Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Music of Italy

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[edit] Music of Italy

It's been a long time since I've done much FAC work, but I think this article has turned out very well. It was largely written by me and User:Jeffmatt, and it's a GA and an A-Class WP:WOMUS article (though WOMUS is largely me, so take that with a grain of salt). It's involved quite a bit of discussion, as this is a bit of a tricky subject. I'm of the opinion that a "music of" should primarily be about the modern country -- how music currently has an effect on the lives of Italians. Of course, to some degree, history is a major part of that, and in addition, Italian music history is extremely notable in the grand scheme of things... So finding the appropriate amounts of content in different areas is a precarious balancing act. It's 83kb with all the frills, but much of that is the references, pics, and other stuff (mostly references).

This article has 59KB of prose as of 30 September 2006

FYI: Jeffmatt's Italian, but he uses mostly British spelling and I use American. In copyediting, I switched it to American so that it was consistent. I may have missed some though, so please fix any British spelling you encounter (or switch it all to British, I don't really care).

No, for FYI, Jeffmatt is American, but lives in Italy. He switches spelling. He once spelled it "theather" amd claimed it was New Zealand spelling. Keeps people on their toes. Or at least off of mine. Jeffmatt 04:30, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Oh, okay, nevermind then. Sorry. Tuf-Kat 07:19, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks in advance for commenting, Tuf-Kat 01:20, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment Note 10 has empty <ref></ref> tags. -Fsotrain0901:15, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Wow, an edit conflict from commenting before I officially even launch the nom! I just fixed it, but thanks. Tuf-Kat 01:20, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Anything on the development of Gregorian Chant? Didn't that occur at least partially in Italy? Or at least, it ended up there as a result of the Catholic Church. --Spangineeres (háblame) 01:43, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
    • That's part of the history vs. modern issue I alluded to. Gregorian chant developed geographically in Italy, but it predated everything of major relevance to modern Italian music. And it's not particularly more important in Italy than in France, etc. (Not that I'm an expert on early music, but that's my understanding). The very nice music history of Italy was previously a part of this article, but I removed it a few weeks ago (even it only gives 6 paragraphs to everything before the Renaissance). Tuf-Kat 02:31, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Uncomprehensive or wrongly named. If this article is about the Modern history of italian music, that should be its title. It if is the whole history, lacking anything before the Renaissance is unacceptable. Judgesurreal777
That is part of the problem that Tuf-Kat refers to above--and he, I, and a few other contributors went round and round for months on this--the balance between history and the present. I am not sure what "Modern history of Italian music" would even mean, to tell you the truth. Or even "History of Modern Italian Music" (which is a contradiction in terms). I think the article has attemped to answer a potential reader's question, "What is the music of Italy like today?" and puts in a reasonable amount of historical information so that a reader is not left completely hanging in the present. Thank you for your comment. Jeffmatt 04:42, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
If that's the question you want to answer, then this needs to be at "Modern music of Italy". Music of Italy needs to answer the question, "What is the music of Italy?" (with no exceptions). If you're not going to at least briefly discuss all of the music of Italy, you should have a good reason (like no reliable sources existing), or change the title. --Spangineeres (háblame) 16:39, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
But it covers plenty of music that is not modern. It covers all the most important points of Italian music history -- stuff sufficiently distant in the past is not part of the music of Italy if Italy is defined as the country. If Italy is defined as the penninsula and politically united islands, then this article would need to be expanded to cover lots of topics irrelevant to the country. Gregorian chant occurred largely in what we now call Italy, but that was way before "Italy" really existed, and it is of no more relevance to the lives of anyone that has ever lived in "Italy" (the country) than it is relevant to the lives of people that have lived in France, Sweden or the United States. IOW, we should have an article on the music of the country of Italy, because it's a very notable topic and it should not cover topics tangential to the country of Italy; topics that occurred in the distant past are also notable but are not relevant to the country of Italy, so it makes sense to put them in a different article that can cover them thoroughly and in an appropriate historical context (i.e. music history of Italy). Tuf-Kat 22:07, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Interesting argument. If that's the definition of "Italy", I suppose it makes sense that this article not cover the old stuff. Personally, however, I would rather see a relatively short level two section that discusses pre-"Italy" music in extremely broad terms. After all, the article on Italy covers all the way back to the Roman Empire, and USA briefly covers the time period before Europeans arrived. --Spangineeres (háblame) 22:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
I guess as I see it, a single section can't possibly hope to cover the old stuff. Covering back to Gregorian chant would be a thousand years of history, and I don't think there's any reason to stop in the 9th century. But maybe I can work in a couple sentences here and there to discuss some of the earliest stuff in the peninsula. Tuf-Kat 03:46, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
As part of a general trim, I added an explicit explanation and a link to Gregorian chant. Tuf-Kat 14:18, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose I find this strangely disjointed. First off, I agree with the above; this is really music in post-Risorgimento Italy. More to the point, there are a number of main articles (cited in the text here) on the various different sections: classical, folk, etc.... So what is the point of this very long but not particularly exhaustive article, when much of the content could be forked to those individual articles? (btw, you list the Verdi Requiem under instrumental music). Eusebeus 15:57, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Aside from the history stuff which is being discussed, what do you feel makes this not comprehensive? Much of the content could be forked to subarticles (in theory, all of it should be duplicated in subarticles, IMO, but some of those don't exist yet), but this page is an overview of all the most important facts about each field in the topic, per summary style. Tuf-Kat 22:07, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
      • It may just be my preference, but I prefer an article like Music_of_France which acts as a clearing house for the various specialty articles on each subject. This one finds an unhappy balance between overview and reference to more detailed exposition. And, of course, this cannot begin to be comprehensive in a historical context. Music in Venice or in Florence would be as large again, so I ask instead, what is the purpose of this article? I think it should be to direct readers to more in depth anaylsis. Eusebeus 23:10, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
        • Hmm... I don't see where we disagree exactly. As I see it, music of France, while not terrible, has too specific subsections. They focus on relatively minor topics, like the folk musics of specific regions, which while interesting, are not really the most important subjects. The benefit of a "music of France" article is that it can focus on how music relates to France, while articles on the musics of specific regions and genres can focus more on what makes their topics unique. This is what music of Italy does better than music of France, IMO, because it discusses more general, far-reaching topics - it touches on many more subjects than the France article, but focuses on how they are and are not related. In other words, music of Italy is a "clearing house for the various specialty articles on each subject" (e.g. Italian folk music, Italian popular music). So... I'm not sure where we disagree, except that I think music of France is in poor shape in just about every way. Tuf-Kat 03:46, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
          • I don't think there was anything wrong with mentioning the Requiem thing, there, since all that sentence says it that it isn't opera. But one example's probably enough anyway, so I removed it. Tuf-Kat 19:21, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

