Talk:List of symphonies by Joseph Haydn

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Contents

[edit] How about adding Toy Symphony?

The Toy Symphony is now thought to not be by Haydn after all, though it was, and sometimes still is, attributed to him. Leopold Mozart is often put forwad as the possible composer, but I don't know if there's any certainty about that. Maybe it's worth mentioning this, maybe not. I won't add mention of it myself, but if somebody else feels a quick note is appropriate, I won't argue. --Camembert

My understanding is that very few scholars and musicians believe the Toy Symphony to be by Haydn anymore. I'm also pretty sure that the term "Toy Symphony" is actually a misnomer; if I remember correctly, it's actually a cassation. These two facts lead me to believe it does not belong on this list. I am, however, taking both of these facts from memory, so if someone can demonstrate I'm wrong, I'd be glad to hear it. Heimstern Läufer 05:36, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Letter Nicknames

I'm not sure of the origins, but an older way of cataloguing Haydn's Symponies used letters instead of numbers. The following ones I've been able to find:

Letter A - #71 (not to be confused with the current symphony 'A')

Letter B - #45 (not to be confused with the current symphony 'B')

Letter E - #44

Letter L - #47

Letter Q - #92

Letter R - #90

Letter T - #91

Letter V - #88

Letter W - #89

I would imagine there might be more as there are gaps in the sequence of letters.

[edit] Years of composition

I added several of these a few months ago; however, a better perusal of Grove suggests to me that many of these are still uncertain, and that often all we know is that a symphony was completed by a certain year, not in which year it was completed. So, I'll be working on reflecting this more correctly in this list now. Heimstern Läufer 23:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I looked up #64. Steinberg says 1773. Hurwitz says 1773. allmusic.com acknowledges "conjectures ranging between 1773 and 1778". DavidRF 01:43, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
From what I can tell, Grove is willing to assert that it was composed by 1778 at latest, while noting 1773 as a possibility. Perhaps we could list 1773 as the probable year of composition, while observing that it may have been as late 1778? We'd need to cite this well, of course. Heimstern Läufer 01:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge proposal

I think all of the articles in Category:Symphonies by Joseph Haydn need to be merged into this list. Many of the symphony articles appear to fail WP:MUSIC. --Pixelface (talk) 04:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I've also suggested that symphonies 82 through 87 be merged into Paris symphonies and symphonies 93 through 104 be merged into London symphonies. I've started discussions on Talk:Paris symphonies and Talk:London symphonies, although it may be better to have those discussions here as well. --Pixelface (talk) 05:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Strong oppose. First, nothing in WP:MUSIC really applies to classical music (the only part on musical works talks about "albums" etc. and thus clearly speaks of popular music. Each symphony of Haydn is clearly notable and should not be merged. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 05:52, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and for the record I find the so-called "cleanup of cruft" on popular culture articles maddening, as well (what in bloody heck ever happened to "wiki is not paper"?) But the solution is not to just start merging other things. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 06:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Are there certain articles you think could be merged into this list? If a merge takes place, they don't all have to be merged. --Pixelface (talk) 06:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
If all of the content was merged onto this page, it may have the potential to be a featured list. --Pixelface (talk) 05:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Obvious Oppose and Slap. I suspect this this is an exercise by a churlish editor who is upset because television fancruft is being cleaned up. He therefore wishes to make a point about what he sees as fancruft of a rather more Hochkultur variety. As a result, I doubt this merge proposal need be taken too seriously, but I think Pixie should be taken to AN/I for mass disruption. For the record, he has apparently not targeted other individual works (e.g. Mozart or Schubert Symphonies or Piano sonatas, etc...), so this may be a targeted campaign against certain editors (pronominally perpendicular in this case, yes) with whom he has a disagreement. Eusebeus (talk) 05:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Wouldn't you like to see a featured list about the symphonies of Joseph Haydn? --Pixelface (talk) 06:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

