Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Violin Concerto (Mendelssohn)/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 04:16, 23 October 2007.

[edit] Violin Concerto (Mendelssohn)

This has been a good article since May and I am just curious to see whether it could become a featured article. My biggest concern is that the article is somewhat shorter than the usual length for a Featured Article, but for a piece of classical music, it is not easy to write very much without becoming overly descriptive and subjective. Centy – reply• contribs – 09:44, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I'm not necessarily concerned about the article length, provided it's comprehensive. Do you feel you have exhausted all avenues of information, without getting too trivial? However, the lead is far too short. WP:LEAD suggests 1-2 paragraphs, not 1-2 sentences. I'd suggest a first paragraph dealing with history and description, and a second based on the Analysis and Details paragraphs, to get you started. It needs to be "capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article". J.Winklethorpe ^talk 10:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• A lead. Excellent. Now an annoying job: per Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Full_citations, a lot of the cited books need page numbers provided for specific cites. The last paragraph in that section provides guidence. The instrumentation section is very sparse. Do you feel you could either expand it, or merge it with another section? Is there anything notable about the use of solo violin, for example?J.Winklethorpe ^talk 21:38, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
• The instrumentation section is in line with the suggest MOS at WP:CM. And the solo violin is virtually a given as this is a violin concerto. Centy – reply• contribs – 22:22, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

• OK, it was just that the section looks very isolated at the moment. The WP:CM MOS seems clear on the issue, and I'm supposing that this isn't a big enough orchestra to qualify for the suggested expanded list? Do please look into the page numbers issue when you can, though. J.Winklethorpe ^talk 08:14, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. Agree with J.Winklethorpe that the lead needs further work. I'd also like more information in the body of the article, especially on inspiration/influences, contemporary and subsequent criticism, and how the concerto fits into the modern repertoire eg how often is it performed now? A section on recordings would be a useful addition eg how many times has it been recorded?, what are the key recordings? Further short musical quotations would also be interesting, as would more illustration -- is it possible, for example, to source a fair-use image of a modern orchestra/soloist playing the concerto and/or of the original score? Espresso Addict 01:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I will see what source material I dig up on contemporary reaction to back up the claim it was very well received instantly. I'm desperately trying to find as well a source that openly states the slow movement was inspired from Bach. With the lead, I was wondering if some other editor could simply copy and reword stuff out of the article to make into 1-2 paragraphs. I mean there's not further research required, just ability to manipulate words that sound different from what I've already written in the article. Centy – reply• contribs – 22:26, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

• Fixes needed Actually fix (singular). The body of the article seems easily to pass WP:WIAFA criteria. I see none of the obvious MOS nitpicks that many people hang up on, indeed the writing seems to be of the compelling/briliant standard FA demands. The referencing is impecable, and that is often the biggest problem I find with articles when I review them. The images seem to be appropriate. Having said all of that, the lead looks like it could use some expansion. A proper lead should really fully summarize the article, and this one does not seem to adequately summarize the analysis and legacy sections. The lead itself also seems to suffer from a few organization problems; it is a single paragraph and it seems that while being expanded, it could be split into more appropriate separate paragraphs. For example, the first paragraph could introduce the piece and give a brief summary of the history section; the second paragraph could give a summary of the musical aspects of the piece, and the legacy section could perhaps occupy a third paragraph. That would be a better example of the "article in minature" that WP:LEAD seems to ask for. Other than cleaning up the lead, this is a great article and once the lead is fixed, it should be featureable easily. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 00:51, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Y Done All done (except adding an influences section - already mentioned Mendelssohn influenced by his first piano concerto. Would add a Bach reference to the slow movement but slightly tenuous. Far more influenced by his Songs Without Words which has already been mentioned). Centy – reply• contribs – 14:14, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

• Support Struck through prior. This article seems to meet all parts of WP:WIAFA and seems easily featurable at this point. Excellent job! --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:15, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose until fixed—Not bad, but just in the lead I found perilous statements:
  • "Although the concerto has three movements in a standard fast–slow–fast structure and each movement followed a traditional form"—which is it to be: present or past tense?
    • Fixed
  • "Some of the distinctive aspects of the concerto include the immediate entrance of the violin and the linking of the three movements." Remove "Some of". By "immediate entrance", you mean right at the opening? Better explicate for non-experts. "Linking of the three movements"? How? Thematically? If so, this is typical, so why is this a distinctive feature here?
    • Fixed.
  • I've removed two instances of "very", which is usually very redundant.
  • "quickly became one of the most important violin concertos of all time"—importance is not generally framed as coming or going like this.
    • Fixed
  • "still remains"—one is redundant. So is "Today".
    • Fixed
  • How do you know that it's the first to be learnt? Unsupported statement.
    • See link to Strings Magazine
  • "It has been recorded by virtually all professional violinists"—Really? Are you sure?
    • I meant top violinists, ie. those who you would find in regularly recording for CD. However, I've reworded the sentence.

