Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers/Archive 1

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 Underdeveloped pages 2 Project Page 3 Categorization 4 Proposed talk page template 5 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica Articles 6 Template Detail 7 New to Projects 8 Listing format 9 Lists of compositions: further issues 10 Biography portal 11 Missing encyclopedic articles 12 Women composers 13 Lutosławski 14 Greatness 15 Quality of musical information is lacking 16 sound excerpts 17 Guidelines for using sound excerpts 18 Copyright and 'fair use' 18.1 'Fair use' without permission 18.2 Permission to use longer excerpts 18.3 The quality, number and location of excerpts 19 Suggested points to be covered in the 'Style' sections of composer pages 20 New classical works infobox 21 Mozart in FARC 22 Guidelines for using sound excerpts 23 Steve Reich 24 Formatting Style 25 Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project 26 use of music notation examples 27 Standardised Naming Convention for the Taxa of Individual Compositions 28 Naming of Composers 29 Trobairitz peer review 30 List of composers on The opera corpus 31 An invitation to all members of this project 32 Mozart and Liszt on WP:AIP 33 UBX for "WikiProject Composers" 34 Editing of Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 35 Bach Peer Review 36 Logo "Composer" 37 The nationality question - again! 38 Template 39 Composer of the Month: Hans Werner Henze 40 Trivia?? 41 A Voice in the Wilderness 42 Canadian Music Centre 43 Key articles for Wikipedia 1.0 44 Composer of the month: Gaetano Donizetti 45 A Friendly Reminder about WikiLinking 46 Suggestion for article or category 47 Invitation 48 Alternative UBX for "WikiProject Composers" 49 Are my edits helpful? 50 Useing the Da Capo Guide for worklists 51 Miles Davis 52 Hi 53 New stub type 54 Feedback please! Miguel Bernal Jiménez 55 Project Directory 56 Wetz, Smyth & Draeseke

Underdeveloped pages

As per Antandrus' suggestion, I moved the list to a new page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers/Composers. The talk that was here is now on the discussion page Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers/Composers --Sketchee 07:46, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

Project Page

What do you all think of the project page? I'm not sure if it's outlining everything well enough or not. I tried to make it clear that the project is a guide and list of ideas, not a concrete template. There are so many ways and angles we can concentrate on a person's life and career. Even vary similar pages discuss things in the same way. I think the "How you can help" list is a decent start since it's concise. People can just pick one and go. Then, if someone wants to get in detail, the structure section gives a bit of that ... maybe too much though.

We could create subpages of the project to detail various aspects. When discussing a composers's style, influences, biography, etc. how do we present those sections? A guide could probably be made listing or detailing ideas for each. If you think it's good for the project, create a subpage style guide, tutorial or anything. The goals section might need more goals, so if you think of anything go for it. It is also suggested that WikiProjects choose a real example.

Also, I was looking at Wikipedia:Sound. What kind of header(s) can we suggest for including sound and images? The Chopin article uses ==Media===. That's probably okay. Maybe a note on including images or a link to the approprate Wikipedia namespace article should be here as the perfect article would probably include a picture of the composer if available.

If there's someone you think might be interested in contributing, it's probably okay to leave a note on their talk page.

I take no credit for the project, even though I set up the project page. :) This is something people have been already doing anyway. I've used samples from various composer pages as my guide so in reality there are already a lot of contributions to the page. That's the fun of Wikipedia. Feel free to boldy rip apart the project page as you feel necessary! :D --Sketchee 07:42, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Thoughts? --Sketchee 07:42, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Looking at previous featured articles, a few composers have been featured: Johnny Cash, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Charles Ives, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Roy Orbison, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Igor Stravinsky. Some are better than others, IMHO. They all have a lot of information and use similar headers to the examples. The best of them tailor the format to fit their information.

The Roy Orbison article I didn't like as the information switching back and forth from his life story into long non-chronological asides. IMHO that works okay with small tidbits of information, but as it grows it becomes a bit more unwieldly and harder to tell what happened when. The information is there and much of the idea of the project is to make sure various aspects/perspectives are discussed so that's still a fair example.

The Johnny Cash article uses ==Samples== as an alternative to "media". Maybe both can be put onto the project page as suggested, if people have just a clip of music that then that is clear. Subheadings dividing the Biography is probably usually best left without suggestions. Bob Dylan as a songwriter isn't really discussed. That's largely the case with Miles Davis as a composer although he is listed in the composer category. Mozart's style section overflows to it's own article.

==Criticism== (from Stravinsky) looks like another good suggestion to add I think as a suggested discussion topic. Critics of a lot of composers are just left out and I think it's a good perspective for a NPOV. ===Further Reading=== might also be a good one. I never liked the idea of ===Notable Recordings=== but that's a common one. Stravinsky's page also is fairly comprehensive about his musical style as a good example of how this information can be expanded.

Of course every composer won't have everything discussed but where it's possible. The suggested headings just give organization as well as provide topics about the composer to look up so. I'm not sure how to make that clear that they are just examples in the "Structure" section on the project page, though, if I add all these though. I don't want people to think that if they don't have all the information that they shouldn't even bother. I'm afraid listing all the possible topics to explore on a composer might be intimidating.

Also, I probably should just link Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies). It gives better examples for the opening paragraph than I came up with.--Sketchee 08:42, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

I like the structure of something like the Charles Ives article as a basic template setup, to be detailed as necessary. For example, Stravinky's ==Music== section is split up into periods; Beethoven's probably ought to be, too. But Hovhaness' musical style could probably best be talked about in one big section. Similarly with criticism -- giving it a section to itself if it's particularly important to consideration of the composer, and otherwise mentioning it along with discussion of musical style.

One change I'd make from the sugeested structure is that the catalog of works be the last thing listed before external links/references/see alsos; I'd usually think of mentioning the most important ones in the body of the text anyhow, and the list I think of as stuck at the end for completeness. Also, where there is media uploaded, how about in/around the Music section?

Perhaps on the project page a basic suggested structure with the guideline to expand as necessary, and give (or link to) examples structures of articles following a basic and a more detailed version. Mindspillage | spill your mind? 18:34, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think you're right about the Ives page; it's a good example of how to present the information inthe simplest format. It's basically just Biography - Music - Reception. Criticism is included in the last section briefly in the context of discussing how his music was received. It's clear and people can know what they want to know.

I guess the structure section would be best in trying to make it easier for people to "spiral out" the content, right? If an editor wants to write a long detailed article about a composer's style—like on the Beethoven page—hopefully it'll be in a place where readers (or even editors) who don't want to know all that will be able to understand the basics of the style. Hopefully the project page gives people ideas on what they can write about (Like "Oh, I could research Liszt's style more!") without making them feel like they have to write in that much detail or about all of these things. :)

The media could be in the music section. Should we make the distinction between music that is uploaded on Wikipedia and music that is on an external site? Which would we put WikiCommons music at if we did?

Maybe the example structure section should be left with just the basic guidelines like you say and the text that's there can go on a subpage? Also, linking a few of the examples would probably be helpful

---

I got this idea from the WikiProject talkpage. Other projects are doing this, but I thought it best to ask on the talk page first since I have all the stuff above posted here already. Should we post a notice on the Talk page of articles linking to the WikiProject? Should we place it at the top of the article, in a template, or in the regular talk page format? Would we want to "tag" articles in this category that hasn't been explicitly edited by us to ask for assistance from the usual editors? --Sketchee 13:17, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

I think you've made a great start on this Wikiproject. One thing I really like is that you're not trying to chisel a format into granite--something I have seen on other wikiprojects, something which tends to stifle the creativity of a lot of writers.

