symphonies as op. 342). Mopping this up could be a lot more trouble than it's worth.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:13, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
I can think of another word for it besides "joy". Something to do with worms, snakes, centipedes, etc. Since the website is the best (and virtually only) source I have, I'll just have to follow it for now. In the meantime, does Grove agree that Op 356, Sym #49 "Christmas Symphony" exists only as unpublished manuscript? Since it's a numbered symphony I've listed it, but in parentheses with a note to that effect. But this probably also goes back to the problem you've uncovered. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:52, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
Maybe we can put "aka No. xx (New Grove)" Milkunderwood (talk) 22:52, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
Also re your unfortunate find: I had assumed I would 1) completely supersede the existing list, and 2) move mine to a new article; but 3) move the existing list of symphonies only, along with the new article. But if the numbering of the symphonies is screwed up (and its formatting is already different), I now wonder if it ought to be abandoned instead. Something to consider later, when the time comes. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:01, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I've now saved through Op. 357. See if you approve my handling of Opp. 342 and 356 - thx. [Edit: I tend to think all of the numbering (and titling) discrepancies can be solved with "aka" notes - those internal to the website w/o attribution, otherwise as "aka [etc] (New Grove)".] Milkunderwood (talk) 23:10, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I keep forgetting that irony does not communicate well in text such as this. I think the actual quotation from Miss Mapp is "Such joy!", always uttered in response to infuriating and embarrassing events, usually perpetrated by her rival Lucia. FWIW, New Grove does not indicate (for this composer) which works are published and which remain in manuscript. For the symphony list, perhaps I should add the New Grove version to your sandbox, and then we can try to figure out why the discrepancies are there.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:16, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
No, it was my irony that went uncommunicated - yours was perfectly well understood. You're certainly more than welcome to play in my sandbox all you want, but I think we need to stay consistent with one schema or the other. What did you think of my suggestion to resolve discrepancies by leaving numbers and titles as given at the website, and adding "[aka [etc] (New Grove)]" at the end of the listing, somewhat similarly to my Op. 342 listing? Milkunderwood (talk) 00:31, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
Having gotten as far as op. 321 in the list of symphonies (New Grove being organized by genre rather than opus number), it is plain that the website has more detail, and therefore should probably remain the basis of your list. I am finding an alarming number of actual discrepancies, though. I shall pass over cases where New Grove is perfectly consistent with the website information, even if less detailed (for example, "small orchestra" rather than a list of instruments showing that this is in fact the case), but nearly a third of the symphonies have at least a small conflict between the two sources. Another resource that may be tapped for the published works is the Library of Congress WorldCat, but that won't be quite so easy to sift, for a variety of reasons. I think the New Grove comparison should be finished first.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:50, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Need help from Grove: Op 415, a trio for violin, clarinet & piano: website gives "Lake Sammish" as title, but there is no such thing. There is a "Lake Samish", and a "Lake Sammamish", two different lakes in Washington state, often confused. I'm trying to link. What does Grove say? (Might well be composer's error rather than website.) Thx. Milkunderwood (talk) 19:25, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Also, what edition of Grove do you have? - need for ref. (Assumed 2001 - pls confirm. Should ref include the vol number for Hovhaness?)
  • (I see B&N [7] has new hardcover 2001 full 29-vol set for $60 !!)
Milkunderwood (talk) 20:53, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
I've now made major changes @ sandbox, mostly in top matter - please review & comment. Thx.
Also have now completed list, starting proofing. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:48, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
New Grove has "Trio ‘Lake Samish’, op.415, vn, cl, pf, 1988". By that time, Hovhaness had been a local boy here (I live in Seattle, not far from both lakes) for many years and was not liable to have made such an elementary mistake. This is obviously a typo on the website. As to the edition of Grove, it is the second (2001) unless otherwise noted. I do not own a copy of either, but have easy access to both in my local library. I also have web access to the online version. Sixty bucks for a complete copy of New Grove second edition?! Unbelievable! I'll bet the shipping is more than the price of the book(s)!! If I had room on my bookshelf, I might be tempted myself. As for references to the NG article on Hovhaness, I think I have already made it as clear as I can that dictionary and encyclopedia articles do not ordinarily include volume and page numbers, because the articles are comparatively short and, as alphabetic entries, are self-indexed.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:38, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Well, bn.com says "estimated shipping $3.99, total $63.99 (plus possible tax)". (EDIT: link is above.) How could you pass that up? I'm finished through Op 184 now, have made several corrections, additions, a few deletions in list; also major revisions to top matter as noted above, w/ some questions. Still going at it. So whenever you're ready to cross-check Grove ... Milkunderwood (talk) 04:26, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
I'll try to find time to do this. I've been preoccupied lately with an article on one of our sister Wikipedias, here. I should be better able to attend to other things now.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:12, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Vishnu Symphony (#19), Op 217: what the dickens can "perc (6-4)" mean? Here I've been assuming all along that e.g. "perc (4)" meant "4 percussion", and have been writing it that way. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:30, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, "perc (6–4)" doesn't make any sense to me, either. If it had said "4–6" I might have guessed it meant percussion that required from 4 to 6 performers, but this does not read sensibly.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:49, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
(Butting in) I couldn't believe it either; sixty bucks is for one volume only. Heck, I was about to grab one of those sets! Antandrus (talk) 05:39, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Hold on there, Antandrus! I know you have been limping along with the 1980 first edition for all these years, but you really cannot take advantage of Milkunderwood's discovery here! Unless, of course, Milkunderwood gives up all claims to this bargain.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:49, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, I laughed ... if you click on one of the 14 "sets" they have listed, they tell you which volume is for sale, though I wish they'd make it a little more obvious. If it sounds too good to be true, ...
Although I do have the 2001 again. (Not in hard copy, alas. A set would be nice. It's fun to browse.) (And Milkunderwood, I'm not sure about the perc(6-4) -- could be six parts playable by four people -- never seen a hyphen there before.) Antandrus (talk) 05:54, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Whoops! - that wasn't at all obvious from their listing. :-( Have to always read the fine print. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:08, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Well, for that matter, I've never understood exactly what the "4 percussion" means, especially as being distinct from "timpani", which never carries a number. It's all stuff that you bang on. (Please don't try to explain it to me - as I've said repeatedly, I'm not a musician, and my only instruments are a CD player and an antique turntable.) Milkunderwood (talk) 06:18, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Wash your mouth out with soap! Timpani are timpani, and would never be sullied by association with those "percussionist" people! Really!! (How exactly do you do a "nose in the air" emoticon?)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:24, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
The difference between drums vs tin cans and cow bells? Milkunderwood (talk) 06:35, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Something like that :-)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:59, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Does Grove give all instrumentation? Op 397, Sym #61, gives "13222 4331" - I assume there's an extra "2" in there? Milkunderwood (talk) 07:38, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Grove does not always give instrumentation, but in this case says "no.61, op.397, str, hp, timp, 4 perc, 1986". If we are to believe this, there are no winds at all, but this is the same instrumentation given for the preceding symphony no. 60, so it could be a mistake. I would imagine that it is mor likely that the initial "1" is the error, since it would be very unusual for an orchestra to have but a single flute, and yet three oboes. Unfortunately, this is one of the symphonies that has neither been published nor recorded. I have checked the WorldCat at the Library of Congress (which sometimes lists manuscripts if they are held in a library archive), and Eric Kunze's Discography at <http://web.uvic.ca/~kunze/hovdiscog.pdf>. No luck, I'm afraid.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:59, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for checking. My first inclination was to drop the 1, so it would look more like the others; but then in proofing I thought maybe it was an extra 2 instead. I'll change it back to 3222. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:12, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Yes, it's only a guess, but it is quite common to have three flutes in the woodwind section, with two each of oboes, clarinets, and bassoons. The third flute usually doubles piccolo, and that might account for the mistaken extra number at the beginning. However, it would not explain why the second number was a 3. This is one of those places where a little evidence would be welcome, but none is forthcoming.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:16, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Somehow my trick eye skipped right over your reference to Eric Kunze. That's an excellent alternative source. He's obviously being very conscientious with his information, so I'll go back and see how he confirms or differs. Milkunderwood (talk) 02:33, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Huh. I'm not sure how much of an improvement this is. For Op. 3, which the Hovhaness website gives as