VERY VERY VERY Strong Oppose – I have never felt so strongly against anything on Wikipedia. Every one of Haydn's symphonies is unique and fully deserves its own page. The only reason most of them are so short is that no one has gotten round to write a full length article on it. Heck every single symphony can have at least 10kb worth of text written on it (just check ANY program notes on ANY Haydn symphony). Personally I think single episodes of TV series should be merged before anything is done to Haydn's symphonies. Centy – reply• contribs – 06:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh and no, I wouldn't like to see a featured list about the symphonies of Joseph Haydn. I would much rather have a short article on each one. I don't give a flying hoot about the ridiculous hoop jumping that is getting an article to FA. It makes me laugh that an encyclopaedia should even have an entry on ESRB re-rating of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion let alone have it as one of its best articles. Centy – reply• contribs – 06:38, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
How about merging some of the articles here, articles such as Symphony No. 69 (Haydn) or Symphony No. 77 (Haydn) for example? --Pixelface (talk) 06:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm also puzzled by that featured article you bring up, but I think there could be a much better article about the symphonies of Haydn than this current one. Merging some of the stubbier articles into this list would improve it a lot I think. --Pixelface (talk) 06:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose It's not a good idea. Lists made of quick merges of articles that have the potential to be great will end up as sloppy as the List of Participants in wedding ceremonies. "Bride" isn't notable enough for an article, but together, they all are? ALTON .ıl 07:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
    • I wouldn't want to see any of these articles nominated for deletion for failing WP:N. An article on every symphony would be much stronger. --Pixelface (talk) 07:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
So, first the carrot (the lure of FA status), and now the stick? D. Brodale (talk) 07:28, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't see what you mean. --Pixelface (talk) 08:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't either. It's hard to argue notability, and really boring, so I'm not really arguing anything besides convenience (it's simply really annoying to link to anchors on a page), and you can discount my "vote" if you want. ALTON .ıl 08:45, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I see what you're saying. I hadn't considered anchors. I suppose I should go through the articles and see what links to them. --Pixelface (talk) 09:08, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Ho boy. What's happening? Pixelface is being pointy. Some people who like classical music are being the elitist bastards a lot of people who like classical music tend to be. I've already mentioned my thoughts on THIS issue on Pixel's talk page. Why do every one of Haydn's symphonies deserve so much more coverage in a GENERAL ENCYLOPEDIA ABOUT EVERYTHING than a controversial happening in the video game world? I bet if you did a survey, more people in the world care about Oblivion in some fashion than care about Haydn's 22nd symphony (as a random number). In the end, BOTH have places on WP. I don't give even 1/8 a shit about yesterday's FA (Pre-dreadnought battleship), and maybe only very marginally have any cares about today's (Hockey Hall of Fame). So let me ask this. Has ANY singular piece of classical music made the front page? Looking through the list, I count three even at the status: Sonatas and Interludes (which is by Cage), Sylvia (ballet) (which is more than about the music), and Symphony No. 3 (Górecki) (which is a very hated upon piece by many classical listeners). Not exactly very positive telling of WP's CM editors, huh? If you hate that such articles as the other day's make the front page, you're welcome to make ones about topics you care more about. Until then, video game editors are going to work passionately to make VG article good (and remember, it's not the TOPIC that matters, it's the CONTENT). ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 12:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC) (ADDENDUM: And in case it's not clear in the above Wall o Text, I *like* reading about individual pieces of music. I would never vote for to delete one and only merge in cases where it'd make a much better article -- certainly not in cases of any symhpony by a major composer. But I AM saying you should be respectful of your fellow encyclapedia-mates who have different interests, even if you might not think said interest is worthwhile, a LOT of people might. That's why we have WP:NOTABLE. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 12:41, 7 March 2008 (UTC))