One thing I find very helpful is to have the last sentence of the first paragraph to be a summary statement of the importance of the composer--i.e. in the same position as the standard thesis statement of an essay. "Filetovich Sanovich (16xx-17xx) was a Russian composer and kazoo player of the late Baroque era. He was the most famous exponent of the newly developed Orthodox Kazoo concerto, and championed virtuoso kazoo playing in Russia as well as western Europe." I could put something to that effect in the project page if you agree. Antandrus 15:57, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea and example to me. Feel free to add it. :D --Sketchee 02:56, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

I concur with Antandrus' suggestion (and praise :-)). As for tagging articles: why not? It'll encourage people who are editing composer articles anyway. Mindspillage | spill your mind? 18:34, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good! A basic template can be made or just writing a note on the talk page works. I guess it depends on what you want to say; if there's have an explicit concern about the articles content, it can just be said to see some of the project's suggestions. The template, if we want one, could just be an "alert" to the existance of the project. --Sketchee 02:56, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

Categorization

Incidentally, from what I gather on categorization, articles that can be put into a subcategory shouldn't be put into the supercategory. Category:Classical composers seems to be populated by people who should be placed into nationalities and eras (or in borderline cases, two eras). Also, Classical composer by nationality seems to be unused, with Composers by nationality being populated instead. Is it worthwhile to revive it and preserve the distinction between classical/non-classical on that front? Nationality and era seem to be the most useful way to break them down -- I'd like to see no one left stranded in a supercat. Also, I'm inclined to remove "musician" unless they were also known for their performance careers, since composer is a subcat of musician. Thoughts? Mindspillage (spill your mind?) 08:43, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It does get a bit complicated! A composer listed in Category:Composers by nationality under American composers could be in a Category:Classical American composers subcategory which would both be in Classical composers by nationality and under American Composers. The same composer would also go into the appropriate era category. The other composer genre categories don't seem to have as many people to make this distinction. Nationality is probably most useful in the classical category anyway. I do agree that we should get articles in the narrowest subcategory that makes sense. So you're right, pretty much everyone in the main Category:Classical composers is better off in the appropriate subcategories.

I don't think all composers belong under musicians as they probably will go under both Musicians by instrument and Musicians by nationality (which uses United States musicians instead of American). --Sketchee 09:22, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

As you've both noticed, categorization gets quite messy. Composers are resistant to the strict taxonomic classification that can be applied to things scientific. Sometimes (as you've pointed out) it's ok for a composer to be in two same-level categories (e.g. composers claimed by more than one nationality or genre or period: a composer could be a Jewish composer, an Austrian composer, a Hungarian composer, a Romantic composer and a Modernist composer) (point for who I am thinking of, LOL). I don't like the musicians categories much, since as Mindspillage mentions a composer is a subcat of musician. There's lots of gray area here and I don't think there is one absolutely right way to do any of this. I agree that no one should be stranded in a supercat: all composers should end up in a specific cat, even if it is a sparsely populated one. Antandrus 15:33, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I stuck a notice in Category talk:Classical composers hinting that if anyone had objections to a categorization spree, they should come over here and talk about it. Of course I stopped about a dozen composers into the spree before I figured I should do that... Mindspillage (spill your mind?) 02:55, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, I approve of what you were doing. If you look through the histories of some of those articles, you will see that some of the categories have been changed back and forth a few times (category "Classical composers" in particular has come and gone). I certainly think you are safe in removing people from the supercat of "composers." Antandrus 03:03, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Proposed talk page template

Also, I made a simple talk page template: Template:Composers. It's just a simple text tag informing people of the project:

WikiProject Composers/Archive 1 is related to WikiProject Composers which has been provided as a place for editors of biographical articles of Music Composers and Songwriters to discuss common issues, discover neglected composer articles and exchange ideas. All who are interested are invited to comment and contribute.

It's not something that is required on all talk pages under the category but may help people find a place to discuss. I just made it text so it could be places anywhere on the talk page that an editor feels comfortable. I didn't want it to be as obtrusive as say the Template:Album talk template. Feel free to edit it, make suggestions or use it as desired. --Sketchee 09:20, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica Articles

This is a topic which some of us have discussed before (there's a bit on my talk page, as well as that of User:Opus33). These articles which Wikipedia has pillaged wholesale from the 1911 EB are very difficult to work with; they are pompous, heavy, and their German-Romantic-Era-is-the-Summit-of-Musical-Perfection POV is so tightly interwoven with the content that it is extremely difficult simply to filter out the POV and retain the factual information. In addition, the factual information is often wrong--there has been so much musicological research since 1911, that fact-checking can be truly agonizing. I for one would like to ditch them and rewrite from scratch, using more up-to-date sources, but I recognize others might see some value in these articles. Some that come to mind are Franz Schubert, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Carl Maria von Weber, Henry Purcell. (Most of the articles on composers before the 17th century I have already rewritten.) Any other thoughts on this? I think I'll go ahead and add them to the list of composers needing TLC. Antandrus 04:42, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm all for rewriting the articles from scratch. Scrap the current version to a subpage. Maybe list the Britannica in the references and take perhaps any bit of salvagable information. A lot of them seem a editorialized by modern standards... Of course this is up to whoever's watching over that particular article. We might post our own major revisions for review linked from the talk page of the article first. --Sketchee 21:41, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

Template Detail

In regards some of the template details that are inconsistent with how we have been doing things for some time (e.g., ==External Links== instead of, as you have it on the page, ===External Links=== — I never said my examples weren't picky) - however, when I was informed of this header2 standard, I went through quite a few pages I knew and edited them to conform to that template; should I now go through them again to rewrite them to the new header3 template, for example?? Schissel : bowl listen 01:38, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there is any consensus on it here. It's a fairly loose set of guidelines. I like the See also/External links combo sometimes since it gets rid of some clutter after we have each of the sections developed. In most cases the article is saying 'See these links also' I think. I don't think References should be header3. That might be a typo. If there was no See also then I wouldn't put one just to put external links under it or anything. It probably doesn't matter too much either way I guess. --Sketchee 02:19, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

New to Projects

I'm new to Wikiprojects but would like to contribute to this one. I have a load of past essays I wrote from the Royal Conservatory of Music exams, and textbook material, but I'd like to know if I should get started right away, or wait for guidelines to come in. Some guidance on how to work with projects would help. Thanks. TheProject 07:09, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hi, you can pretty much jump right in and learn by doing. The "how to help" section on this project gives a few examples of ways you can start editing composer articles off the bat. If you have any specific guideline questions or suggestions, feel free to bring them up here (like the examples above). Have fun --Sketchee 19:43, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

Listing format

On the advice of Antandrus I'm bringing this up here, (I first mentioned it over at Talk:European classical music). Is there any consensus opinion on whether opus lists should be tabulated or non-tabulated. A couple of examples of the tabulated form can be found at List of compositions by Frédéric Chopin and the K number table of Mozart's works, whilst the non-tabulated form can be found in pretty much all the other lists (an example would be my new List of works by Purcell). If the consensus is reached against tabulated form, I'll be happy to revert the Chopin (I think the Mozart should be left as is regardless), and likewise if the consensus is for tabulated form, I'll be equally happy to tabulate any suggested pages (it's normally just a few replace alls with regexps, not as hard as it might first appear). Mallocks 15:26, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

I've just noticed that this discussion has moved to here - good move. I've had my say in the old place. To make comparison easier, look at a bullet list and the same information in tabulated format. --RobertG 13:56, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the comparison, RobertG. It shows (IMHO) that not only does the bullet list look far nicer than the same data in tabulated form, it also shows the groupings of works under the same Opus much clearer. --Lambyuk 14:54, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

I like it; in fact, I like it a lot. The bullet list is quite eye-friendly.

There is a scattering of nasty lists about, some of which we have begun to format or just forgotten about (List of compositions by Dvorak comes to mind); also there are some lists, or portions of lists, that may benefit by staying in tabular format (have a look at List_of_compositions_by_Schubert for an example: there are a lot of columns in that table). That Emerson chestnut about "foolish consistency" comes to mind--it may be indeed that there are exceptions to any general principle we may develop for using bulleted lists.

Thanks for bringing it up, and thanks Robert for the example. Antandrus 15:12, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Antandrus, or indeed anyone, how do you think the List of compositions by Dvorak should be arranged? There aren't enough pieces with Opus number to make arrangement by them tenable, as it is it's essentially arranged by the Burghauser catalogue, just without the B. numbers. I think it might be that the thing that makes it look most messy is the translations for each piece, would this look better in a table? I've created a page so that the two main possibilites can be looked at easily here Mallocks 16:15, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Good, and thanks for taking this on! I think this is an example of one that is helped by tabular format, since there are competing cataloging systems, each with its own number per piece. A while ago I had started formatting that list (mainly just piping the links to the correct English article titles). Really I think we can use either a list or table format depending on the situation. Antandrus 16:45, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

To which end I've done the basic untabulating of the Chopin, hopefully RobertG will be able to bring it up to the standard of his example. Mallocks 17:13, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

So I think this would be a rough sketch of what we're looking at for a system:

For listings with only 1 catalogue system: (square brackets signifying "if available")

• Opus Number Composition title (year)[ - "popular name of piece (Moonlight etc.)"]
  • [No. # Composite pieces with same opus number (year [if different from containing opus])]

For listings with more than 1 catalogue system:

First system	Second system	Composition	Year
First Number	[Second number]	Composition title[ - "popular name"]	(year)
...