  • "Trio I" [title], "Trio in e minor" [subtitle], "violin, cello & piano" [instrumentation] and "1935(?)",

Kunze in his opus listing gives this as

  • "1935", "Piano Trio No. 1".

But then in his alphabetical listing he has Op. 3 as

  • "Trio for piano, violin and cello, op. 3 (1935)",

immediately followed by

  • "Trio No. 1 "Tumburu" for piano, violin and cello, op. 264, No. 1 (1973)".

So he's got that discrepancy in titling Op. 3 right there. Of course I understand the problem comes back to Hovhaness himself, getting his catalog mixed up, but that doesn't help the situation very much. I wonder how much Kunze is just going from data on recordings. In following the Hovhaness website I have

  • "Op. 3: Trio I (in E Minor, for violin, cello, piano) (1935?)".

This isn't a head-scratcher, it's a hair-puller-outer. I'm going to leave mine alone. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:32, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Hey, how come your "B♭" [B((Music|flat))] looks different from my HTML "B♭" [(B)(&)(#)(9837)(;)]? Yours is closer, but faint - it darkens up some if bolded: "B♭". Milkunderwood (talk) 03:53, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
The quest of why they look different is too deep, philosophically, for me to face here, but I am using Wikipedia templates, whereas you are using HTML. A couple of years ago I used Unicode flats and sharps in some article or other, and got complaints that they didn't display correctly on somebody else's platform (probably browsing with Mosaic 1.1 running under CP/M on a steam-powered computer or something), where they were showing up as plain rectangles. I was very kindly steered to the Wikipedia templates, and have been using them ever since. In general, editors on Wikipedia are urged to use Wiki markup instead of HTML where possible. I'm not clear about the reasoning, but I suppose it might cause bubbles to form in your computer's bloodstream if you ascend too fast, or something. I'm sure they look different because they call up different algorithms to draw the figures, but how its all done, and why, I have no idea at all. If you are tempted to use the Wiki templates, you might want to know that {{Music|#}} and {{Music|b}} work the same as {{Music|sharp}} and {{Music|flat}}, in case you are lazy, in a hurry, or can't remember in which language you are currently working.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:35, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Damn! Pardon my language. Thanks for the abbreviations; I'll do that instead. And speaking of cussing, Kunze differs all over the place from the Hovh website. Good luck when you get around to checking Grove. In the meantime, check out my new footnotes - I'm now saving thru Op. 65 (!) Milkunderwood (talk) 05:40, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Ah, now chaos I can handle! It is only to be expected in the case of a composer as prolific and unsystematic as Hovhaness was, that there would be conflicting data. It will not be easy to reconcile all the differences, but a good first step would be to try and discover which of these various catalogs seem more reliable than the others. Despite the standing of New Grove, I'm not putting my money there just yet—there are too many internal discrepancies.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:56, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
I sure am glad you can handle it. In the meantime since I don't have Grove, I'm just dealing with Kunze. Where he has more specific but not conflicting titles, I'm just incorporating those. By the way, I always thought CP/M was a much more intuitive language than DOS. (EDIT: And I still use Lotus 1-2-3 Release 1A, from I think around 1985, because it's completely different from - and more flexible than - Excel or its now copycat clone 1-2-3. I could go into great detail on its benefits.) Milkunderwood (talk) 06:06, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Double Dutch, badly translated into Greek and badly translated back again is more intuitive than DOS! I never worked with the old Lotus 1-2-3, but I have heard its praises sung before, and it is not difficult to imagine it is more flexible than Excel. But as we used to say in the 1960s; Consider the source.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:21, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Of course 1A doesn't work with Windows, so you need an old DOS 6.x machine. There are some small programs that allow you to see a spreadsheet and perform a few elementary processes, but if you've done anything at all sophisticated in Lotus' built-in programing language, you're SOL in Windows. Milkunderwood (talk) 07:08, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Who said anything about Windows? And a little less of the "old", please! I've not upgraded to DOS 6 yet—I'm still waiting for Microsoft to get the bugs out. In fact, I've not upgraded to DOS 5, for the same reason. I did finally manage to shake off WordStar, which is the counter-example to the proposition that all software just keeps getting worse and worse.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:13, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Are we to suppose that you are online on your pre-DOS 5 computer?? Or are you using a Lisa to communicate with the outside world? Me, I have to maintain two separate machines - what is your trick? Milkunderwood (talk) 20:37, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
My first machine is an abacus, but I've not been able to find a modem slow enough to connect it to the internet. I'd like a Lisa, but they are outrageously expensive (or were the last time I checked, twenty-some years ago). I make do with a ten-year-old G4 and a five-year-old iMac at home. They're still a little too shiny, but they are settling in nicely and in another ten years will probably be perfectly satisfactory. At least they don't have Intel Insides ;-) —Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:39, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't really get to choose what machines I have available for use, but I still hate the whole concept of GUIs, and am much more comfortable with plain text or ASCII. Otherwise I have nothing against Apple, other than avoiding their products. But I share every complaint imaginable concerning MicroSoft.
And Lotus' 1-2-3 1A allowed its internal programming language to be written in hex instead of English, with the little white and black faces, and various symbols, etc (after playing with it for a while one of the first things I did was to go back into the driver specifying display colors, and changed them all); but Symphony removed that capability of writing within their programming language in hex. That's partly why I never upgraded - as soon as a publisher has something that works well, they go and screw it up. I do use 1-2-3 as a spreadsheet in a sense, but in fact each of my "spreadsheets" is actually a freestanding menu-driven program in itself. I've never bothered to learn HTML or, God forbid, Basic. Tighter and tinier is better - the entire 123.exe file is 89,984 bytes, and even it contains a lot of dead space. It uses a .cnf file and and 3 drivers, which together total less than 3000 bytes. How large is Apple's spreadsheet program? I've only looked at iTunes, which is not only humongous, but is nasty enough to scatter all its innumerable associated files throughout every conceivable directory. Milkunderwood (talk) 04:05, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Heh-heh! Not to mention needlessly duplicating every sound file you import into it, which can quickly clog up a hard drive, especially if you care enough about listening to use a reasonably high-quality sound format. Old technology wins again: Edison cylinders are a much more efficient sound-storage medium—especially the original tin-foil format, though a little deficient in the durability department.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:17, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
? I've only seen Apple Lossless imports, and hadn't noticed duplicate sound files, unless they're being stored somewhere I hadn't thought to look. But that's also on another Windows machine; Macs may be different? Speaking of Edison cylinders, I once had a clerk at a record store searching for some of the old Schuppanzigh recordings. :-) Milkunderwood (talk) 05:05, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Schuppanzigh, eh? I'll bet finding those recordings took a good long while! The op. 70, no. 1 would be favourite ;-) The problem with iTunes crops up when you have already copied a sound file to your hard drive, and only afterward decide to import it into iTunes. It can't just open the file where it stands—it has to make its very own copy and hide it somewhere where you can't find it.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:18, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