I'm not being pointy. Some of these articles appear to fail WP:MUSIC and someone could {{prod}} them at any moment. If the content is merged into a list, the articles can't be deleted according to the GFDL. An article on the Symphonies of Joseph Haydn might be a better idea than articles for each individual symphony. Symphonies like Symphony No. 94 (Haydn) and Symphony No. 45 (Haydn), etc could still have separate articles (I mention those merely due to the number of articles that link to them). Merging all of them is one option. Merging the smaller articles is another option. And merging none of them is another option. That's why I started this discussion (instead of being bold and just merging them myself). --Pixelface (talk) 12:51, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose As to the reasons for this proposal (WP:MUSIC, WP:N), I find them impossible to to discuss without running foul of WP:AGF, or assuming WP:LOL or WP:POINT on the proposer's part (who not long ago threatened at length "to pull a TTN" against "symphonycruft"), so I'll better bite my tongue. Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose Per the obvious. --Folantin (talk) 14:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose This discussion is a waste of time. None of the editors in the classical music remotely support this. (and we do disagree on many things) There's too much "wiki-politics" here. DavidRF (talk) 14:49, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
  • OpposeThe proposal that all 100+ symphonies by the person who did most to develop the form shoudl be lumped into three articles is ridiculous. Anyway, looking at WP:Music the heading Album suggests that a work of (typically) twice the length of a symphony merits individual coverage. most movements of Haydn symphonies are longer than your typical 3-minute single, so I think it appropriate to treat the whole works as albums ratehr than songs. Yes the coverage is rather thin on many works, but progress is incremental. Even the propose is acknowledging that the "Farewell" and "Surprise" symphonies merit their own articles. Then you've got the "Drumroll", the "Clock" etc. Haydn is only a mid-ranking composer in popularity and produced a huge amount of works, but sooner or later we'll have enthusiasts around who will do the work on most symphonies to get to start or B grade on most articles. --Peter cohen (talk) 14:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. It's really pretty alarming someone would even think of doing this. Opus33 (talk) 16:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I have listed this disruptive action at AN/I here. I don't think we need weigh in seriously on this suggestion anymore as it is clear this was a pointy exercise from a frustrated editor who is unhappy with the ongoing debate about fiction-related articles. Shall we close and archive this discussion? (h/t to Moreschi for taking the time to rollback the merge tags.) Eusebeus (talk) 16:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this is clearly a waste of time. --Folantin (talk) 17:08, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Eusebeus, you may want to go read WP:OWN (which is a policy by the way). I'm allowed to propose merge discussions for any article I honestly think could benefit from a merge. So how about you comment on the articles? I didn't disrupt anything. I started a discussion. Which articles do you think should not be merged? --Pixelface (talk) 02:35, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Comment Whether or not this discussion should have come to this specific page is debatable, as it seems to be an offshoot of the animosity between Eusebeus and Pixelface. However, there are some good points raised, not the least of which is the fact that some of these articles are completely unreferenced. Looking through Symphony No. 69 (Haydn), for example, there is text like "For Haydn, C major is the key of flash and flamboyance", "The symphony is called Laudon because Haydn dedicated it to a military hero whose name was actually Loudon", and "The minuet is one of stateliness and pomp where the trumpets return and give a military character to the movement". I'm not saying these are right or wrong, just that there is no way for a reader to verify if it is fact or just a Wiki editor's opinion. When statements like those are added (without references) to television articles, they are reverted pretty quickly as "speculation" or "original research". Thoughts? --Ckatzchatspy 18:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, here are my thoughts:
  • I think we do have the right policies in place. The policy page of the Wikiproject Classical Music discourages subjective "purple prose" of the kind you mention.
  • The sheer number of symphonies means that getting all of their articles in shape will be a lot of work.
  • The volume covering the symphonies by H. C. Robbins Landon might be of help in doing this.
  • I would strongly advocate upgrade and improvement as a response to troubled Haydn symphony articles, rather than the massive deletions evidently advocated by Pixelface. I'll try to put in some work on this.
Just adding Landon obviously does not complete the task. There are various comments such as nowadays there being usually considered to be 106 symphonies, and a page reference to Landon or equivalent would be appropriate to suppoer this sort of claim.--Peter cohen (talk) 19:37, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Um...what? So long as the reference in question actually supports the statement, why does it matter what was used originally in creating the article? I've NEVER seen anyone say this requirement in WP before, and I can't imagine 90% of the references added in after the fact were done by the same person later using the same source as the written text. Unless I'm misreading again... ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 20:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
The Hoboken catalogue for section 1 goes up to 108. One is lost and one is a sinfonia concertante. The count of 106 is not really a "claim", its just math. Though I agree extra footnotes can't hurt.DavidRF (talk) 21:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm not advocating deletion. I suggested a merge — moving content onto this list. No content would be deleted. Every symphony would have a level 2 or level 3 heading on this list. Articles with multiple references would be linked to with a {{main}} tag. If any articles were merged, the redirect would point to an anchor on this list. People could still wikify the symphonies on other articles like they've been doing. --Pixelface (talk) 03:03, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing out this problem. Opus33 (talk) 19:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Agree with that. Pointing out that many of the articles lack references is fine. (A quick search at Google Scholar [1] should demonstrate grounds for notability as well as the standard reference indicated by Opus above.) But I don't think we need waste our time discussing Pixel's pointy and fatuous merge suggestion and prod threat. Do the Haydn articles need cleanup? Yes. Are they insufficiently notable to justify their own article? Clearly not. As I say, we should archive this debate - does consensus exist for such a move? Eusebeus (talk) 19:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Just a note... while the proposal may be moot, there's no need to archive this discussion. The talk page is hardly oversized, the discussion itself doesn't take up much room on a relatively light-traffic page, and it has raised some good points. Removing it less than a day after it began is not a good idea, IMHO. --Ckatzchatspy 20:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I have no intention of prodding the articles. I can't say the same for other editors though. I've removed lots of {{prod}} tags from articles lately, the bulk of them being about notability. Each symphony very well may be notable enough to have it's own article — but unless the article demonstrates that, it's vulnerable to deletion. And no, the discussion should not be archived, it is still ongoing. Other editors are welcome to comment. Articles like Symphony No. 57 (Haydn) have information that can be written fully in three sentences on this list. Would the readers of Wikipedia benefit from having the information about Haydn's symphonies presented together? --Pixelface (talk) 03:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
No. Readers would benefit from being able to choose the symphony they want from a list or a navigational box. Every symphony stays. Centy – reply• contribs – 17:21, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Readers could still do that by using a table of contents in this article. You see no benefit to adding more information to this list? --Pixelface (talk) 11:23, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Articles that link to these symphony articles