Improvements, suggestions and/or comments welcome. Mallocks 13:50, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

What is the system for listing unnumbered works by a composer who otherwise uses standard opus numbers? I'm thinking of Saint-Saëns; several operas and ballets have no opus number. I found the existing list with the tabbed "Op. none" marking, and I've left it that way during my additions, but I don't like it too much. Mordant21 3:48, 9 May 2005 (UTC) -- On my Saint-Saëns list I've made sure to always list keys then instrumentation:

• Op. 13 Élévation ou Communion in E major for organ (1865)

Well, this is very much a work in progress, so if you've got any suggestions, they'd be appreciated. I personally think that if no other option is available, by type of composition and year is ok (as in the Saint-Saëns), but as I say, any suggestions would be great. Mallocks 10:04, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Also, keep in mind what the Manual of Style about not italicizing generic musical forms (eg Piano Concerto, Sonata) or liturgical terms (eg Agnus Dei) Mordant21 7:40, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

I've updated the sketch (and it is just a sketch, not an authoratative system) to show that. Mallocks 10:04, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Lists of compositions: further issues

On a related topic, it looks like we either need a list of lists of compositions by composer, and/or a category for lists of compositions by composer, since the lists are rather hard to find (the naming is inconsistent too--List of works by Beethoven vs. List of compositions by Schubert. I'm at work now and can't tangle with it until later--but anyone let me know your ideas! Fun, Antandrus 15:21, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Isn't this covered by Category:Lists of pieces by composer? Mallocks 15:26, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

I think the list of lists is a bit incomplete; I'll work on it a bit over the next few days. Mordant21

Biography portal

I've created Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Biography to see if anyone else thinks it's a good idea and would be willing to participate. It's still just a rough sketch of an idea. Matt 01:08, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Missing encyclopedic articles

As a subproject to Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles, Wikipedia:Music encyclopedia topics now exists with a list of articles taken from music encyclopedias (by Gmaxwell). If anyone is looking for something music-related to write, there's a list of ideas. Some of them just need redirects: there's plenty of low-hanging fruit if you're not up for a full article. (Plenty of the redlinks are composers.) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 01:38, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Uhh... this ought to keep us busy for a while. Yikes! That's one scary set of redlinks (only about 40,000...) Gmaxwell, thanks for doing this. Antandrus (talk) 01:48, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Women composers

Hi, I just created Category:Women composers, since I noticed it was linked from severeal places and missing. I've also populated it somewhat, using List of women composers. Two questions though: 1) is List of women composers necessary at all, then? 2) I think I saw Category:Women composers on CfD for deletion some time ago, as an assertion of inequality, so maybe I did wrong? Karol 13:06, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

1) I think List of women composers is redundant, yes; 2) Personally, I think it would be a good idea to keep Category:Women composers from the POV that they are generally underrepresented, but I'm sure someone else out there could make a better, more cogent argument. --bleh fu talk fu 13:52, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

First: There was, previously, Category:Female classical composers (which I think was a subcat of Category:Women composers), which was deleted at WP:CFD about two days ago, following precedent in deleting categories like women scientists and women philosophers; most of the "women in X profession" were delted or merged with their parent categories. (I didn't see the discussion until it was over as a load of articles on my watchlist changed). Category:Classical composers, which I've asked a bot operator to change back, since that cat is meant only to be a parent to its subcats; all the composers there ought to be categorized by nationality and era already. (I spent a long evening once reconciling the list of women classical composers with the category and recategorizing as needed.)

Second, the biggest benefit of having lists over categroies (IMO) is that lists can contain redlinks, so that they can both comprehensive (even if the article coverage is not: we'll know what we're missing) and serve as a guide to what we still need to do. Another benefit is that lists can contain information that categories cannot: you can give dates, split by era, etc. The categories are useful by they link in articles in a structured way to the whole hierachy of knowledge that wikipedia covers, through the category system; ideally all articles would have one or more categories (again, IMO). At least, I love them, as a reader, especially when I'm browsing an area I don't know very well. So I don't believe they're redundant. However, precedent is against keeping the women composers cat; I suppose no one nominated that one for deletion along with its subcats because they just didn't think to. Thoughts? Mindspillage (spill yours?) 14:42, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree: funny, I was busy writing almost exactly the same thing and got an edit conflict! LOL. Lists are good for redlinks and for the possibility of annotation; categories have other uses, especially for navigation. Both are useful. Antandrus (talk) 14:53, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Good points that I never thought about, but sure do benefit from! So thanks. As to women categories, there is a Category:Women scientists. Karol 15:24, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

I've added the list to the category. Karol 15:33, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

• The reason for the deletion of the category is that, by separating composers (or indeed anything) into a 'male' and 'female' section, Wikipedia is asserting (or enforcing) inequality between the two. The bias that males would be inherently superior or inferior is an undesirable POV. Also note that this means that someone looking in Category:Composers would not find women! I've nominated the women scientists for deletion on the same grounds. Radiant_>|< June 28, 2005 10:41 (UTC)

Well, ideally, as I understand it, no composers should be found directly in Category:Composers, but in their respective specific subcategories. In my eyes, Category:Women composers would exist to distinguish women composers among others, just as every category does. Yes, that is bias, as every categorization, but not prejudice. Note also that there is a list - List of female composers. Are lists justifiable or does this anti-bias campaign relate only to categories? In any case, I think the policy should be global, whatever be it. Karol June 28, 2005 16:46 (UTC)

• Please see Wikipedia:Categorization of people, which does ask to not categorize by gender. You are right that all composers should be in subcategories, but a more consensual way of subcategorizing would be by country of origin. The aim is for categories to be informative - given one 16th century composer, arguably other 16th century composers would have a related style, and/or influence one another. The term 'female composer' is too broad for categorization, and implies a segregation that shouldn't exist (just as we don't categorize by skin color).
• However, lists are a lot freeer than categories. This is because a list works one way (you can find all relevant composers from a list) but a category works two ways - and the more categories an article is in, the less meaningful any of them will become. So yes, lists are justifiable because they serve a different purpose. Hope that helps! Radiant_>|< June 28, 2005 20:49 (UTC)

Thanks, I understand better now. Karol June 28, 2005 21:24 (UTC)

Lutosławski

I have taken the plunge and nominated Witold Lutosławski for peer review. I should be grateful for anyone interested in the composers project looking the article over and making or suggesting improvements to get it into a state suitable for nomination as a featured article. Thanks. I am taking a Wikiholiday end of July, so my plan is to have it peer reviewed until then, and if people think it's worth it I may nominate it for FA on my return mid August. --RobertG ♬ talk 29 June 2005 08:39 (UTC)

The peer review seemed positive on the whole, so I have now nominated the article for featured article status here. Any support or constructive criticism will be welcomed; I'll try and address any of the latter. --RobertG ♬ talk 08:17, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Greatness

This discussion after an edit scuffle at Johann Sebastian Bach prompted me to share what I perceive as a woolliness in articles about a few composers: namely the use of the word great. If someone contributes "X is [one of] the greatest composers…" the opinion-like nature of the statement leads other Wikipedians (even those sympathetic to the claim) to require its qualification because it is unverifiable: the qualification usually (reluctantly) adopted is either "X is generally considered [one of] the greatest composers…" or "many people regard X as [one of] the greatest composers…".

I contend that the problem with saying "X is the greatest" is not the fact that the claim is opinion, but that the word "great" is used inappropriately. In this context "great" can be taken to mean anything from "influential", "significant", "popular", to "intellectually challenging", "conveying great emotion", "using such deep concepts as to defy simple exposition", but what the word ends up conveying is either all (or any) of the above, or simply the contributor's own inarticulate adulation.

For this reason I propose that the word "great" is unencyclopedic, and should never (never say never?) be used to describe a classical composer on Wikipedia. It can always be replaced by specific verifiable meanings. In my recent edit of the intro of the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart article I removed the word "great" and inserted three meanings that I thought were appropriate and verifiable: it now says "is among the most popular, significant and influential composers of European classical music." I think this was a forward step, it does not require any "people think" or "is regarded as" qualifications, and it seems to have been found acceptable there.