As one of the major contributors to this article, I appreciate all the comments and admit to being confused, myself. If "Italy" is a general cultural repository (a reasonable view and my own original one), then the article would have to be of the "no exceptions" kind, mentioned above. Such an article might even be called "Italian music" (in a way that "Italian architecture" might be handled differently than "Architecture of Italy"). If "Italy" is a modern nation state (which it is, even though there is almost no place to park) then the focus should be at least similar to other Music of (country) articles. The fact that "Italy" is both—in a way that most other places are not—means we have to have a compromise. We split off a lot of the early history to another article, Music history of Italy, and wound up with, in my opinion, just such a compromise: enough history to support a presentation of music as it exists today in Italy, with enough pointers to other articles to satisfy at least some of the historical requirements of readers looking for more. Thanks again. Jeffmatt 05:12, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

  • Suppport - Great article. Raul654 18:00, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
    Thank you very much for the comment. Bless you!Jeffmatt 06:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. Why so few pictures, though? --Ghirla -трёп- 13:04, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Thanks - on the pictures, I don't think there's an unreasonably low amount, especially if you take into account the sound samples, which are arguably much more useful for an article about music. Tuf-Kat 01:44, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Question: I'm still mulling over this whole "definition of Italy" thing, and I've got a question—how was the line between Music of Italy and Music history of Italy determined? The country didn't become a nation state until 1861, several centuries after opera. Thus, I don't see any reason to make the split before opera. However, assuming that there is a good reason, at the very least, the lead of this article needs to specify the time period covered in the article, and give a link to Music history of Italy. Maybe even a disambig style phrase at the top like: This article covers the music of Italy since the 15th century; for music before this see Music history of Italy. But we better have a good reason for drawing a line there. --Spangineeres (háblame) 17:51, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
    • I don't think an explicit line is necessary because it doesn't exist historically. History should be (and I think is) covered in as much as it has affected modern music, which is a different cutoff for pop music, opera and folk dances. There shouldn't be a strict delineation for any individual field either on the same basic idea - "Italian folk music" wasn't invented in any particular timeframe, and implying that it was by just starting somewhere would not be neutral and would be counterfactual. Therefore, we start with the assumption that we're talking about folk music as it has impacted real, living Italians (or at least somewhat recently living), and cover as much history as is necessary to describe that (which is a not insignificant amount). How did we determine which history to include? By covering more or less the same spread of info as the sources cited. Basically, there was a history section at one point, and it was removed. What was left was a series of sections by topic, all of which touched on history. We added a bit more history where necessary (because we were previously assuming the reader had already read the history section), but ultimately, historical info will be either relevant to something recent and therefore included, or not relevant and thus not included.
    • What it boils down to is that "history" is a lot of stuff almost entirely irrelevant to how music shapes the lives of Italians - it would make no sense to cover Gregorian chant or the Italian ars nova, for example, while not the early development of American and British pop and rock, both of which have had profound effects on the lives of pretty much all Italians that have lived for the last couple decades, even if all those things occurred outside what we now call Italy. It would be disingenous to conflate stuff that coincidentally occured within the current political boundaries of Italy with topics that have actually influenced the "music of Italy" in a significant way.
    • Anyway, I feel like I'm ranting now, and I'm not sure I'm really making a point. I don't mean to be insulting to anyone - I'm confident Spangineer et al is commenting in good faith, and I can certainly see the reasoning behind the other side of the argument. Tuf-Kat 01:44, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
      • Oh, and I'll point out that music history of Italy currently goes up to the 19th century. It shouldn't stop there, as history has continued... well, until yesterday, really. Presumably we'll stop somewhere in the last decade or so, based on the availability of verifiable historical commentary rather than current eventsy-type commentary. Tuf-Kat 01:47, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
        • That's certainly a valid way to look at it. What would you think about adding a disambig statement at the top that says something along the lines of This article covers the music of modern Italy. For more complete treatment of Italy's musical history, see music history of Italy. Just a thought; if you're not convinced it's necessary that's fine. It's just that I'm not sure what our readers will expect out of the article, and perhaps an explanatory note at the top would be helpful.