"forces" - Wiktionary

Now posted at Wiktionary, under their existing entry for forces:

  • 3. (music) the orchestral instrumentation (and voices) used in a musical production (nearly always used in plural form only).

And on the Discussion page:
"forces as a musical term"

I have added an entry for ((context|music)). It may be important to understand that this usage is de facto - the term is not found in this context as a specific entry in any Merriam-Webster (M-W) publication, American Heritage Dictionary (AHD), Oxford English Dictionary (OED) or the Oxford Dictionary of Music, or in the encyclopedic 29-volume The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

However, the term forces, nearly always but not exclusively in the plural form, is found throughout the literature concerning music. Rather than creating a new Citations page for the forces entry, I will give a few examples here in this Discussion section.

  • from the authoritative New Grove Dictionary:
    • "Giay [Giai, Giaj], Giovanni Antonio": "After Fiorè died in 1732, Giay assumed the duties of maestro di cappella and was confirmed in the position by Carlo Emanuele III in a patent of 24 October 1738. In this capacity he directed the instrumental and vocal forces of the court and composed a large amount of church music."
    • "Hakenberger, Andrzej (Andreas)": "While a few multi-voice works are for a single choir, Hakenberger clearly favoured antiphonal forces. These opposing choirs, which may consist of instruments as well as voices, usually have an equal number of parts, but contrast between a high and a low choir is preferred to equal forces."
    • "Lutz, (Johann Baptist Wilhelm) Meyer": "... he became deputy organist of the Roman Catholic cathedral in Birmingham, St Chad’s, before moving to St George’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Southwark (London) as its first organist and choirmaster, in which post (1848–74) he gave performances of numerous orchestral masses, including his own, with professional forces."
    • "Maazel, Lorin (Varencove)": "His Covent Garden début was not until 1978 with Verdi's Luisa Miller, which he recorded the following year with Royal Opera House forces."
    • "Negri, Gino": "Negri composed almost exclusively for the theatre, particularly works for small forces, which he found most congenial."
  • from the Wikipedia article on Orchestra:
    • "Beethoven's influence": "The so-called "standard complement" of double winds and brass in the orchestra from the first half of the 19th century is generally attributed to the forces called for by Ludwig van Beethoven..."
    • "20th century orchestra": "... Mahler pushes the furthest boundaries of orchestral size, employing huge forces."
  • in a use of the singular form, again from New Grove Dictionary:
    • "Janáček, Leoš [Leo Eugen]": "After a few months he turned the male-voice Beseda choir into a mixed body, and, with help from the monastery choir and pupils from the institute, he mustered a force of 250 singers for large-scale choral works, Mozart’s Requiem (1878) and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis (1879)."

Milkunderwood (talk) 03:40, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Excellent. Well done.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:49, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
Well, you did all the work, which I very much appreciate. I had just thought that adding volume and page numbers for the Grove quotes would make it all the more unassailable, but I'm sure this will do. Milkunderwood (talk) 04:24, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Amazon as a source

Jerome, your talkpage may not be the best place for me to raise this question, but it seems that I keep encountering an attitude among wikipedians in general that references to Amazon appear to be discouraged. You yourself have said, above,

  • "I think it is not a very good idea to provide links to Amazon, since that is fairly blatantly commercial. Why not links to Barnes & Noble, or ArkivMusic, or CD Baby, etc.?"

to which I had responded

  • "The great advantage of Amazon is that you can find nearly anything, even long out of print, from resellers."

And again from you,

  • "And I am very aware of the utility of Amazon's search engine, even if I do think that Wikipedia has no business being used to promote Amazon."

Then again from me,

  • "It's not Amazon's search engine at issue, although it does perform much more efficiently than most others, but rather the fact that they have listings for so many OOP items. ArkivMusic isn't nearly as well known, but they are just as much in the business of selling CDs. I'm in no way shilling for Amazon, but you takes 'em as you finds 'em."

In response to all of this discussion, first I want to say that yours is by no means the first time I have encountered this general attitude toward Amazon in particular. Next, once Antandrus had found that the price I quoted for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians from Barnes & Noble was for single volumes only, my reaction was, and is, that their listing was not only deviously deceptive, but apparently deliberately so. I find that very distressing, and it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth concerning B&N's business practices.

Looking back now at Amazon's listings for the same set I find much the same sort of problem, but still not quite as blatantly deceptive. Personally, when I may be looking for a book to purchase, I tend to go first to BookFinder.com [8], which lists offers from Alibris and AbeBooks, as well as Amazon, B&N, and any number of small sellers and dealers. Even there I am now finding something of the same sort of problem in searching for New Grove, but less so than at either Amazon or especially B&N.

Unfortunately BookFinder doesn't concern itself with CDs or DVDs, only books. And I have no idea how "commercial" BookFinder should be considered, but obviously they must take a cut from either initial listings or sales transactions to be able to maintain their website and search engine. While any and every website (including Wikipedia) needs to sustain itself financially, for music and movies I have generally found that Amazon tends to have a much deeper and wider listing of obscure and out-of-print items on offer from not only large dealers but also small shops and individuals. Furthermore, since their "ASIN' cataloging system is very widely recognized worldwide, it's frequently helpful to Google the ASIN alone, and find many offers not listed directly at Amazon.com itself. I also frequently search at Amazon's sister sites - .co.uk, .fr, .de, .jp, .ca, etc.