Respecfully opening a polite debate, and hoping others have a view. --RobertG ♬ talk 09:25, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Your initiative is great ;) Seriously, of course it is more encyclopedic, and plain clearer, to use specific descriptors over ambigous and vague adjectives. Cheers! Karol 10:51, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Yes: I agree: we should greatly strive to avoid the adjective "great"; it's insufficiently precise. There are, as you say, numerous more precise ways to say the same thing: this composer was widely influential, was an inspiration to composers of the next generation, was widely imitated, continues to be among the most popular composers of the period, and so forth. With composers such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, occasionally restoring NPOV after a drive-by anonymous adulation is something we will periodically have to do. Antandrus (talk) 15:00, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

There is a related discussion (copied from my talk page) at Talk:Johann Sebastian Bach#Bach greatness where I defend the use of the word "greatest", which I think can be encyclopedic. Paul August ☎ 14:41, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Quality of musical information is lacking

I've read a few composer entries, and am struck by the scarcity of technical information describing composers' styles in relation to their period, and the evolution of their styles through their career. This applies to both featured and non-featured articles. I don't think that adding technical information in a section dedicated to style will alienate the non-musician reader; the advantage is that it will increase the authority of Wikipedia in this area. At the moment, the emphasis is far too much on biography, in my view.

Tony 10:39, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I think many of us don't have the access to the necessary primary sources which really analyze music in detail. Other encyclopias and books primarily discuss biographical information, while expert technical analysis is more rare. --Sketchee 12:18, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

So Wikipedia can distinguish itself in this respect. I think it's worth doing. Tony 13:04, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I also agree, and I can help in this regard. Maybe we could start a list, or sublist, of composers who have decent biographical articles but who need a better writeup of stylistic characteristics. In the composer articles I've been writing (mainly composers before about 1650) I try to include a section on their music and stylistic characteristics, but I haven't always gone into a lot of detail.

I'm also happy to contribute musical examples (i.e. score, not .ogg). Antandrus (talk) 15:15, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I do not immediately agree. Musical analysis is a controversial subject, there are several schools of thought on it (harmonic analysis, Schenker analysis, phenomenological analysis, and so on) many of them covered excellently in Nicholas Cook's A Guide to Musical Analysis, and, as Cook also argues, it's not even clear what such analysis contributes to the understanding of music or a composer. And Wikipedia is not a musicological encyclopedia, it is a general encyclopedia for the general reader. Do we want to get into having a whole set of such analyses, or analysis at the level of detail that would make it not superficial? Do we want to get into controversy about the "right" analytical style? The wikipedia musical analysis article already quotes Nattiez to the effect that "there is never only one valid musical analysis for any given work." Jeremy J. Shapiro 15:45, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Let's not have any misunderstanding here. We're not proposing a Schenkerian analysis of every piece the composer wrote; we're talking about a discussion of the composer's stylistic language and how it changed throughout his (or her) career. Look at how the composer articles are written in the New Grove: there is always a section on the composer's music, and it includes just the right amount of detail necessary for a general understanding. I propose doing the same here. Antandrus (talk) 16:52, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Antandrus. The main difficulty that I find in doing this is avoiding original research without just copying too closely the analyses published elsewhere. Biographical information is easy to reorganize and rewrite; analysis not so much so. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 17:00, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Ah, with this clarification I feel better, understanding that you mean a discussion of the composer's style in general. However, I don't agree that we can take the New Grove as our model, since that is a specialist's encyclopedia, and Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia. The New Grove article on Mozart alone is 70 pages long, and just the section on "the composer's stylistic language and how it changed through his (or her) career" is 10 pages long. That may be just the right amount of detail for someone who would consult the New Grove, but I suspect it would be way too much for Wikipedia. Jeremy J. Shapiro 19:23, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Tony and Antandrus in principle. The list Antandrus suggests would be a good starting place. As well as drawing up a list of articles that are lacking, can we point to an existing Wikipedia article that gets it just right? Tony and I have been having exchanges on the Witold Lutosławski article which I am currently stewarding in FAC, and which he feels is considerably lacking in this regard. Igor Stravinsky? Charles Ives? What about Olivier Messiaen? What do others think? --RobertG ♬ talk 19:45, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Robert that we need a such a list; I'll add a category to the list of the status of composer articles on the main project page. Please add to it. And it was my thought exactly that we locate a few models of what we think is desirable. Far from going into as much serious technical detail as Groves does, I was concerned that we distinguish ourselves from, say, Word Book Encyclopedia and the like, which are superficial in this regard. Just as some of the scientific articles on Wikipedia are aimed at undergraduates of the area (e.g., cerebellum), we should dish up something that a music undergraduate would find useful, while not pursuing an intensive analytical line, as Mindspillage may fear. I'm about to write a 'Style' section for JS Bach. It will not be easy, but must be done; otherwise, the article is just a biography.

Tony 23:24, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't fear it at all; I've just gotten admonished for venturing into original research territory myself! Mindspillage (spill yours?) 23:45, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

The recent FAC for Olivier Messiaen has raised this question again. I think we need a consensus. I think an article about a composer should include a brief (but comprehensive) overview of the composer's style, technique and influence. What do others think? --RobertG ♬ talk 11:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with what you said. Every composer article I wrote/worked on either has a whole section for style/works or, for less known composers like Giovanni Valentini, has at least some information on the style/works. I reckon that when someone is searching for an article on Johann Sebastian Bach, they're not searching for an in-depth biography text.. they're searching for a few basic facts about his life, some information on his music, references to famous works and general discussion of these works. Separate articles on "Style" and/or "Works" are needed for larger articles, and not to wipe out all information about those things from the main article but to make the main article shorter (look at Johann Sebastian Bach). In such cases the main article should have summaries.. at least some kind of information on works.

Besides, for instance, in Johann Caspar Fischer the "Life" section will always remain a stub because very little is known about his life. Yet a lot is known about his works. In Johann Pachelbel, the "Works" section will constantly have to mention biographical events (chorales composed as part of fulfilling the Erfurt contract, magnificat fugues and sacred concertos composed in Nuremberg, one of the published collections probably influenced by the death of his first wife, etc). The reader will be confused and will have to jump between articles all the time and I don't think thats good. A lot of other examples like these exist. Jashiin 12:39, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a false dilemma. Wikipedia should have information on composers and their works at every level, from idiots' guides to the ferociously technical. The composer articles are the entry points for all our articles on the composers and their music, so it makes sense to me to put our most accessible summaries there. We can then get progressively more detailed in further articles:Bach>Style of Bach>Late style of Bach>...>Harmonisation of Bach's later chorales, etc. Mark¹ 15:19, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand.. didn't you say that a composer article should have no summary of his work/style, only biography? I'm saying this because of what you said on the FAC page RobertG linked to; "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.).. If you do advocate this, I don't think we have a false dilemma, because well, the examples I gave prove that a separate article is not always possible/needed. And if you advocate a summary, a short section for style/works in the main article and bigger, more detailed style discussion in a separate article, then there's no dilemma at all. Maybe I misunderstood something? Jashiin 15:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

sound excerpts

What's the protocol for using sound excerpts? Tony 00:06, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

It's less a protocol issue than a copyright issue. Sound excerpts are definitely desired, but for almost all commercially-produced recordings the only way we can use them is quoting short snippets under Wikipedia:Fair use (and I'm not an expert on copyright; I don't recall how much is acceptable), and even that discouraged. Recordings made by Wikipedians of public domain music are encouraged, but as much as I think a Wikipedian orchestra would be a fine thing, the airfare to fly us all somewhere for a recording session, well... There are sources of PD music recordings available, if very few, and whatever you can find, do put it in. Mindspillage (spill yours?)

I can probably find some good recordings for quite a few composer articles: I suspect that some recording companies and artists would be pleased to be promoted (I presume their name and a link to their web site can be provided ...). Tony 00:02, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Guidelines for using sound excerpts

Wikipedia's growing number of composer articles lacks sufficient use of sound excerpts. This is a pity, because sound excerpts could contribute to Wikipedia's unique presence on the Internet. There are a number of issues that concern the use of these excerpts. I welcome comments or edits to this section. Tony 00:36, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Copyright and 'fair use'

'Fair use' without permission

Copyright law is in a mess. However, it appears that under fair use provisions, we can use short sound excerpts from commercial recordings without gaining permission, but only if the following matters are observed.

• Duration: a maximum of around 30 seconds or 10% or the duration of the track—whichever is shorter—is probably fair.
• Ensure that the excerpt is used in an educational context, and does not appear to have any negative impact whatsoever on the company's market (better the opposite); brief mention in the accompanying main text of some feature of style or technique in the excerpt will strengthen a claim of fair use.
• Detailed attribution on the information page is necessary, including:

**the names of the performers, and if possible, the date and venue of the performance;

**the name of the recording company, and its website address;

**the title and number of the track, and the name and catalogue number of the CD from which it was taken, and the year of release; and

**the file size.

• Justification of your fair use must be added to the info box. You may consider pasting in the following text and modifying it as necessary:

'This is a sound sample from a commercial recording. Its inclusion here is claimed as fair use because:

**it illustrates an educational article that includes a historical and critical examination of the excerpt;

**it is a sample of about 30 seconds from a much longer recording, and could not be used as a substitue for the original commercial recording; and

**it is not replaceable with an uncopyrighted or freely copyrighted sample of comparable educational value.

I believe that this use of the excerpt is in good faith, and that its inclusion enhances rather than reduces the commercial value of the recording from which it was drawn; however, if the owner of the copyright wishes to challenge my use, I will be happy to remove it promptly, with apology.'