Further down, just a quick look reveals a spaced en dash that should be unspaced (see MOS). No it shouldn't, read MOS:MUSIC and "Generic movement titles" "fourteen bar transitional passage"—MOS suggests a hyphen, and it would be easier on non-experts to insert one. " Following this concerto, it would also be very rare for a composer to leave a cadenza unwritten and left for the soloist to improvise." Reference 10 for this statement has no page number—just a whole book. Happy searching. See comments above, already noted

And lots more. Bring others on board to collaborate. Not yet good enough. Tony (talk) 15:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Colloaboration is not something that happens often on classical music article unfortuantely. Centy – reply• contribs – 13:12, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose The writing is generally pretty good, a few places are fantastic, other places are disappointing. Content does not feel that comprehensive, some places need expansion. Specifically:

• "and soon became regarded as one of the most greatest violin concertos of all time" one of the "most greatest"?
• "and usually one of the first Romantic era concerto they learn." (concertos?)
• "Following his appointment in 1835 to principal conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra,[4] Mendelssohn named his childhood friend Ferdinand David as the orchestra's concertmaster.[5] The work's origins derive from this professional collaboration. " A weak opening, not compelling.
• "However, the concerto took another six years to complete" unnecessary "however"
• "During this time though, Mendelssohn and David kept up a regular correspondence" "though" seems weak here.
• The instrumentation section needs to be either rolled into another section or expanded. Rather than a sterile description of the instrumentation, tell us how this ensemble compares to a typical chamber orchestra, or why this selection of instruments is special, or how it is appropriate for this piece etc. Or was this ensemble just the standard, with no particular reason at all? Extremely short sections should not stand by themselves, they should be incorporated in some other bigger section.
• "where the music builds up to the cadenza, which Mendelssohn wrote himself" I know what you are getting at in that a cadenza is usually improvised, but many readers will wonder "didn't Mendelssohn write the whole thing?" Point out that this is unusual.
• "The work has developed a reputation as an essential work for all aspiring violin virtuosi to conquer,[15] which means the concerto is virtually ubiquitous in the discography of concert violinists including many violinists, such as Eugène Ysaÿe, who were only active at the very dawn of recorded sound and of whom very little recorded music exists" Big run on, and get rid of "conquer." It's a concerto, not a foreign country.
• Rather than just a mechanical description of the layout of the symphony (which has been done rather well, actually) try to expand on how each movement/theme/repeat in a minor key/passage adds some depth of meaning to the work. For example, what musical purpose does the cadenza serve? (eg it shows off the skills of the musician, it adds a thrilling musical theme, its tempo speeding up makes it more exciting, building the tension etc.)

"Distinctive aspects of the concerto include the immediate entrance of the violin at the beginning of the work and the linking of the three movements with each movement immediately following the previous one." Again I understand what you mean here. But the average reader reads it thinking "don't all the instruments start playing at the beginning of the song? How is that unusual? Don't the movements always follow one right after the other?" Reword it to explain how this structure is unique.

A little more work needed to bring this one up, but I enjoyed reading it. Thanks. Jeff Dahl (Talk • contribs) 20:54, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

• Rejoinders to nominator's responses to my issues, plus a sample of others—easy to find—that rule out eligibility for promotion:
  • "Colloaboration is not something that happens often on classical music article unfortuantely." Well, that's unfortunate for this nomination. It requires collaboration, and such is vital, usually, to WP's process.
  • Wild statement in lead supported by "link to Strings Magazine". OK, I hit the link, which looks rather commercial, and it starts with "“It has been butchered and malplayed by so many people, it’s time somebody pleaded the composer’s case,” declares violinist Vincent Skowronski. “This is not a soccer match or a hockey game. It’s a very nice piece of music to play.” This is not an authoritative reference. You cannot make broad, sweeping claims in the lead based on it.
  • Your fix of another wild claim in the lead: "Many of the top professional violinists ..."—better now, but remove the two redundant words.
  • The concerto "has" three movements? Ungainly expression.
  • "the concerto was innovative"—I don't see this justified in the body of the article.
  • "... the beginning of which gives me no peace."—Period after the closing quotation mark. See MOS.
  • "When it was finally completed, it was first performed in Leipzig"—Finally ... first?
  • "During this time though,"—Informal. Try "However, during ...". Tony (talk) 13:49, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.