I repeat that I'm in no way shilling for Amazon - I have many gripes and complaints about them, including their very frequent sloppiness in their descriptions, and in failing to distinguish between different - sometimes very different - editions. I just don't understand the general aversion concerning them that I seem to frequently find here at Wikipedia. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:40, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't have to explain to you that the problem is principally the fact that Amazon is a commercial enterprise, so that directing Wikipedia readers to their website could well amount to "shilling for Amazon". However, there are also the definitions at Wikipedia:Reliable sources to contend with. Remember that there is a difference between the tools you actually use to find things, and the way formal scholarly/encyclopedic sources work. By all means use Amazon (or B&N, or Alibris, etc.) to search for things, but at least try to find a less commercially charged source when citing a published book, audio recording, or DVD. Traditionally, one uses the publisher data, which is not usually that difficult to obtain (and, FWIW, Amazon consistently falls down in providing all of this information, since they almost never give the place of publication even for books). We have spoken before about open-to-the-public, online library catalogs, for example. Many, perhaps most publishers today have websites where you can search for publication details, and the same is true for record companies. DVDs remain a bit more problematic in this respect, but I imagine this will change over time.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:59, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
Good point, and an important distinction that you're making. (And Amazon not only fails to provide place of publication, but date of initial publication, besides usually getting half of their descriptive information garbled.) So on this distinction, I concede your argument. :-) Milkunderwood (talk) 22:12, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
Accordingly, I've changed the link to NG in the sandbox list from B&N to OUP. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Footnote style:

Even others agree that Wikipedia is ambiguous on the matter: Help_talk:Footnotes#Multiple_footnote_styles_in_a_single_article -- kosboot (talk) 21:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure there can be no doubt that Wikipedia is ambiguous about this. All of this is dodging the issue, though: All I wanted to know was whether you really, really want to have conflicting formats in that article (and if so, why), or if you would be happy to have them resolved in favour of one or the other. If the latter, which of the two do you prefer?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:25, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
If you're talking about my preference: I'd prefer to do as in printed articles, i.e. the first mention is full, and successive mentions are short. (But I also see that can be a problem for WP in case someone switches order of sentences.) -- kosboot (talk) 21:30, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
I think you are telling me one thing here, and another thing on the discussion page of the article in question, but one thing is certain: "printed articles" don't all adhere to the format you describe. It is also very true that, on Wikipedia, edits involving rearrangement of text can make a shambles out of the long-short reference style in footnotes, and this is also the reason why references using "ibid." and "loc cit." are simply invitations to disaster. Similarly, the use of 3-em dashes in lists of references (which I am old-fashioned enough to call "bibliographies") for succeeding items by the same author is asking for trouble.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:44, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Let's continue to follow the discussion at Help_talk:Footnotes#Multiple_footnote_styles_in_a_single_article and see where it leads before making a decision. -- kosboot (talk) 21:48, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
If we're talking about footnotes here, I sort of wish someone would take a quick look at mine at User:Milkunderwood/sandbox Hovhaness#List of compositions by Alan Hovhaness and let me know whether these are at all acceptable, please. RSVP either here, or preferably at the top of that page under Discussion. Thanks. [EDIT: In the meantime mine keep getting messier, and I have no idea whether my use of them, or my formatting, is appropriate here.] Milkunderwood (talk) 22:46, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Modality

"Some of Dutilleux's trademarks include very refined orchestral textures; complex rhythms; a preference for atonality and modality over tonality." - In this line modality was linked, then changed. I am afraid what is meant doesn't appear in the DAB. Help? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:32, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

The DAB includes "In music, the subject concerning certain diatonic scales known as musical modes (e.g., Ionian)", and the link was disambiguated to this sense. If this is not what was meant, then what was?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:37, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
If I knew what was meant I would not ask you. I don't know in which way this "modality" is preferred "over tonality", perhaps I have a language problem, thinking that the musical modes are still tonal? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:00, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't think it is a language problem. I believe the same distinction is made in German between Tonalität and Modalität (in fact I believe that these terms were originally developed by 19th-century German theorists such as Hugo Riemann, and were adopted from them into English music theory). It is also true in both languages that "tonality" has several different senses and can refer broadly to modal systems of pitch organisation as well as to those that are more narrowly defined as "tonal"—that is, the harmonic-melodic relations of the "functional tonality"of the so-called Common-Practice Period (ca. 1600–1800). When a distinction is made between "tonality" and "modality", it means that the former term is being used in this narrow sense and the latter term refers to the practices of the earlier stylistic periods of Antiquity the Middle Ages and Renaissance—practices also found in folk music and non-European musics throughout the period of "tonality", and which returned significantly to European art music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:49, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
I think I understand that, but I didn't understand it in "mode (music)", --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:00, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Do you mean that the article "mode (music)" fails to explain what "modality" means? Yes, I concede that is a problem, and one which I have been struggling with for a long time now. The article on "tonality"—whatever its shortcomings may be—at least tries to explain its subject. The problem with "modes (music)" is that it really isn't about "modality", and the part on the modern modes, in particular, explains only that they are scales, not how they work in music. Of course, there is much more to it than just being scales, but attempts to explain what that is have been running up against that old Wikipedia problem: no reliable sources. The section on medieval modes is a little better (I would like to think that is because I have concentrated my energies there), in that it explains the polarity between final and cofinal, the differences between the authentic and plagal members of each modal pair, and the "variable" note in certain modes (Dorian, Hypodorian, Hypophrygian, Lydian, and Hypolydian), but even here it is necessary to have some experience of the literature in order to appreciate what all this means, and how it differs from the way "tonality" works in, for example, a Haydn String Quartet.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:34, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Thank you! I am tempted to link to this explanation rather than to the article, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:57, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Hovhaness project: current status