When uploading the sound file, use the copyright tag Template:Music sample

This is what will then appear on the info page:

Permission to use longer excerpts

Do not use longer excerpts or whole tracks unless you have written permission to do so from the recording company. It is probably best if this permission explicitly allows the excerpt to be used under 'fair use' provisions; the permission should specify tracks and/or durations; the advantage is that the company can retain copyright at the same time. You need to state in the information box that the written permission has been given; it's probably a good idea to offer to provide a copy on request, or to paste into the info box the relevant part of the written permission (although this may have privacy implications).

If you're lucky enough to obtain written permission to use a whole track, provide the same Detailed attribution on the information page as above, including:

**the names of the performers, and if possible, the date and venue of the performance;

**the name of the recording company, and its website address;

**the title and number of the track, and the name and catalogue number of the CD from which it was taken, and the year of release; and

**the file size.

When uploading the sound file, use the copyright tag Template:PermissionAndFairUse

This is what will then appear on the info page:

For an example, see the excerpt at the top of JS Bach; hit 'info' to see the information that relates to 'fair use' of the track at the top. Please note that it's hard to get permission from companies. We probably need a 'boilerplate' letter for the purpose of seeking permision. NB This recording has been removed, because User Tony1 successfully arranged for the copyright permission to be withdrawn for this item. Tony 20:29, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

The quality, number and location of excerpts

All excerpts should be of high-quality recordings, in my view; it's better to use no recordings at all if very good ones can't be found.

Short excerpts may be a valuable component of a composer article if they give readers a taste of the composer's style in general, or illustrate certain aspects of that style. It's best if you can find an excerpt that fall naturally into a short duration; otherwise, the next best arrangement is to start at the opening of a track (or musical section) and fade down after about 30 seconds. Try to avoid unpleasant glitches at either end of the excerpt. Fade ups at the start of an excerpt are less effective.

Excerpts can be closely integrated with the flow of the text if they appear at strategic locations. Try to make the visual appearance of the link as unobtrusive as possible: short titles help in that respect. Consider rationing their number: don't try to be comprehensive; leave the reader wanting more.

Large repositories of longer recordings at the bottom of a composer article may add little to the value of an article.

Please add to this section. Tony 07:31, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I'd suggest that the duration should be limited to 30 seconds or 10% of the work, whichever is less. Also, there should be no more than one excerpt from a given work on all of Wikipedia: enough 30-second excerpts, and a dedicated person could re-construct the entire work. --Carnildo 19:04, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I think that Carmildo is referring to 'fair use' excerpts used without permission. If you're lucky enough to obtain full permission by the owners of the copyright, you can, of course, use whole tracks. Then, the only consideration is that readers with slow connections may find it inconvenient to download. In those cases, consider adding 'large file' or 'x Mb'. Tony 02:41, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Suggested points to be covered in the 'Style' sections of composer pages

I'd like to put forward the following points that contributors may wish to consider covering in composer articles. Of course, the needs of every article are different, so this is only a 'shell', a template that needs to be adapted for each article. Some of this information may be useful at the opening, but in not much detail; most of it should probably be located in a separate section on style.

• State, in broad, non-technical terms, some attributes of the composer's style; briefly position the composer in terms of the broad history of the genre.
• State the style and/or school of composition in which the composer might be located.
• Explain whose music influenced the composer, and in what ways.
• Decribe the composer's style in more technical terms, both in relation to other composers of the period, and in terms of the evolution of the style during his/her lifetime.
• State whose music the composer, in turn, influenced.

Please comment on and/or modify this list as you see fit. Tony 03:01, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

New classical works infobox

I've created a new infobox to detail information on classical works in a similiar manner to the infobox for music albums. An example can be seen at Piano Concerto No. 3 (Rachmaninoff). I would welcome any comments at Template talk:Classical work infobox. Cheers! TreveX^talk 00:20, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Mozart in FARC

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has been listed as a FARC. --RobertG ♬ talk 10:56, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Guidelines for using sound excerpts

Does anyone object to moving them to the project page? Tony 10:09, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

No. Go ahead; good idea. Antandrus (talk) 15:28, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Steve Reich

We were the recipients of a not-entirely-favourable review in the U.K. publication The Guardian ([3]). The criticisms of the Reich article I think are reasonable, and it could use a rewrite. I'm not sure how much time I'll have this week -- "real-world" issues, and probably some of you can relate -- else I'd do it myself. If no one else gets to it I'll attempt to do so soon. Antandrus (talk) 15:28, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, the link to that Guardian article should be splashed around WP to convince contributors of the need to raise the standard of prose, among other things. Tony 16:47, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Formatting Style

I was looking for formatting style somewhere here, but I couldn't find anything, so I'd like to propose a couple of things:

• that numbered works (i.e. piano sonatas, concertos, symphonies, etc.) are referred to as "Symphony No. n" instead of "nth symphony" -- or, if the work has a nickname, with the nickname
  • My reasoning for this is because Symphony No. n is typically the actual title of the work, and should be referred to as such.
• that works are always referred to as "his/her" <name of work> (e.g. "he finished his Piano Concerto No. 3 that year", not "he finished the Piano Concerto No. 3 that year")
  • Multiple people wrote Piano Concertos No. 3. It seems sensible to distinguish between multiple versions of the same piece by saying that one version belonged to one particular composer.
• that in the body of compoer articles which have a complete wiki-linked list of works as a section of the article, that names of works in the rest of the article are not wiki-linked.
  • This is to avoid double-linking to the same work.

What does everybody think? TheProject 17:20, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-Class and good B-Class articles, with no POV or copyright problems. I saw your list of 10 FAs on the project page, this is useful. Would Johann Sebastian Bach and Henry Cowell rank as A-Class yet, in your opinion? (These don't need to be FACs, merely at a stage where FAC might be considered) Can you suggest some other A or decent B-class articles we might use? Please post your suggestions here. Thanks a lot, Walkerma 04:46, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm hoping that Bach will be up to FAC standard over the next few months, but I don't think it will happen promptly—there are major issues to resolve with respect to the 'style' section. Tony 22:44, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

use of music notation examples

Dear fellow participants

I wonder whether other people feel the need, as I do, for advice on the inclusion of score excerpts in composer articles. I wrote the advice on including audio excerpts, but I don't have the knowledge to do the same for scores.

Anyone got any ideas?

Tony 02:40, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe this falls under the same "fair use" as audio excerpts, with one exception: it is likely better to recreate the excerpt yourself, using Sibelius or Finale or whatever. That way, you can control all aspects of the presentation and format it to best fit Wikipedia. For the composers' pages I am working on, I was planning on getting the "best edition", entering the excerpt into Sibelius, turning it into a jpg, and uploading to Commons with an explanation of fair use and which edition was the source. I hope that answers, in part, your wondering. -Sesquialtera II 03:21, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

That seems like a fairly intensive process, though, unless your skills are better than mine (I use Finale which may be more cumbersome than Sibelius). Imagine, for example, of including an extract for a Mahler smphony! Wouldn't short scans from the standard Urtexts, etc... be permissible? Eusebeus 08:09, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