        • Incidentally, I object, but that's completely unrelated to the name confusion. More citations in the "Imported styles" section would be helpful (one at the end of every paragraph?). Same thing for "Venues, festivals and holidays", "Education", and "Scholarship"; there aren't many there either. I've added some {{fact}} tags at key spots, but if possible, reference everything in the article, not just what I mark. That said, the article appears to be generally well-written and comprehensive—great job with this! --Spangineeres (háblame) 06:01, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
          • One more thing—do you have page numbers for the references you refer to only by name in the notes? Those would be handy for someone doing research or verifying the article's contents. --Spangineeres (háblame) 06:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I have started to fill in a few of the "citation needed" items inserted by Spangineer. I'm not sure I agree that they are all necessary, but better to have too many than too few, I suppose. As far as what readers expect and get from such an article: it is a good encyclopedic point of reference for students and general readers seeking information about the Music of and in Italy. It has enough historical pointers for those looking for that information, as well (at least potentially, since some of the pointers go to items that are, as yet, incomplete--the Music History of Italy, for example). If the debate is about the meaning of "Italy," that's a tough one. I still think the article does justice to much of the history and, at the same time, fits the Wikipedia idea that we should have a Music of (nation) series. Maybe I'm beating a dead horse, here. On the other hand, I helped kill it. Jeffmatt 06:43, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  • FIrst, Raul, I'm going to lock horns with you again WRT conflict of interest. You should not be supporting or objecting here, and then making executive decisions—as you position allows—on the fate of a nomination. You can't be judge, jury and attorney at the same time, so I ask you to withdraw your "Support" comment, which I note is followed by an unctuous "Bless you" from one of the nominators. Do you like having your boots licked by nominators? This is all improper, and risks diminishing respect for the openness and fairness of the process.
I wasn't being unctious. I'm a newcomer to Wikipedia. I thought I was being funny. Loosen your corset. I'm all in favor of fairness and openness. My comments on the points you raise are below. Thank you. Jeffmatt 13:33, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Object—1a and 1c. There are plenty of examples just in the lead as to why this article should not, in its present form, be promoted, despite what the Director of this process has unwisely stated earlier in this process.
    • "Musical developments in Italy during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance spread throughout Europe." This all-encompassing statement is a problem. It appears to assume that all musical developments in Italy during that period spread throughout Europe, which is simply not true. If only some did, we'd like to know which ones here, or to have more detailed treatment further down flagged here.
I don't read that sentence as being so all-inclusive. I thought it meant, simply, that some of the musical developments in Italy spread to other parts of Europe. If it doesn't mean that, it shouldn't be much of a problem to change, Thank you for pointing it out. Jeffmatt 16:03, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, the problem is that it could be read as all-inclusive. If this sentence is retained, it should list specific (and even general) innovations in Italy that spread. That's beyond my knowledge, but recitative and solo-tutti might be candidates, as might certain aspects of opera. I'm worried about over-generalisations in the lead. (Tony1)
    • "Innovations in musical scales, harmony, notation, and musical theater led directly to opera in the late 16th century, and the origin of much of modern European classical music, such as the symphony and concerto." Innovations in notation led directly to opera ... funny way of putting it—
Indeed, but we didn't put it that way. With all due respect, you have distorted the context. We don't say, "Innovations in notation led directly to opera." We said that innovations in a number of things--including notation--led directly to a number of other things. That strikes me as a true statement, unless you want to quibble about the word "directly." On the other hand, how could you have had operas and symphonies without precise pitch notation? Jeffmatt 16:03, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Again, it's uncertain as to whether it should be read as "each item, of itself" contributed to the development of opera, or "together, these items did". It's vague, and the experts will kill it as soon as they see such ambiguity. I suggest that you don't refer to notation here, because it's just too all-encompassing: so many musical forms arose from the invention of notation—we don't need to say this here. I don't see this as a philosophical question (below), but a technical, musical, historical one.