Hi Jerome--

I've finally finished cross-checking Kunze, and I think my entries and refs look okay now. Still needs your New Grove check, and right above the List of compositions is a series of 6 questions that ought to be decided before posting. I've now entered my own thoughts, but am happy to defer to yours. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:32, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Updated per your later symphonies - thanks. See my response there. Milkunderwood (talk) 08:08, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
I have been bold and made my own decisions on the various questions I had left for you. The article is now ready to post, once the temporarily disabled References section is re-enabled. The only question now remaining is whether you still want to cross-check any works in New Grove in addition to the symphonies. Once the article is posted I will delete the sandbox. If you're thinking you still want to work on it, it's better to leave it in the sandbox until you're finished with it. There's certainly no particular rush for it. In the meantime, I'm trying to think of how many barnstars would be too many for me to post here on your user page. :-) Milkunderwood (talk) 07:39, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Don't get carried away! I haven't been as quick with the NG comparison as I had hoped, but I think it might be better done in the sandbox than after the list is posted. I'll try to at least make some progress on this over the weekend.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:41, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
No, take your time - checking all this stuff against Grove will be a big project, and I know you've been very busy recently. I just wasn't sure what your plan was at this point. And if you disagree on anything I've done, or omitted, I'm happy to defer to your better judgment. Question: would it not be easier for you to just make edits directly to the list yourself as you find discrepancies, instead of typing out long descriptions for me to follow? Not that I mind either way; it just seems simpler and less work for you. Note that I've left the References section disabled for now as a separate section, so footnotes can easily be seen and checked in the same edit box together with the list itself. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:03, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
OK, I will follow your suggestion and simply edit/annotate entries where they stand, rather than create a separate commentary (which merely creates more work for you, I think, rather than for me!).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:07, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
In the meantime, I'm back to the grindstone, adding all of the entries I had earlier omitted. You might as well wait - especially since I'm editing and saving. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:45, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
:-) I'm just about doubling the length of the list - going to take me a while. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:13, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Op. 37 is "Vijag" for two pianos. Entering this name in WP's searchbox takes me to "Did you mean: vizag", which seems perfectly reasonable, since there are many such instances of different spellings. This takes me to "Visakhapatnam", "a major sea port on the south east coast of India", which is still not unreasonable. However there's this hatnote:

  • "Visag" redirects here. For the Romanian village, see Victor Vlad Delamarina, Timiş. For the Romanian village of Vişagu, called Viság in Hungarian, see Săcuieu.

Romania would be just as reasonable as India. Now further, this article on the Indian city says "According to the history, the city was named after the god of Valor, Visakha." Ah, even better. (There's presently no link to the name "Visakha"). But looking there, it says:

  • "Viśākhā, also referred to as Migara's mother (Migāramāta), was one of the chief female lay disciples of the Buddha. She became a stream-enterer and died at the age of 120. Viśākhā erected a monastery for the Buddha known as "Migāramātupāsāda" (Pali for "Migara's mother's palace"), near Savatthi."

Now obviously this is not the Hindu god of Valor. Question: which of these, if any, would be useful to link to for the name Vijag? Usually in similar situations I've linked names to disambiguation pages if I couldn't decide what was intended - such as Jupiter - god? planet? But here there's no single place to send a reader to. Just forget trying to link this name? Google seems to think I'm trying to find the Indian city when I insist on spelling it with a "j" instead of a "z", so presumably this would be the best bet. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:33, 13 November 2011 (UTC)


  • Hovhaness website gives for Symphony No. 28, Op. 286, "10(eh)00 0100". Now what can this mean, if the English horn is substituting for a zero instrument?
  • Op. 136 says "2 pianos, 4 hands" - so that would be 4 hands at each of the 2 pianos, or 4 pianists total?


"Wash your mouth out with soap! Timpani are timpani, and would never be sullied by association with those "percussionist" people!" Check out Op. 183a:

  • (flute and 3 percussion (timpani, xylophone, bass drum))

:-) Milkunderwood (talk) 01:19, 14 November 2011 (UTC)


  • Hi Jerome-- I know you've been staying very busy with other more pressing projects, and there's certainly no rush to get the Hovhaness list of compositions posted. I just wanted to remind you that I've finished adding everything I had left off the list before, and checking everything with Kunze's list; so now it's just waiting for its New Grove check before posting, whenever you might be able to take the time for that. I had suggested that you could just make corrections or notes directly to the list yourself only because it would save you a bunch of unnecessary typing, but if you prefer to identify the problems and leave the updating to me, I'm fine with that too. And again, I very much appreciate all the help you've given me with this project. Milkunderwood (talk) 17:13, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
As a matter of fact, I was waiting for the dust to settle, since you had previously said there was no particular hurry and you had a lot of revising of your own to do. Just a couple of hours ago I had checked on your progress, and I can see you have gotten things into very good shape. I shall make an editorial pass through the material soon—probably later today—in order to bring any additional information from or conflicts with the New Grove work list.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:25, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
Great! Thank you. The next thing I'm wondering about is I have no idea of the best procedure to take this sandbox list and post it as an article. If by chance you'd like to do that yourself I'd be much relieved. There's still the question of cleanup at the main Hovhaness article. Do you agree that not only the partial list that's there now, but also the separate list of symphonies, should be deleted, as not only redundant but also probably either wrong or at least misleading, with the confusing numbering? And I still don't know if the references need to be put into two columns - personally I think a single column works better since most of these are fairly long comments and explanations. Milkunderwood (talk) 19:42, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
Oh wow! I'm glad you're doing all that typing instead of me. I'm not about to argue with you, but for just plain cites without comments or corrections, I would have put them all together as one, with the little lowercase letters. This is the way I handled other such situations. Anyway, the ref list is pretty long as it is, without all that duplication. Are you sure you want to do each one separately like that? Milkunderwood (talk) 06:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Especially I wouldn't have continued linking the authors' names - you must be doing a copy-&-paste? In fact, I'm not sure why you're bothering to cite individual pieces at all, if there are no corrections or comments. We've already cited New Grove as a primary source. Plus, it seems to me that it makes the important/significant refs harder to find and read. Even if it's required for some strange reason to cite everything, wouldn't op. cit. do? I could have cited both the H website and Kunze for each entry as well, but doing so would never have occurred to me. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


Okay, look at Op. 218. Normally where there's just a simple date conflict I only note this at the list entry itself, unfootnoted, putting the website in Roman, and the Kunze and Grove to follow, in italics, as, e.g., "(undated; Kunze 1967; New Grove 1965)". But this one is a conflicted mess that needs some explanation. so at the entry itself I have "(1965? 1967?)", footnoted to

  • Op. 218: Booklet text notes to Koch International Classics 3-7289-2 written by Hohvaness specialist Marvin Rosen specifically say "The Holy City, Opus 218, was composed in 1965", but the front table of contents gives 1967. The text should normally be considered more trustworthy, because a contents listing is prepared later by clerical staff, which also listed tracks incorrectly on the back cover of the CD. The work is undated at Hovhaness.com; Kunze agrees with 1967 on the basis of 6 recordings in his possession. But also compare the footnote for Op. 40a.

(That footnote to Op. 40a says

  • Op. 40a: Both Hovhaness.com and Kunze agree on the 1940 date for this work. However, Hovhaness specialist Marvin Rosen in his text notes to Koch International Classics 3-7289-2 states with self-contradiction: "Psalm and Fugue, Opus 40a, written in 1958 ... was often used to open concerts organized by the composer during World War II.")