That's probably also fine - I'm pretty sure encyclopedias like New Grove do their own typesetting, though. I suppose it depends on what the purpose of the excerpt is. If it's "Here is the beginning of Mahler's 8th symphony", or "Here is the massive orchestration of Ives' 4th", then probably an Urtext scan would be much quicker. I had in mind examples of three staves or less that would be incorporated into the wiki at full scale, e.g. an example of Schubert's text-painting or a Bach keyboard piece. -Sesquialtera II 16:24, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Have a look at what I've been doing at Olivier Messiaen. I think the samples, obviously scans from the actual scores, look fine (perhaps the layout needs tweaking). I feel they may even give more confidence to the reader, since s/he sees they are obviously the real thing, and not possibly-sanitised examples created to support original research. For simple, copyright-free music, such as Sesquialtera II outlines, I think Sibelius is fine, provided the output is top-notch (anything less and a scan would be better :-)). For copyrighted works, scans may possibly be more clearly fair-use than a recreation in Sibelius: a Sibelius copy of the fragment has to be created for the sole purpose of distribution (even if only in image form), and the resulting .sib file, which then has an independent existence outside Wikipedia, obviously has more features than a jpeg (a Sibelius file can be used to create midi files and sound excerpts which a jpeg can't). Or is that a bit abstruse or paranoid? Also, much more pragmatically, those of us without access to Sibelius are stuck with scanning (unless you are putting yourself forward as a resource to whom we can delegate creation of these samples!). I think the golden solution would be for a developer to incorporate some functionality in the Wiki software that allows us to specify <music>stuff</music> in the same way that we can incorporate <math>stuff</math>. I'm sure it's feasable, but I don't think that will happen any time soon! --RobertG ♬ talk 17:36, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, your use in Messiaen looks just fine. Looking at it reassures that scanning will work well. I, myself, am in the opposite situation of having music notation software but no scanner. As to the copyright issues, the length is the same for the score, midi, or audio, so it probably all constitutes fair use. I ran across User:Andrewa/sandbox recently, and it looks like he was possibly working on what you are suggesting. -Sesquialtera II 19:08, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Something tells me that there's no difference between Sibelius/FInale and scanning when it comes to copyright. Fair use should probably be based on the criteria for sound excerpts, modified, of course. I wonder what the equivalent of the 30-second limit for fair use is when it comes to musisc scores. A focused educational function will be important, so that it will be much safer if the text refers to one or more features of the music that is quoted. Tony 22:42, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

For non-copyirghted music (a Haydn sonata) that is in the public domain, a specific edition is nonetheless presumably copyrighted whereas a notation software version would be public use(?) For copyrighted music, a transciprtion would surely be in violation. But tony's point about Fair Use above seems legit to me. That said, I have just finished articles on the English Suites and Partitas by Bach and am looking for a scanned page or two to round them out if anyone has anything.... (I don't relish transcribing into Finale; i am not that dedicated). Eusebeus 06:09, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I can't really see any justification for scanning a copyrighted edition of PD music- one of the fair use criteria is the non-availability of PD substitutes. Mark¹ 20:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Do we have any kind of policy about full scores? I was following Sesquialtera II's suggestions and the example set by illustrations from Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven) and did a few images for Ariadne musica and Johann Pachelbel in Sibelius 4. Right now I've got a problem with the "Preludes" section of the latter. I was going to rewrite it and add an example of a one-of-a-kind writing Pachelbel used in a single prelude. I did the illustration using Sibelius and, um.. well, its 9 bars and its the whole prelude. So my illustration is like, the full score. I can't think of a nice way to quote less (its hard to make a logical excerpt from a 9-bar piece). What do you think, would it be acceptable to include it anyway? I'm thinking maybe a rationale with "if the owner of the copyright wishes to challenge my use, I will be happy to remove it promptly, with apology." included is a good idea, but it seems that I can't write one myself. Any ideas? Jashiin 13:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Unless I'm misunderstanding the question, I think Pachelbel died long enough ago that he's out of copyright. Mark^{your words} 17:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I assumed that any score is a copyrighted work and on Wikipedia we can only quote small parts. The illustration I want to make is a full score, not a small part of a score. Now, I realize Pachelbel's music is in PD since he died long ago, but does that mean that full scores of his works can be freely legally distributed over the Internet? Provided that the scores are made by the same person who's spreading them. Jashiin 17:42, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with that. The publishers of a new edition will have copyright over whatever they've added, but if we're just talking about Pachelbel's notes then you're free to do what you like with it. Mark^{your words} 19:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I understand now. Thanks. Jashiin 19:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

What I would do is find an old facsimile and make an edition from that, especially for nine bars. But I'm a big dork. Makemi 23:21, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Standardised Naming Convention for the Taxa of Individual Compositions

I apologise in advance if I am bringing up something that has been worked through before. In pitching in to help get the JSB article up to FA quality, I have been putting together some subsidiary (daughter) articles that will eliminate existing redlinks from the principal article. This has raised the issue of how to title specific composition articles. In the case of Bach, there appear to be four or five different ways of doing it and I would appreciate any feedback about the preferred approach. It seems to me based on a perusal of articles within the taxa of individual compositions that the preferred system is to composition title with (Composer). Consistency, however, is sorely lacking and the system seems to be adhered to principally where confusion over other competing works bearing the same name may exist, being in other cases elided (Violin Concerto No. 1 (Mozart), for example v. Exsultate, Jubilate, or Symphony No. 4 (Beethoven) v. Fidelio). Thus, in the case I ran into, English Suites links to the Bach keyboard works. However, when I put up the article for the Partitas, I named it Partitas for keyboard (825–830), bracketing the BWV, per what I have observed other articles about specific Bach compositions. However, this clearly should be changed for the sake of consistency, as should a host of existing articles on Bach compositions which are all over the map with regard to a consistent naming procedure.

Hence, is the preference here for following the example of articles on works by other composers? English Suites (J.S. Bach) or in the case of Bach, would the BWV be useful to list? English Suites (BWV 806-811) (J.S. Bach)

Eusebeus 14:03, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (pieces of music). I personally support always including the composer in the article title - BWV accomplishes that implicitly with its "B". My personal preference is something like Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 for Bach. However, if it's multiple pieces, then I would prefer English Suites (Bach), because having BWV numbers in the title will make it rather cumbersome. -Sesquialtera II 19:59, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, in case of Bach, I believe the title should always be COMPOSITION, BWV xxx or COMPOSITION, BWV xxx-xxx. That is, if a single system has to be introduced (I'm not sure renaming The Well-Tempered Clavier is really called for, although I agree that something coherent is needed for articles about less known works). Including both BWV and "J.S. Bach" seems excessive to me. I can see the logic in what Sesquialtera II suggested for multiple pieces but what about single-BWV collections like Goldberg Variations or The Art of Fugue (besides, wouldn't "Goldberg Variations (Bach)" look weird? Since there's only one work with that name). Another thing I'm thinking about is that including the BWV number(s) in titles might help new listeners to memorize the numbers. Jashiin 23:04, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I should have looked harder for the convention. Thanks for the heads up. I think Title + BWV would work fine, particularly if we are diligent about setting up redirects (thus English Suites is redirected to English Suites (BWV 806-811). Per Sesquialtera's point, it would seem to me preferable to employ the same system for all pieces, single or multiple. Eusebeus 12:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think titles should be any longer than they need to be to identify the piece: adding the composer's name (or BWV number) is just a form of disambiguation. Keeping titles simple also makes for easier wikilinking (fewer pipes). Mark¹ 20:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

In any case, please use an n dash, not a hyphen, to represent "to": e.g., Partitas for keyboard (825–830) Tony 13:13, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Naming of Composers

I've read a good bit of the WP:NAME, and it seems to me that the general preference is to make it easy for a page to be linked to and searched for with the least amount of redirects possible. In English wikipedia this seems to mean no accents in the title, with a redirect from the title with the accents to the title with no accents. There are a good number of composers who seem to have accents in their titles, eg. François Couperin, Frédéric Chopin. I propose moving all such titles to their unaccented name, with the accents included in the first mention of them in the intro, eg the title is Francois Couperin but the first sentence has François Couperin. I mention it here so it doesn't have to be discussed separately on each composer page. Makemi 18:39, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Since this is a question of naming articles in general rather than specifically composers, the appropriate place for discussion is probably Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English), and certainly not here. But since we're here, I think (no promises, though) that there's some software automagic which allows links to one form to find the other. Mark¹ 19:06, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, there seems to be no consensus in general for diacriticals, and I was hoping we could come to consensus just for composers, maybe. In either case, the "software automagic", also known as the redirect I mentioned above, would allow for the page to be found. The idea is to minimize time in interwiki linking (how long does it take you to find ç below?), and to reduce server load, as each of those redirects takes up resources which could be better used making wikipedia faster. Approx 150 pages redirect through Frederic Chopin, which seems like too much to me. Makemi 19:19, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

There are 48 hits for "françois couperin" [4] and only 9 for "francois couperin" [5]. 11 hits for "Chambonnières" and 1 for "Chambonnieres". Maybe I'm not searching the right way (I've got no idea how you figured out the number of articles that redirect through "Frederic Chopin" so maybe I'm using the search function the wrong way - if so, please correct me), but if I'm not, there's no need to rename those and similar articles. As for Chopin and similar cases (what are those by the way? Can't think of any), well, personally, I believe that other articles should be edited instead of renaming Frédéric Chopin. Its just not right.. his name is what his name is.

