Template talk:Classical work infobox

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This infobox was made by modifying the one provided for music albums. It might be an idea to add 'equivalent works' to the chronology, so all the symphonies of a composer would be linked, as well as going through opus number. TreveX^talk 00:02, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Suggestions 1.1 Form 1.2 Chronologies 1.3 Testing 2 colour 3 Copied discussion from Beethoven's 5th

[edit] Suggestions

Hi, good idea that infobox. 'Form' may be awkward in some cases; does it refer to the structure of individual movements (e.g., sonata-binary-sonata in many Mozart piana concertos). Perhaps 'Genre' would be a more convenient title.

You might consider adding a space for the catalogue number, after the title, e.g., BWV or K: 'Catalogue number, if any:'. Tony 00:40, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

In addition, you might add:

'Instrumentation (if not in title):', Done! TreveX^talk 12:02, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

which will sometimes help to identify a work: 'six-part choir (SSATTB)' or 'solo piano and orchestra', or 'harpsichord or clavichord'. This might come before the year completed on the list.Tony 00:49, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Agree that "genre" is what you mean rather than "form." Also, opus numbers are not necessarily chronological, and are often called something else (e.g. BWV 191). I don't really see much value in having a "next" and "previous" opus number (or form/genre).

Also, with regard to instrumentation, orchestra works might want to have a place for exact instrumentation, e.g. 2222-2431-perc-timp-harp-strings.

I haven't used infoboxes much; what happens if many fields are blank? For earlier music the dates of composition and first performance may not be known. Modern music might not have a "key." I see a lot of album infoboxes full of question marks, and they look horrible. I wonder if it might make more sense to have this infobox be just for orchestral music and have other infoboxes for choral music, chamber music, songs, etc. —Wahoofive (talk) 04:31, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Form

I would rather stick with 'form' than 'genre'. Symphony, concerto etc. all appear in this list of musical forms. The wikipedia article musical form states that:

The term musical form is used in two related ways:

• • a generic type of composition such as the symphony or concerto
  • the structure of a particular piece, how its parts are put together to make the whole; this too can be generic, such as binary form or sonata form.

Where appropriate, can we not have information about the type of piece and its structure? This would include sonata-binary-sonata etc. For example, the form field might say: "Concerto (sonata-binary-sonata)". What do you think? TreveX^talk 11:52, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

My objection isn't about whether the term "form" is correct, but only about whether it's ambiguous. One song by Schubert will list the "form" as "Lied" and another as "strophic". "Genre" is unambiguous.

The more fields you add, the more blanks you're going to have. You've only thought about this box as it applies to 19th-century orchestral works, where all these fields will be known. A motet by Palestrina will have no key, no dates of composition or performance, no opus number, no chronology, and this infobox will take up a lot of space for very little information. Better to have separate infoboxes for different genres of classical music. —Wahoofive (talk) 15:17, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

What specifically do you have in mind? An early/rennaissance/baroque box to go along with this one? I don't think we'd need individual ones for medieval, rennaissance, baroque, classical, romantic and modern.TreveX^talk 16:08, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking more along the lines of genre than historical period, although I haven't really thought it through. Maybe art-songs could have one box, symphonies/concertos/other orchestral works another, operas another, etc. (I'm surprised there isn't an opera-info-box already.) I wouldn't mix Renaissance and Baroque, although very few Renaissance compositions have their own articles (in fact, I can't find even one), so a Renaissance one wouldn't be necessary. This isn't a fully-developed proposal; I'm just concerned about having a one-size-fits-all box which will have too many blanks for too many compositions and look bad.—Wahoofive (talk) 17:01, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Chronologies

There are several ways of doing this...

• Opus numbers - lists of works often appear in opus order (which generally run either in order of composition or in order of publication)
• BWV - Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis - perhaps Bach works can have their own special infobox?
• Date of publication - not always as readily available as opus number
• Date of composition - even if a date is written on the score, this can mean no more than the date it was copied, re-arranged, etc
• Werk ohne Opuszah - WoO (without opus number) - how do we deal with this?