So essentially I'm just demonstrating how Kunze and Rosen may be unreliable. Now you've come along and appended to the Op. 218 footnote, in what I think is a confusing format,

  • Arnold Rosner and Vance Wolverton. "Hovhaness [Hovaness], Alan [Chakmakjian, Alan Hovhaness]". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers) claim 1965.

A reader's eye will have long since glazed over before getting to the "claim 1965." Instead I would have changed the footnote to read as follows:

  • Op. 218: Booklet text notes to Koch International Classics 3-7289-2 written by Hohvaness specialist Marvin Rosen specifically say "The Holy City, Opus 218, was composed in 1965", but the front table of contents gives 1967. The text should normally be considered more trustworthy, because a contents listing is prepared later by clerical staff, which also listed tracks incorrectly on the back cover of the CD. The work is undated at Hovhaness.com; New Grove claims 1965 is correct; Kunze agrees with 1967 on the basis of 6 recordings in his possession. But also compare the footnote for Op. 40a.

We need to talk about footnoting in general. The more I look at what you're doing, and presumably intend to do further, the more boggle-headed I'm getting. Why "second edition", instead of "2d ed.", for instance, even once for the first ref, much less over and over again? Maybe I was brought up wrong? I had thought you were just going to append Grove dates at the list entries themselves, to follow Kunze's dates, per my footnote 2, and only where there's a conflict; and perhaps adding a footnote only where an explanation was required. I don't know the WP rules, but my honest impression is that this is turning into a fussy and unreadable mess. I already had too many footnotes, but they were nearly all useful for explanations, and these will just get lost in the jungle. This is also one of the reasons, though not the main one, that I was complaining about the Arthur Rubinstein discography, that each entry is separately footnoted, and they're all identical - so the refs take up as much space as the discography itself, and they're meaningless clutter. Which is just plain silly, and offputting to the reader. What that says to the reader is, "move along - nothing to see here." Milkunderwood (talk) 09:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with everything you say here: the references I've added are formatted about as awkwardly as they could be. They got that way because, in my hurry to get through as much of the list as possible before my eyes glazed over, I just used my "standard" New Grove template, without considering what it would look like, or how it might fit with the references you already have in place. Please change them as you see fit, and from here onward I will try to follow your model (I didn't even notice your footnote 2, I'm afraid). The only thing I would recommend against is using "op. cit.", which is treacherous enough in print media, but an open invitation to catastrophe on Wikipedia, where new references may be inserted or old ones removed at any time. Short-title or author-name citations or are much preferred—in the present case, "New Grove" or "Rosner and Wolverton", for example.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:14, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your response. Previously I had just glanced through and gotten general impressions; right now I'm looking at your additions in detail, and using just strikeouts - no deletions. Let me work on this today before you continue. (I am very slow.) Then we can decide what we want the final thing to look like. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:41, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Hell, I've changed my mind - all these strikeouts are just too complicated and messy. Since I already have your approval, I'm just going to fix them. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:44, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Question: Macmillan or Oxford? The copy I had found online and linked to is http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Music/Reference/?view=usa&ci=9780195170672. Milkunderwood (talk) 00:17, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
The half-title page of each volume has "Macmillan Publishers". The online edition is part of Oxford Music Online, and from that link you provided it appears that OUP may be the current distributor of the print edition, as well. However, it is standard bibliographic practice to list the publisher, not the distributor.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:25, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, neither Macmillan US nor Macmillan UK return anything at all on searches for "new grove". So if we're linking to a website, it will have to be to OUP. Should I use your biblio ref with Macmillan Publishers but then add "(Oxford University Press, distributor)" in parentheses following "Publishers" but before the period? I just think it seems strange to say Macmillan but link to OUP. Also, I assume you like your "second edition" better than my suggested "2d ed."? And what about the 2001 date - shouldn't that go in somewhere? (Oops - OUP actually says "Oct 2003".) I hate stuff like this. Milkunderwood (talk) 02:27, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll tell you what. The full reference to New Grove appears twice three times in my format of the list: first as the 3rd "Cited source", and then as the 3rd listed source in footnote [1], and finally at my footnote [4]. How about if you go back to that OUP link and integrate it as best you can with your Macmillan info, and post it back here. Then I'll copy your final version to both all of those places.
In the meantime, as you find more date discrepancies, the format I'm using is to put a semicolon following H.com's date (in Roman), then Kunze's date in italics, semicolon, then New Grove's date, again in italics, and close parentheses, with no ref given. After first introducing my sources, I'm then using a ref only for stuff that needs an explanation, such as conflicting opus numbers, titles, forces, etc, and other confusions. Also, I start each ref with the opus number and colon (and put a period at the end). Otherwise it's too easy to get lost and forget where you are supposed to be looking.
Where there are opus numbers in NG that seem to duplicate a number in H.com and Kunze but with a different title and info, instead of making a new entry in the list for it, I'm footnoting the existing entry and giving the NG info there only. I think it's much too confusing to have duplicate opus numbers in the list itself; and it seems that H.com and Kunze nearly always agree with each other, so it must be NG that's odd man out. H.com is going by printed scores, while Kunze is going primarily from recordings. There's no telling why NG keeps giving entirely different info.
Be sure to let me know if you think I'm wrong about any of this, please. I'm definitely not taking "ownership", just trying to be consistent and to make this godawful mess as clear as possible to the reader. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:26, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Question: If NG lists Ode to the Cascade Mountains (an excerpt from Op. 278, No. 1, with the same instrumentation and date) as being Op. 279 instead of Op. 278, No. 2, then what did they do with The Way of Jesus (oratorio for STB soli, SATB chorus, baritone chorus in unison, orchestra [3222 4331, timpani, 4 percussion, harp, 3 guitars, strings]) (1975), listed by H.com and Kunze as being Op. 279? Milkunderwood (talk) 06:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

New Grove has "The Way of Jesus, folk mass, op.278, SATB, unison vv, 3 gui, orch, 1974".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:23, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - in other words the opus numbers are just reversed. I'm just now winding up my fixes, will put this in. I found several of my own errors in this last proofing.

Two unanswered questions from earlier, above:

  • Hovhaness website gives for Symphony No. 28, Op. 286, "10(eh)00 0100". Now what can this mean, if the English horn is substituting for a zero instrument?
This has got to mean there is an English horn, but no oboes.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:37, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Op. 136 says "2 pianos, 4 hands" - so that would be 4 hands at each of the 2 pianos, or 4 pianists total?