Besides, "Frédéric Chopin" right below "Frederic Chopin" (as you suggest) will result in a lot of questions from casual readers. We will have to explain to each new editor that the article is named wrongly to speed Wikipedia up, and many will find that reason ridiculous and debate, etc.. better just leave Frédéric Chopin the way it is and edit the articles that spell his name wrongly. Jashiin 20:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, there is no such thing as truth. In an English-speaking publication it is not particularly more wrong to name him Frederic Chopin than to name him Frédéric Chopin. The reason that there are more "hits" for Frédéric is that that is the official name for the article, and some conscientious person or bot has gone through and changed these.

Secondly, if you look under "What links here" in the toolbox at the redirect for Frederic Chopin, it will show you what routes through there, and you can approximate how many it is. It's not that hard to leave a brief note on the talk page saying that it is simply the English spelling, which there has been consensus about (if there is consensus), and please don't move the page. Makemi 21:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Wait, I gave this some more thought and I can't understand why this is discussed the way it is discussed. If its possible to set up a bot to change all those articles to bypass the redirect and solve the problem that way, the only question is whether "Frédéric" is the more widely used spelling or "Frederic"? I mean, I did what you described (thanks for the explanation by the way!, it was silly of me not to think about that) to Frédéric Chopin you'll have 200+ results, against around 150 for Frederic Chopin. Doesn't this mean that if you rename, you'll still have 200 pages redirecting? And deciding on what spelling is the more used one could be done, I don't know, with something like New Grove I guess? Jashiin 22:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Trobairitz peer review

I've put the article Trobairitz, about medieval women troubadours, up for Peer review. I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks, Makemi 06:20, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

List of composers on The opera corpus

For the past few months the Opera Project has been working on articles on composers. There is a list of 389 articles and stubs on The opera corpus. Could there be some useful synergy with the Composers Project? Many of the biographical articles need developing from the non-operatic, musical point of view.

Kleinzach 10:53, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

An invitation to all members of this project

HAM 17:59, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Mozart and Liszt on WP:AIP

Both Mozart and Liszt have been nominated on Wikipedia:Article Improvement Drive; you're probably familliar with the process, but basically the article with the most votes at the end of the week becomes a collaboration between various wikipedians to make it up to the standard of a featured article. Slightly more complicated than that, but there's more info on the page. I think this would be a great opportunity to bring more wikipedians in on these articles and could be a great way to improve them on more formal issues such as referencing, writing, etc. Some more votes would really be useful, thanks M A Mason 15:11, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

UBX for "WikiProject Composers"

I didn't know if you guys already had a userbox for the group or not. This one's just a modification of {{user composition}}. (Thanks to Helohe for the original). If you don't like userboxes, just pretend this isn't here. n.n ~Kylu (u|t) 21:20, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Editing of Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

Some substantial editing of this article is going on - possibly by people who have worked on the publishing project. Does anyone know what this is all about? - Kleinzach 08:47, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for pointing this out. I left a note on the talk page. Some of those additions are questionable, to put it mildly ("fraudulently date-stamped...") I didn't revert it right away since there appears to be good material mixed with the original research and POV. Antandrus (talk) 15:54, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Bach Peer Review

Johann Sebastian Bach appears to be a damn fine article. I have listed it for a peer review.

Wikipedia:Peer review/Johann Sebastian Bach

SilkTork 14:39, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Logo "Composer"

I suggest to use a logo at the end of the articles of this project:

---

This Composer article is part of the Composers Project

---

• (Meladina 00:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC))
  • Absolutely not. It is Wikipedia policy to avoid links to project pages from the article namespace. --RobertG ♬ talk 12:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

The nationality question - again!

We have had problems decided the nationality of composers - Handel, Christoph Willibald Gluck and Florian Leopold Gassmann come to mind - and we have just had a debate about Ukrainian/Russian/Soviet identity at Talk:Ivan Kozlovsky. I am wondering if we could work out a policy on this? Here are my ideas (so far):

1. Nationality should refer to national identity, in other words the national group with which the person identified, not the state of which the person was a citizen or subject.
2. Nationality should not be anachronistic/retrospective, i.e. in the case of historic artists it should not be defined by present-day borders and states but by contemporary ones.
3. If there is any doubt about the nationality, we should be inclusive and use a double designation both in the introduction and in the categories.

I'd be grateful for comments. - Kleinzach 22:16, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Template

Dear all, I’ve just created a version of the older template Template:Composers1 and suggest to use it, ad libitum, together or instead of the Template:Composers at the talk pages. I think it is a bit more attractive and has some subtext:

WikiProject Composers/Archive 1 is related to WikiProject Composers which has been provided as a place for editors of biographical articles of Music Composers and Songwriters to discuss common issues, discover neglected composer articles and exchange ideas. All who are interested are invited to visit talk page, comment and contribute.

Any ideas, agreements or objections? Yours, (meladina 00:10, 7 June 2006 (UTC))

This looks good. I wonder if it is possible to make the bust a little sharper and clearer, maybe larger? - Kleinzach 11:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

It was my intention to make the bust a little less sharper to make an impression that this is not necessary Beethoven. I can make him a bit bigger. (meladina 09:31, 8 June 2006 (UTC))

Ah, I see. I think it's fine to have Beethoven representing the others . . . any other comments. Assuming of course that there is someone else here to comment! Seems a bit like a ghost town . . . - Kleinzach 18:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Composer of the Month: Hans Werner Henze

The Opera project composer of the month for June is Hans Werner Henze (1926- ). Contributions are welcome. - Kleinzach 18:48, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Trivia??

Do trivia sections on composers really belong in articles? For example, Antonín Dvořák has a small section labeled trivia. Should we keep this as it is, incorporate the information into the article, or just delete it? Heavy Metal Cellist ^talk_contribs

This one is particularly insubstantial. I'd be in favour of just deleting it. Any other opinions? - Kleinzach 19:25, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I tend to dislike trivia sections, especially in composer articles. If a piece of information is not trivial, it should go somewhere in the body of the article. If it is trivial, it should probably not be in the article. Trivia sections tend to be a spam magnet, and draw things which are very crufty, like "Dvořák wrote the music for the third and a half level of WoW 12.5:The awakening", which is the sort of thing which could maybe go in the WoW article, but not the Dvořák article. Mak (talk) 20:09, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Here is another example: Pagliacci in popular culture in Pagliacci. Should this be hived off? - Kleinzach 20:20, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

My view of that sort of thing is that if a whole notable (ugh) work is strongly based on another work, that should probably be included, for instance, IMHO, Purcell's The Fairy-Queen and Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream (opera), should be somehow mentioned in the page on A Midsummer Night's Dream, because they are important cultural artifacts which owe a lot to that specific work. However, let's say that in Billy Budd someone said something about Bottom, that shouldn't be included, because it's not major enough, and it doesn't owe that much to A Midsummer Night's Dream. In short, "in popular culture sections should be heavily weeded, and if nothing of substance is there, then should be removed altogether. Mak (talk)

My stance on the issue is that there should not be a separate trivia section. Whether the information in a particular article's "trivia section" is worthy of inclusion in the article or not is something that will have to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. I just think that any relevant information needs to be worked into the article, instead of off in a trivia section. Heavy Metal Cellist ^talk_contribs

The Dvořák trivia (which I checked and seems to be authentic) is short but sometimes that there is a lot of it (see Pagliacci in popular culture in Pagliacci) with far more than can be absorbed into the article. What do we do in these cases? - Kleinzach 23:33, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

A Voice in the Wilderness

Sorry, I don't know who is in charge of this project. I created about 20 new entries on different (mostly Russian) composers (see at the beginning of my users page), however nobody except Kleinzach gave me a hand with editing. I asked a few questions at this page, and they were answered by the same Kleinzach, who, as I understand, is actually not a full participant of this project. Here are the three completely new entries. They need your care:

• Vyacheslav Artyomov
• Viktor Suslin
• Boris Tishchenko

Yours (meladina 14:56, 13 June 2006 (UTC))

The first one has been done. I've cleared up the grammar and spelling errors, wikilinked and made the article gleam a bit brighter, but I myself have absolutely zero knowledge concerning this subject, and so therefore unfortunately can add nothing new to these articles. Incidentally, I have got nothing to do with this WikiProject either. Cheers, Moreschi 20:53, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Suslin has been cleaned up. Moreschi 21:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

As has Mr. Tishchenko. I don't claim to have caught everything, but they're certainly much better than they were. Moreschi 21:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