didn't these innovations lead to many forms of music in many countries? This grand statement should be withdrawn and replaced with something more useful and focused. And can innovations lead to the origin of something?

Well, I don't know, but I think that last question is a philosophical one that doesn't have much to do with the article.Jeffmatt 16:03, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
    • "The field of classical music includes instrumental and vocal forms, ranging from experimental art music and international fusions to opera, which is also a major segment of popular music." It would be surprising if classical music everywhere didn't comprise both instrument and vocal forms. The next problem is that rest of the sentence doesn't extend or enhance this idea—it mentions opera, but are "international fusions" instrumental? The sentence is not cohesive or logical. The notion that opera is both classical and popular needs to be announced or explained more explicitly before it's assumed in passing as here.
Admittedly, the point of opera being "popular" needs clarification, perhaps along the distinction of upper-case (even though you hate that!) C for "Classical" music (the last half of the 18th century) and "classical" music (all symphonies and operas). Upper-case "Popular" could mean what we undertand when we say "pop" music and lower-case "popular" could mean that which is liked by the people, in which case, "Opera is popular music" is a true statement.Jeffmatt 18:42, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
It's getting complicated. I'd pitch it at music lovers who may have only limited knowledge of the historical and technical stuff. (But that's your call—it just has to be evenly pitched throughout.)
    • "American jazz and hip hop"—We wonder whether these forms are composed in Italy; the list this appears in is a jumbled and arbitrary selection.
Yes, it could be more orderly.Jeffmatt 18:42, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
    • "Italian folk music remains an important part of the country's musical heritage"—The assumption is that in most countries, folk music has receded.
I think you have really over-analyzed that use of "remains". How about "is"? Jeffmatt 18:42, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it has, but in an encyclopedic article, this knowledge should not be casually assumed of the reader.

    • Lots of "includes/ing", and "ranges" and "range" in the lead.
Not a problem to spruce up the vocabulary. I just got stuck on "range". It's such a nice word.Jeffmatt 18:42, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm careful about "variety of", "range of" and "includes". Often redundant, and can weaken the impact of a statement.

Not good enough. The problems are on a deeper level than just the language at the clause level; they involve logic, cogency and overall cohesiveness. Tony 06:55, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

The article may seem, as one person noted, "strangely disjointed". I think that comes from having tried to tie a lot of things together under a single rubric, but I still think it's cohesive. Thank you very much for the comments. Jeffmatt 16:03, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
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