Milkunderwood (talk) 07:57, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Just two pianists, one at each intrument. FWIW, NG has got a separate category for two-piano compositions, and they are: "Vijag, op.37, 1946; Mihr, op.60/1, 1945; Ko-Ola-U, op.136, 1962; O Lord, Bless thy Mountains, op.276, 2 pf tuned ¼tone apart, 1974".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:37, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


Finally finished and saved. Do whatever is easiest for you in checking NG for the rest of the stuff - but save yourself a lot of unneeded typing, unless you really want to. So either you can put in differing NG dates yourself, or give them to me and I'll do it. Same with problems, like the Cascade Mountains / Way of Jesus mix-up (which I have now footnoted). Milkunderwood (talk) 08:20, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
OK, will do.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:37, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Hi Jerome-- Just a quick nudge; it's been a couple of weeks. There's no rush, if you'd prefer to wait until after New Year's. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:54, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Nudge appreciated. I've been busy with other things. I shall try to get to this soon. I hope before the new year!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 08:57, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Consider joining WP:Music Theory

Since you've done such a wonderful job on the retrograde article - and if that stuff interests you - you might want to join the WikiProject Music Theory. (The retrograde article was designated the article of the month for October and November.) -- kosboot (talk) 03:10, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Now you tell me! All those PhD theorists swarming like bees around a designated target, and yet only thee and me have actually done any editing? Your task force needs new recruits, all right! Well, thank you for the kind words, and I'll consider signing up, if you think it will make a difference.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:40, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
At least you said bees, and not roaches. ;-) -- kosboot (talk) 12:41, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
LOL! Checking the project page, I see that it is not that large a swarm, either. In consideration of the fact that 13 is an unlucky number, I have added my name to the swarm to bring it to 14.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:38, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Reinhard Febel

I came across Reinhard Febel and added a bit to the stub it is in German. I would like to add a few words on his music - and what I find is this. I could not summarize this mixture of triviality ("moves between generations, cultures, styles and boundaries") and a language I don't speak ("... he rejected as arbitrary, along with its socio-philosophical legitimation; instead, he advocated a universal opening-up of narrow avant-garde concepts of history and material"). Opera says: "He distinguished himself from his contemporaries and their seemingly casual adoption of traditional methods in his ‘lucid construction, his sensitive, brilliant yet reserved and cool sensuality, his technical precision and his alert practice of reflection’ (H. Lachenmann)." Helmut Lachenmann probably said it in German. - Febel wrote on Stockhausen, so I thought you might be interested. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:49, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Trance music? or Trance (music)?

Hi Jerome, would you mind taking a quick look at Talk:Trance_music#Rename_Trance_.28music.29 and if you have time, offer some feedback on my talk page. Does the line of reasoning provided make sense? based on the sources provided in my second comment? thanks -- Semitransgenic talk. 01:10, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for asking my opinion (it's always nice to know that someone values it!). I've read the discussion, and I have some idea of the two views: sub-category of EDM vs. a broader category encompassing non-EDM. Plainly the term "trance music" is used in contexts outside of EDM, but I am going to have to think about the syntax of the competing titles. I'll add my two-cents' worth, if I can manage to come to a conclusion.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:17, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

translation questions

Hi Jerome--

Since you list yourself as having sehr gute Deutschkenntnisse, and also have access to New Grove, I wonder if you'd mind taking a quick look at my two posts from earlier today at Talk:Lyric Pieces#Piece Listing, and see if you have any thoughts on either question. Thanks for any help. (That second question is more for my own cataloging than for any thought of "fixing" the article, unless of course it would be appropriate. But it seems to me the first one is a problem.) Milkunderwood (talk) 04:32, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and posted a footnote to address the first of those; I'm still rather curious about the second. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:24, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Electronic music

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Electronic_music&diff=prev&oldid=465183430

You wrote first impulse was correct--the 1970s are now in the past, but see, my thinking was, the stresses of touring remain today, even though the 70s are in the past :) Doceddi (talk) 11:02, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

It may well be true that these stresses remain today, assuming anyone still tries to tour with those "early machines" which "were not designed for" touring. There are undoubtedly also stresses associated with more modern equipment, and stresses that will exist with no equipment at all. However, the cited source says nothing about this, and all the other verbs in that sentence and the associated quotation are in the past tense: "pioneered", "they were subject to", "were not designed for", "I used" "until I went", "Then I used", "because I couldn't use", "It was". "we transported", "I knew", "I started". It was being a matter of grammar, as much as anything, didn't you agree? ;-)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:24, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Ives's, etc.

But do you say "ayv-zez" Second? I don't.
I say "ayvz" Second.
Do you say "brahmzez"?
If an apostrophe-'s' is used, then the 's' is pronounced as another syllable.
Varlaam (talk) 23:37, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I do say "ayv-zez" and "brahmzez", yes, as a matter of fact. I also say "Glass-ez" and "Williams-ez". Some authorities hold (e.g., the Chicago Manual of Style offers this as one option) that all monosyllabic names ending in an S sound should add apostrophe-S, even when polysyllabic names are not treated this way. The Wikipedia Manual of Style does not include this rule which even Chicago admits makes things convoluted, but rather gives three different styles, all of which are acceptable. Pronunciation aside, the usual rule is to keep an acceptable style unless there is a good reason to change it, and consensus is obtained.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:54, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
The key is a trailing zed sound. So Glass's is fine; no zed.
But a list format convention does not override the spelling rules for English; it is not about having an attractive list.
I personally say Rafe Von Williams' London Symphony, without a "zez".
But, for certain, there is a large degree of accent and even personal preference involved in this.
So, to my mind, if you are policing the page, and you personally are a "zez" man, then that is good enough for me.
Bizet over. Ivanovs' CD is up next. Cheers, Varlaam (talk) 00:12, 20 December 2011 (UTC) (Toronto)

I always thought everyone pronounced the possessive "s", regardless of whether it was printed s' or s's. There's an interesting theory about language evolution, that spelling influences pronunciation at least as much as pronunciation influences spelling. Milkunderwood (talk) 00:20, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

And about zed, I recently saw in a British journal, in a discussion of language learning, the sound-alike letters b, c, d, e, g, p, t, v, and z, to my surprise. Milkunderwood (talk) 00:37, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

pp. vs. p.

It's really minor, but I think "pp" to denote multiple pages hasn't been used for many years. -- kosboot (talk) 05:01, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it is partly a US/UK thing (though I believe you are on the same side of the pond as I am), though I have never noticed the plural abbreviation has fallen out of fashion—except inasmuch as abbreviating the words "page" and "pages" at all has fallen out of use. The main thing in the case of the article Retrograde (music), however, is that the established citation style seems to make the distinction between the singular and plural abbreviations.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:11, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Having never before looked at the article Retrograde (music), much less at its References section, what strikes me is that seemingly roughly half the refs use "pp." and the other half give bare numbers with neither abbreviation nor word to indicate pages:

  • Jalowetz, Heinrich. "On the Spontaneity of Schoenberg's Music". Musical Quarterly 30, no. 4 (October 1944), pp. 385–408.
  • Jarman, Douglas. "Some Rhythmic and Metric Techniques in Alban Berg's Lulu". Musical Quarterly 56, no. 3 (July 1970): 349–66.

