Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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[edit] Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Article is no longer a featured article

A holdover from the Brilliant Prose days of yore and main-page'd 20 months ago, this article is woefully inadequate when compared with current FAs. First and most glaringly, while there are copious external links and further reading, there are no references, which is an important distinction. There are many statements made that call out for references / footnotes. If needed, I shall illuminate them all. First FARC from 12 months ago. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 08:53, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep for now. The article is pretty good and the only major problems seems to be the lack of references. Why not wait a while on the removal and see if anyone is willing to put in references?--Alabamaboy 13:07, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Remove. Jeffrey, I didn't have the nerve to FARC this one, but I'm glad it has been done.

FA Criterion 2(b): "comprehensive", [meaning] that an article covers the topic in its entirety and does not neglect any major facts or details.'

Some five weeks ago, I complained about a major deficiency. Here's the exchange, pasted from the discussion page:

______________

Title: information on style is seriously wanting

For a FA, this article is deficient in that it provides absolutely no information on his style. Please see the guidelines at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Composers#Guidelines_for_musical_style. Tony 04:53, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

You are right. There wasn't a word in the article about style, influence, and so forth. I took a swing at it; it's a bit rough for now. Feel free to edit mercilessly, rearrange, whatever; it could be a huge amount of material, but I tried to keep it relatively short for the start. It might need subsections by type of composition, or perhaps should be mainly chronological. Antandrus (talk) 21:14, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

______________

My point was that the title of the article is not 'Biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart', but 'Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart'. Thus, in my view, to satisfy Criterion 2(b), the article should contain authoritative information on Mozart's style, preferably in the lead—in brief, broad, non-technical terms—and in the body of the text, ranging from non-technical stylistic information to that which might be useful for a serious, informed music lover.

Since I complained, this aspect has received some attention. However, it is still seriously deficient. Some statements in the oddly titled 'Works, musical style, and innovations' section don't mean much, or are jumbled, or are poorly written. For example, in the opening sentence, we have:

'his works spanned the chronological period from the early, Italianate galant style of his teenage years to the mature classical style of his later life, which began to re-incorporate some of the contrapuntal complexities of the late Baroque.'
  • The function of 'chronological' is unclear.
  • Does 'mature' refer to the classical style as a whole, or Mozart's own version of it? Beethoven brought the classical style to its maturity.
  • 'Re-incorporate'—what, for a second time? And Mozart's counterpoint is typically not as complex as that of the late Baroque. It's only one facet of some of his later works, anyway, and only in particular passages; this statement implies a general shift towards contrapuntal complexity.

*edit: This claim is unjustified. Mozart used complex Baroque-style counterpoint in the fugues in his Mass in C Minor, Requiem, his Fantasia in F Minor (K.608), his stand-alone fugues (K.401, K.426), and used invertible quintuple counterpoint in the finale of his "Jupiter" Symphony (K.551).*

In Mozarts's hands sonata form transformed from the binary models of the baroque into the fully mature form of his later works, with a multiple-theme exposition, extended, chromatic and contrapuntal development, recapitulation of all themes in the tonic key, and coda.

Haydn did this before Mozart.

The points about psychological effect in the operas are on the right track, but need to be reworded to be tight and cogent. Nowhere are we told about his transformation of orchestral scoring, exploring a large range of combinations of wind and brass. The use of orchestral colour before Mozart was monochromatic by comparison, including Haydn's.

In 1782–83, Mozart became closely acquainted with the work of JS Bach,

This may be a little exaggerated; he knew Book 1 of the WTC, but not much else of Bach's.

*edit: This is not the case. Mozart was familiar with the Art of Fugue, WTC I and II, many of Bach's choral works, and even arranged some of Bach's fugues for string quartet.*

There's no mention of a really obvious stylistic aspect: his use of Austrian folk music.

  • Criterion 2(a): The prose should be 'compelling, even brilliant'

The prose not good enough for a FA. Here's an example of excessive writing, from which the italicised text should be removed:

At some unknown time during his early Vienna years, Mozart became personally acquainted with Joseph Haydn, and the two composers became friends. On occasions when Haydn was in Vienna, they sometimes played [together] in an impromptu string quartet together. Mozart's six quartets dedicated to Haydn date from 1782–85, and are often judged to be his response to Haydn's Opus 33 set from 1781. Haydn himself was soon in awe of Mozart, and on the occasion [when] he first heard the last three of Mozart's series[,] he told Leopold,.."

and

Mozart's musical ability started to become apparent [became apparent] ...

There are odd turns of phrase, such as:

Mozart had a special relationship with Prague [the lamp-posts?] and the people of Prague.

and

a frankly contrapuntal main theme'.

There are grammatical mistakes:

While none of these genres were [was] new

Here's a breach of the Manual of Style (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Date formatting):

In September of 1777

There are unexplained and probably not very important facts in prominent positions:

his name changed many times over the years.

Criterion 4: 'It should have images [read 'sound excerpts'] where appropriate, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status.'

Just looking at the info page for the first sound excerpt, who is the copyright owner who is claimed to have released the item for use here? Who is the performer and recordist? When was the recording made? If it's commercially released, can we have the details of the CD and the Company, please?

I think it's a pity that the sound excerpts are lumped together in one location towards the bottom, without reference to the text. The genius of Wikipedia in this respect is its ability to knit together text and sound in a way that can cogently and lavishly illustrate the topic for both non-musicians and musicians.

Tony 13:39, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Remove. The needed updates and references have not appeared in the 12 months since the last FARC attempt. There is no indication waiting another 12 months will produce a different result.--Allen3 talk 23:03, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Remove, per Tony and nom. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:37, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Remove, per Tony and nom. The recent changes in the Style section have helped, I think, but the article is still definitely not of Featured quality. Opus33 14:27, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Sad Remove its so close to being current FA quality... but Tony is right in that it still needs work.  ALKIVAR™ 01:01, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I accept Tony and nom's reasoning; it's a good article, but remove as FA. --RobertG ♬ talk 09:54, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Still produces good criteria as a featured article. 210.0.198.76 13:24, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Remove while playing his "Lacrymosa" in the background. *Exeunt* Ganymead Dialogue? 06:55, 29 October 2005 (UTC)