My gratitude and best wishes to Moreschi. (meladina 13:49, 15 June 2006 (UTC))

Don't worry, no one is in charge of the project. It's fully wiki. =) I'll take a look at your articles and watchlist them too so I can edit when I geta chance. --Sketchee 05:07, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Canadian Music Centre

• There are a fair number of biographical pages for various composers on the Canadian Music Centre website (www.musiccentre.ca). I've started turning a few of them into Wikipedia articles (rewriting all the way, of course!), and think that there's a lot of good material to be made into articles there. Anyone else up for transposing some things from there to here? --AlbertHerring 07:29, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Key articles for Wikipedia 1.0

Hello! We at the Work via WikiProjects team previously contacted you to identify the quality articles in your WikiProject, and now we need a few more favors. We would like you to identify the "key articles" from your project that should be included in a small CD release due to their importance, regardless of quality. We will use that information to assess which articles should be nominated for Version 0.5 and later versions. Hopefully it will help you identify which articles are the most important for the project to work on. As well, please keep updating your Arts WikiProject article table for articles of high quality. If you are interested in developing a worklist such as this one for your WikiProject, or having a bot generate a worklist automatically for you, please contact us. Please feel free to post your suggestions right here. Thanks! Walkerma 17:38, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Composer of the month: Gaetano Donizetti

The Opera Project's composer of the month for July is Gaetano Donizetti. Our main focus is with the operas themselves, but I am quite sure that there is enormous room for expansion in his under-developed biography. All contributions are welcome. Best to all, Moreschi 16:41, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

A Friendly Reminder about WikiLinking

Just a request of all of you... if you ever write an article and Wikilink to the article about composition, be sure the like is to "music composition"; "composition" will only take the user to a disambig page, and it will need to be cleaned up by a DAB repairman later on anyway. Thank you! SingCal 04:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion for article or category

I think there should be an article called "Composer-Pianist". I hear the phrase all of the time, to distinguish those who earn a living via composing AND performing, as opposed to a standard "concert pianist" who only performs (i.e. Liszt, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Hamelin, etc.). There was even a book written on this subject, which can be found here Would this make a legitimate article? Or should it be another Category? --Crabbyass 20:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... I would say the scope is too narrow. Many of the most popular composers living today are non-pianists; Libby Larsen and Jennifer Higdon play flute, John Adams is a clarinettist, John Zorn is sax... and many of them are avid performers on their own instruments as well. Perhaps "composer-performer" would make a better topic? SingCal 00:30, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Invitation

I just wanted to let you know that the Biography WikiProject has been reorganized and we wanted to see if you guys were interested in merging with us? We've reorganized it so that it's more like the Military history project with task forces for the specialized areas. One of the task forces we could create could be Musicians-- by merging with us and becoming a task force, you wouldn't lose anything! You'd keep your same page here, it would just be redirected to Musicians task force (which we'd create) and you would continue as before, except that instead you'd also gain the benefits of being part of a larger project. We would give you a parameter to our Project banner (musicians-task-force=yes) and a note would appear that says the article is a part of that task force (see example on military history article), plus having peer reviews and collaborations, and being able to grade articles by class and importance so that the articles can be part of the WP:1.0 project and much more... Let me know what you think! If you are interested, you need to add your project to the task force vote we're currently having plange 16:12, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Alternative UBX for "WikiProject Composers"

just place {{ParticipantComposers}} on your page.

(meladina 10:53, 3 August 2006 (UTC))

Are my edits helpful?

On 12 August 2006, User:Musikfabrik posted this on Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/Noticeboard regarding my edits:

I have noticed a great deal of edits done by Dafoeberezin3494 concernings the catagory of pages devoted to "composers". While it seems that there are a great many catagory pages such as "List of composers by name: S" and "List of Irish Composers" which are very short, there are enough composers whose names begin with "S" and enough Irish composers (as a visit to the Irish Contemporary Music Center site at [6] will attest) that these pages should eventually be full. Now that the Zarzuela composers catagory has been deleted, where are people supposed to be articles by the very good composers who are listed here? [7]

• While some cleaning up needs to be done, I'm wondering if there isn't just a little too much going on? Could we perhaps rethink all of this and perhaps keep some of these useful catagories open, since they are going to be needed at some point? Musikfabrik 20:41, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

On my talk page he mentioned that some of my edits may have been in violation of policies related to this WikiProject. Here is a brief summary of my edits:

• nominated "Category:Zarzuela Composers" for deletion (capitalization, now at Category:Zarzuela composers)
• nominated "Category:19th century classical composers" for deletion (successful)
• nominated "Category:Classical composers by nationality" for deletion (successful)
• merged "List of Irish composers" and "List of Malaysian composers" into List of composers by nationality
• nominated the 7 lists of composers by name (C, D, G, K, R, S, U) for deletion, with help (successful)
• reorganized the List of composers and merged "List of uncategorized composers" into it

If any of these were unhelpful or blatant violations of this WikiProjects policies, feel free to tell me on my talk page and/or revert them. Thank you. Dafoeberezin3494 04:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

• Hello everyone. I wasn't going to say anything here, but since I'm mentioned by name, I would like to clarify. I didn't say that Dafoeberezin3494's edits were either violations or unhelpful. What I did say was that what he or she was doing could be seen as undoing the whole structure of the catagorization of composers and adding another structure which seemed to me to much less flexible and which could easily become problematic. I did suggest that he or she might want to discuss all of this with this group, since the lists that he or she is creating directly relate to the work that you're doing. It seemed to me to make sense. I'm very happy that he or she has decided to do so. Hopefully you can all make introductions? I hope that this will be positive for everyone involved in your project. Cordially Musikfabrik 11:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Useing the Da Capo Guide for worklists

Does anyone else have/use The Da Capo Catalog of Classical Music Composers, by Jerzy Chwialkowski? It's a fantastically comprehensive works list of 132 composers (every major one from Monteverdi and later, outside of Telemann, plus some ones not-quite as well known). I bring this up, because in general, it seems that the standard of work listings is all over the map...major a good project for the Project would be to solidify what should and shouldn't be there. Of course, huge lists aren't nessesarily the way to go, but many of them seem woefully incopmplete compred to others. Any thoughts on the matter? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 20:03, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Miles Davis

Miles Davis is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 19:54, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi

I’ve been working on updating the page for John Coolidge Adams (the composer), and I just found your project by accident. How can I help , and where do I sign up! S.dedalus 06:17, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

New stub type

For your editing convenience, WP Stub Sorting has created a template for {{Russia-composer-stub}} which puts articles into Cat:Composer stubs for now; once there are more of them we can create its own category. Cheers, Her Pegship 16:16, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Feedback please! Miguel Bernal Jiménez

I don't know if this is the right place to post this request...

I wrote this article for the Spanish language Wikipedia on September. I tried to translate it, but found out I wasn't up to the job, so I asked for help to the guys at Wikipedia:Translation_into_English/Spanish who did almost all the translation work. The translation is very good, and only some parts are missing translation (it is hard to find out the english word for motete). I want this article to be at least good. This composer is very very important (just read his biography), he is almost unknown due to lack of cultural promotion. There is also very few information available about him. I could only find information about him in his only published biography (by Lorena Díaz Nuñez). If anyone can add (or remove if you please) information to the article please do it. I am going this weekend to the school he founded in the City of Morelia to get more info about him and to take a picture of his statue and add it as an image to the article (and if I can get a PD scan of a photo of him better yet).

Maybe I could propose a fact for the "Did you know..." section of the Main Page? This way more people could find out about the article and make corrections (or at least read it).

Please, if you have the time, tell me what to add, what to remove and what to correct, even if you know nothing about this composer. This is also the first article I write at Wikipedia.

Thanks a lot! --pptudela 06:18, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Project Directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:

• User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory 2,
• User:Badbilltucker/Philosophy and religion Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Sports Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory/United States, (note: This page will be retitled to more accurately reflect its contents)
• User:Badbilltucker/History and society directory, and
• User:Badbilltucker/Science directory

and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if you tried to update it before, and the corrections were gone. I have now put the new draft in the old directory pages, so the links should work better. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you. B2T2 00:19, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Wetz, Smyth & Draeseke

Hello,

I'm a music friend from Germany. On de.wikipedia there are articles regarding to composers Felix Draeseke, Ethel Smyth and Richard Wetz, which were honoured as "lesenswert" and "exzellent". It would be fine, somebody would use them to improve the English articles here (about Wetz there isn't even an article on en.wikipedia). The German ones could be found on that page: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Klassische_Musik

Greetings from Germany, Goodbye