Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Olivier Messiaen

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[edit] Olivier Messiaen

I think it is clear, accurate, well-organized and a correct size. I was very surprised by the quality. ♦ Pabix ^ℹ 22:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

• Support I agree. I was about to submit it for fac myself! The article provides a well-researched and detailed biography of a particlualrly significant composer, as well as an illuminating expalnation of his work. Pinkville 00:03, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. Although having images traditionally has not been included in the FA criteria, this is really only because there are some subjects (e.g. Psychosis) which are not easily illustrated. But when we are dealing with a 20th century figure, of whom photographs surely exist, I really expect there to be a picture, even if it is only fair use. Andrew Levine 00:32, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there are many photos of Olivier Messiaen that are in public domain or under free license. I'm going to look for it. ♦ Pabix ^ℹ 07:26, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

A fair use one can suffice if you can't find a free one. Andrew Levine 07:43, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I found a photo on Polish wikipedia that seem to be in public domain and uploaded it on Commons. I wrote an extract of a piece with LilyPond and put it too. Now it is a bit more illustrated. ♦ Pabix ^ℹ 08:20, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately the image Pabix found is not in the public domain. --RobertG ♬ talk 12:59, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

This is correct; the person who uploaded it to the Polish Wikipedia told me that he had made an error in so doing. Andrew Levine 21:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

While it's not quite the same thing, a free picture of the Église de la Sainte-Trinité should be relatively easy to obtain, and would be nice to have (especially if he was in the habit of playing his own works there). Incidentally, since it seems to be a church of some note, we really should have an article on it. Mark¹ 21:02, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: I consider myself the main contributor to this article [1], so take my support as read! (I was waiting for images to turn up before nominating it here myself.) I am very gratified by Pabix's nomination. I have spent some time looking for pd/fair use images of the composer, but have not found any. I have come to the conclusion that the only way to acquire such a thing is to contact a sympathetic individual who is likely to release a copyrighted image into public domain or under GFDL - I don't currently have the time to pursue this. Another contributor approached such an individual to acquire appropriate images for the other 20th-century composer's article I steered through FAC (Witold Lutosławski) for which images seemed equally hard to come by. I have thought of asking either Peter Hill or Nigel Simeone, authors of thoroughly excellent references, but they are probably exceptionally busy people and I don't know them personally. On reflection, I do not think that the lack of images disqualifies it from being a FA. I will do what I can to help address any issues raised here. --RobertG ♬ talk 12:59, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Further comment - I will upload a couple of fair-use music images over the next day or two illustrating some of the musical points made in the article. --RobertG ♬ talk 13:13, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

• When those images are uploaded, count my vote as a support. Gflores ^Talk 18:04, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I have uploaded four printed music examples as promised. --RobertG ♬ talk 16:46, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

• Tentative object until it's copy-edited. It is a very good article, but the language is only 85% of the way towards FA standard. I'll try to do it over the weekend. Tony 23:49, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support.Object. The lead is messy, with six rather short paragraphs. I think that this reflects a broader problem with the organisation and length of the article. This article should be about Olivier Messiaen the person; the musical content would be better off exported to Style of Olivier Messiaen, or some such (comparable to Albert Einstein and Special relativity, etc.). Mark¹ 11:41, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Are you saying that discussion of his music is superfluous for an article about a composer?! See further comment below. --RobertG ♬ talk 11:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Further comment. I agree with Mark; the lead is disjointed, particularly the second sentence. Rather than a bit of this and a bit of that from the article, the lead would be stronger if it first painted the bigger picture (it's a rather grand one, in M's case), locating the composer with respect to the western tradition and, in particular, 20th-century art music. What was his legacy?

This bit is a problem: 'Messiaen taught at the Paris Conservatory for many years, being appointed professor of harmony there in 1941, and professor of composition in 1966. In his classes there and abroad he taught many distinguished pupils ...'

What about: 'Messiaen was appointed professor of harmony in 1941 and of composition in 1966 at the Paris Conservertoire, positions he held until ...'

Suddenly we find that he taught classes abroad, a detail that may be better left until the body of the article.

It should be made clear on first mention that the modes of limited transposition are his own innovation.

Synaesthesia is a neurological condition; my recollection is that Messiaen likened his experience of certain harmonies to that condition, rather than claimed to have it (I could be wrong, though); in any case, I'm afraid that I wasn't convinced by M's claim to 'see' specific colours associated with particular chords, when I saw him interviewed at the piano in the BBC doco from the ?early 80s. Perhaps this matter might be covered in a less prominent part of the article.

The fact that his final work was performed after his death doesn't seem important enough to make the lead.

More references are required, even in the lead.

I feel awkward being critical here, because I think the contributors do valuable work on WP, and I know Robert. This article will surely be a FA, but perhaps not yet. Sorry not to offer direct assistance, but I've no time at the moment. Tony 14:48, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Tony - I accept many of these (and Mark's) criticisms about the lead. I tried to make it a potted version of the article, whereas I see now it could be even pithier. On a separate note, Tony, I don't think you need feel awkward being critical. Specific objections to its becoming a featured article are what this page is for! However, since it appears this particular FAC has stalled (unless there is a flood of support votes, which seems unlikely), further posting here may be irrelevant in any case. I should welcome you posting any other problems you find with the article, at your convenience, either on my talk page or on the article's talk page (or fix them :-)).