I'm not sure I've ever seen the singular "p." to indicate a range of pages. Kosboot, can you give an example reference?
BTW I also note that "cancrizans" is bolded but undefined (i.e. crab-wise, or in crab motion - which itself is a misnomer since crabs move sideways rather than backwards).
All this reminds me somewhat of the situation with "OP" as opposed to "OOP" to indicate "out of print". Booksellers going back to at least 1900 if not earlier have used OP (or sometimes O.P. or o.p.) to indicate this. Apparently without awareness of this long-established tradition, "OOP" seems to have sprung up spontaneously as applied to CDs and DVDs. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:05, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, looking again at Retrograde (music), I am confused by the distinction between what is called "References", which are not footnotes, and "Notes", which are, and are numbered. I would have expected the numbered footnotes (however labeled, but presumably "References") to appear first, and unnumbered "Bibliography" or "Further reading" to follow. I now see at Wikipedia:Citing sources#How to create the list of citations that the terminology used is approved, but
  • If an article contains a list of general references, this is placed in a separate section, titled (for example) "References". This usually comes immediately after the section(s) listing footnotes, if any. (If the general references section is called "References", then the citations section is usually called "Notes".)
I think simply reversing the sequence of these two sections would be clearer. (Edit: Because I think of the "References" section as containing the footnotes - this was the "WP rule" I had assumed just from looking at other articles, rather than at WP:REF.)
Also, I'm not sure what "Dominus" in retrograde (Ms. Florence Pluteo 29). can possibly mean. Is "Ms." here "Manuscript", and "page 29"? Or is there a Miss/Mrs./Ms. Florence Pluteo who is or was at age 29? Or might this have to do somehow with a parapet in Firenze? A footnote might be handy here. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:17, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
For people who use libraries, Ms. Florence Pluteo 29 means a manuscript with the call number Pluteo 29 in Florence. That's a very typical way that manuscript are identified - by their call number and library. -- kosboot (talk) 03:18, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. (Google Translate renders "Pluteo" as "parapet".) Would you care to footnote this? Perhaps even better, and simpler, would be to remove the ref from the text, and move it just as is down to either the "References" or "Notes" sections. This way it wouldn't confuse the flow of the text, and would not need this sort of explication that you've provided.
Let me quote a brief bit from my own userpage:
  • "I want to add that I've gradually developed a philosophy of Wikipedia, which is that not everyone coming here looking for information is an expert in editors' various fields. More, and clearer, information is better than less. Don't assume that your terminology is universally comprehended. Don't make people have to struggle to find what they're looking for. Why make it hard for them? Here's a delicious bit of irony that I've stolen from a post by User:Ravpapa: Remember, the reader is the enemy. It's just something for each of us to think about."
Milkunderwood (talk) 04:09, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Back to "p. vs. pp." I've looked through several sources:
  • Chicago Manual of Style: "unless ambiguity would result, p. and pp. may be omitted"
  • Holoman, Writing about Music: omit p. and pp.
  • Bellman, A Short Guide to Writing About Music: omit p. and pp.
  • Turabian online: omits p. and pp.
  • Denmar Irvine, Writing about Music - proscribes p. and pp. (although I've never heard of this author and never seen him cited).

I'd say most journals ("guide for contributors") lean on Chicago or the Holoman book. -- kosboot (talk) 16:05, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I did come across

[above left unfinished???]
In that case I have three suggestions - 1) reverse the sequence of the "Notes" and "References" sections; 2) remove the confusing "(Ms. Florence Pluteo 29)" from the text and move it down into "Notes", leaving a ref in its place in the text; and 3) standardize the sources by deleting the "p." and "pp." where they appear, to conform with all the other the entries that give numbers only. Wouldn't these make sense? Milkunderwood (talk) 20:40, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
First, to Kosboot: I believe you will find that is "Demar" Irvine, who was for a long time Professor of Music at the University of Washington, where I did my doctorate (although he retired just about the time I came to Seattle). One of his specialties was the "Bibliography" class, required for all incoming graduate students unless, like myself, they had already taken the equivalent course elsewhere. He was by all accounts a stickler for bibliographical details, so I would imagine his textbook would be reliable, if now a little out of date. It is interesting how unanimous these sources seem to be about not using the abbreviations "p." and "pp.".
Now, to Milkunderwood: Yes, I think the Notes and References sections should probably be reversed, since that is the normal layout sequence generally, and more specifically is the one in the Wikipedia Manual of Style. The manuscript abbreviation, on the other hand, may be confusing to some, but to others would be odd shoved into a footnote, since the Apel reference should be attached to the entire description, including the manuscript source, and it really will not do to be having footnotes to footnotes. As to dropping the abbreviations for "page" and "pages", I am in perfect agreement with this (and this has been my habit in bibliographies for over twenty years), but Kosboot may have a different point of view and he has been a major contributor to the Retrograde article.
Finally, to both of you: While I enjoy conducting cozy chats like this on my talk page, doesn't it seem that this whole discussion really belongs on Talk:Retrograde (music), instead?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:15, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
Of course you're right - but the discussion started here. Does anyone ever even look at talkpages?
I see your point about the Ms., but it's the "Ms. Florence ..." that the eye stumbles on. Who the hell is she? If for instance it said "Ms. Firenze ..." instead, that problem wouldn't exist. You both have to remember that not everyone looking at this page is familiar with your librarianship and its conventions, and this is truly puzzling to the unfamiliar reader.
One additional thing that I think would be useful would be to add a footnote for the first occurrence of the term cancrizans, as "Medieval Latin: moving backwards, from cancrizāre to move crabwise" [9]. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:40, 27 December 2011 (UTC)


I do of course see your point about "Ms. Florence". Sometimes this abbreviation is given in full caps, and with a colon before the shelf number: "MS Florence: Pluteo 59". Do you think that might help? A note explaining cancrizans would be a very good idea, though I think it really belongs in the texts as a parenthetical remark, rather than being relegated to a footnote. And, yes, people do sometimes look at Talk pages, and when they are the ones attached to an article (rather than to an editor's namepage), people interested in editing that article will stand a better chance of seeing the discussion!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:49, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
Perfect solutions, all around. Thank you. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:54, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
In fact, with Wikipedia being a general readership publication, I suggest a formal proposal be made for Mss, as always to be given in full caps, and with a colon before the shelf number. Milkunderwood (talk) 00:11, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
Library scholarship obviously has precedence for Ms., but just as obviously the abbreviation has since been co-opted to the extent that it automatically means to the unpracticed eye "a woman of indeterminate marital status". It would be much easier and less confusing all around for Wikipedia to incorporate the "MS ...: ..." format as a guideline. Milkunderwood (talk) 04:41, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
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