For the time being, I will rename 'opus chronology' to 'opus series'. This makes it clear that it may not be exactly chronological. TreveX^talk 11:52, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, if Bach works have their own infobox, then all Mozart works would need their own infobox too (Kochel numbers). TheProject 17:48, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

And not only Bach and Mozart, but Domenico Scarlatti, Dieterich Buxtehude, George Frideric Handel, Johan Helmich Roman, and Joseph Haydn (and there are several catalogues to choose from here!) to name what I can think of now. Considering the large number of infoboxes required, and the few advantages it would have (I can't think of any), that's not feasible. Something like "Opus or catalogue number" might provide room for it all. EldKatt (Talk) 19:04, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Testing

The infobox looks really great. It should probably be added to much older and more recent works to see if the fields fit before and after the familiar period of classical music. -Acjelen 22:48, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] colour

I have to agree with 69.246.12.184, I prefer template without the "jarring" green, and it does not match the colour scheme of wikipedia at all... Could we please keep it colourless? -- Rmrfstar 20:07, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Copied discussion from Beethoven's 5th

There has been discussion of the use of this infobox at Talk:Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven). I hope I am not taking too much of a liberty in copying that discussion to here. --RobertG ♬ talk 15:50, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I am respectfully asking my fellow editors not to place "infoboxes" in classical music articles. I have three reasons:

• Each work of classical music is its "own animal", as it were, and is not easily reduced to a few traits displayable in infoboxes. They're not like "Magic the Gathering" cards.
• The box occupies space up top, and renders the far more crucial Table of Contents hard to find.
• Lastly--and perhaps most importantly--there's an esthetic element. Many works of classical music are beloved by their listeners. They can be listened to hundreds of times over the listener's lifetime. Thus, some of our readers are likely to venerate the works in question and be sensitive to potential acts of desecration. An infobox looks a lot like a display ad and strikes me as a good candidate for being a desecration.

Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,
Opus33 17:18, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I understand your reason, but then other pages with infoboxes (not just classical works) could fit under your reasons. --hello, i'm a member | talk to me! 03:11, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Also see this and this. --hello, i'm a member | talk to me! 03:13, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree entirely with Opus33. Writers and readers of classical music articles do tend to be a high-minded lot, and we don't want our articles to look like USA Today. I think the classical works infobox project is misguided. Mark¹ 12:17, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd hate to think that high-mindedness were the only reason to avoid classical infoboxes—fortunately, there are practical difficulties along with the potential philosophical ones. If we would attempt to have a single universal "classical works" infobox, it quite simply wouldn't fit all its potential applications—fields would be left blank in many cases, and a lot of relevant information would be missing in others. Even creating a series of more specialized templates would be quite problematic. The general field of "classical music works" can't be divided up into a few neat subtypes with their own special traits. This time, we'll have to trust people to actually read the articles—trying to summarize it in an infobox wouldn't really help anyone here. EldKatt (Talk) 14:51, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I concur with Opus33, Markalexander100 (and now EldKatt). I have the additional objection that in classical music the information the template asks for is rarely simple, often requiring research and explanation, and so the template is actually misleading because it implies otherwise. For instance, op. numbers are in no way a reliable guide to Beethoven's chronology, so the infobox should not imply it is. Composers often work on more than one composition at a time. What key is Nielsen's 3rd in? Mahler's 9th? Webern's Op. 10? Reich's Music for pieces of wood? Which revision of each Bruckner symphony will the infobox refer to? Which completion of Mozart's requiem? Are Chopin's waltzes Op. 64 to be treated as one work, or three? I do not think these examples are obscure rare exceptions to a rule. The album infobox on which it was based does not suffer from these problems since recording an album is usually a discrete process (the release date, album chronology, label, duration and genre are usually unproblematic). I feel there is so much classical music for Wikipedians to document that it's a waste of effort to set ourselves the impossible task of agreeing on a simple infobox that will satisfactorily summarise each one in the whole diversity of classical compositions. All the information the infobox could possibly contain could be much better outlined in the introductory paragraph for any article. --RobertG ♬ talk 15:50, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Strongly agree with RobertG. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:53, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad to see I was not alone in my opinion. I appreciated the point that EldKatt and RobertG made, and would like to restate it thus: infoboxes are unscholarly, because they force a simplified presentation of what ought to have a nuanced presentation.

I will wait a week (I only edit on Sundays) and if this near-consensus persists I will remove the classical infoboxes from their articles (if no one else does it first). Opus33 20:28, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

All right, I've taken them out, hoping User:Member will not be too angry (and will respect the apparent consensus here). Opus33 17:29, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Do people still feel this way? Because I think infoboxes for classical works would be extremely helpful. 69.143.38.27 21:34, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, I feel the same as before, that is, opposed. Please take a look at the discussion above. The main point of this discussion is that applied to this area, infoboxes create distortions of the facts. I think it should be our top priority to produce an accurate encyclopedia. Pedagogical aids like infoboxes must take second place to this priority, and should not be used if they would lead to falsification. Yours sincerely, Opus33 19:34, 4 December 2006 (UTC)