As an aside, all the references I have read appear to accept Messiaen's synaesthesia. If you have a reference that casts doubts on it can you let me know? If it wasn't a genuine neurological condition then it seems quite extraordinary that he was able to so consistently describe the colours he envisaged, and in such precise terms. You ask for more references in general: which bits aren't referenced that should be? --RobertG ♬ talk 11:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Update: I have recast the intro slightly in the light of Tony and Mark's suggestions. --RobertG ♬ talk 15:47, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. It appears that a collaboration is required to meet the objections raised above. I am unwilling to address them on my own, for two reasons. (a) Tony intimates that delicacy prevents him raising other objections which he has, and so the task of getting this article through FAC currently has no scope, and more seriously (b) there appear to be two schools of thought on Wikipedia currently, both represented here - and, while we should attempt to reach a consensus, this is probably not the best place to do it. The schools of thought I refer to are these: One says an article about a composer should include a reasonably thorough introduction to the music (this is what I think, it is why there is a brief introduction to his musical style and technique in this article, and I think that it is the feeling of some other musical Wikipedians I have encountered). The other (to which Mark appears to subscribe - I apologise if I am misrepresenting his view) says it should be a biography, with links to other article(s) discussing the music (which I would argue necessarily leaves any article about a composer failing here against criterion 2(b)). This question has already been discussed on WikiProject Composers; I will, perhaps, revisit it there. --RobertG ♬ talk 11:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
  • You misrepresent me slightly, but I'll keep that for another time. I personally wouldn't organise the material quite the way you have done, but I can't say that your way is wrong, and I won't object on those grounds. The lead is now much better, so I expect I'll support once I've had a closer look. Mark¹ 15:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Previous comment struck through - mainly because I misunderstood Mark. --RobertG ♬ talk 16:52, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support This is a good example of the kind of music article we should be encouraging. It discusses Messiaen and his music in a verifiable manner, without limiting itself to a professional audience. The music is placed within a broader biographical, historical, stylistic and intellectual context. There's a good 'further reading' section. This approach is to be commended, in a set of categories that lends itself to waffle at one extreme, and the impenetrable at the other. We shouldn't let reasonable discussion of wider issues of article structure prevent us from drawing attention to a good article, and encouraging more of its kind. Countersubject 14:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
• Comment This seems really very thorough, and (as a "non-musician") I found particularly the description of his work as a composer to be quite satisfying. What terms weren't immediately understood were fine in context and only made me want to discover more. Audio would be a particularly great addition. Working a more definitive summary statement, along the lines of "Almost no music by Messiaen could be mistaken for the work of any other western classical composer", into the introduction, would IMO work in the lead, as it seems non-controversial and well-supported in the article, and adds to initial interest. A general tightening up of the prose would be good (that sounds vague, but it I believe is elaborated on in comments above). Without any special knowledge of the subject, I found the content balanced and...enjoyable. Hope that's at all helpful...! --Tsavage 20:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I have gone over the prose and made various style adjustments. In addition, I added a "more definitive summary statement" to cap off the lead with a grand gesture. (Disclaimer: I'm not a music person, so if I screwed something up horribly while fiddling with the grammar, I'm sorry!) Anville 09:09, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

An improvement, thank you. I've tweaked a couple of things. I also tried to provide some back-up to the summary statement you added to the lead, picking out some factors which combine to make his music so distinctive. I hope it makes sense. --RobertG ♬ talk 10:35, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

It makes sense to me, anyway. Good work. I can't stop tweaking the grammar (when one uses a comma as well as a conjuction to join two phrases, one has to include the subject in the second phrase, I think). I also prefer active voice in many circumstances ("Messiaen found birdsong fascinating" instead of "Messiaen was fascinated by birdsong"), but hey, it's just a thing which is preferred by me. Cheers! Anville 15:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Another fine-tuning thing, the bolded references to examples could be toned down (unbolded) and parenthesized in all instances (at least once, the reference to example is the subject of a sentence). I did find they kind of awkwardly leaped out at me, and the captions are otherwise both self-contained and well-referenced to the text. Just (example 1) or whatever a standard format might be? --Tsavage 17:37, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

• Colour lies at the heart of Messiaen's music. Messiaen said that the terms "tonal", "modal" and "serial" (and other such terms) are misleading analytical conveniences[27], and that for him there were no modal, tonal or serial compositions, only music with colour and music without colour. For Messiaen the composers Claudio Monteverdi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Chopin, Richard Wagner, Mussorgsky and Stravinsky all wrote strongly colored music. Hell yes, baby! Support. I will probably take stabs at tightening the prose here and there, but I already found it a good read. Anville 08:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Detailed, informative, and readable; there are minor tweaks to be made but it shouldn't stop this from being featured. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 15:53, 1 February 2006 (UTC)