 

Above is a list of articles (click show on the right) that link to these symphony articles. For example, +81 (album) has a link to Symphony No. 94 (Haydn), Turkish crescent has a link to Symphony No. 100 (Haydn), and so on. --Pixelface (talk) 10:37, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Articles with the most links to them

Links Article(s)
22 Symphony No. 94 (Haydn)
20 Symphony No. 45 (Haydn)
14 Symphony No. 104 (Haydn), Symphony No. 103 (Haydn)
11 Symphony No. 101 (Haydn)
7 Symphony No. 96 (Haydn), Symphony No. 100 (Haydn)
6 Symphony No. 8 (Haydn), Symphony No. 22 (Haydn), Symphony No. 59 (Haydn)
5 Symphony No. 6 (Haydn), Symphony No. 44 (Haydn), Symphony No. 49 (Haydn), Symphony No. 85 (Haydn), Symphony No. 88 (Haydn), Symphony No. 102 (Haydn)
4 Symphony No. 13 (Haydn), Symphony No. 26 (Haydn), Symphony No. 48 (Haydn), Symphony No. 60 (Haydn), Symphony No. 63 (Haydn), Symphony No. 73 (Haydn), Symphony No. 82 (Haydn), Symphony No. 83 (Haydn), Symphony No. 84 (Haydn), Symphony No. 92 (Haydn), Symphony No. 95 (Haydn), Symphony No. 97 (Haydn), Symphony No. 98 (Haydn)
3 Symphony No. 39 (Haydn), Symphony No. 46 (Haydn), Symphony No. 52 (Haydn), Symphony No. 53 (Haydn), Symphony No. 64 (Haydn), Symphony No. 76 (Haydn), Symphony No. 93 (Haydn), Symphony No. 99 (Haydn)
2 Symphony No. 58 (Haydn), Symphony No. 65 (Haydn), Symphony No. 69 (Haydn), Symphony No. 70 (Haydn), Symphony No. 80 (Haydn), Symphony No. 86 (Haydn), Symphony No. 87 (Haydn), Symphony No. 90 (Haydn)
1 Symphony No. 31 (Haydn), Symphony No. 34 (Haydn), Symphony No. 54 (Haydn), Symphony No. 55 (Haydn), Symphony No. 56 (Haydn), Symphony No. 57 (Haydn), Symphony No. 66 (Haydn), Symphony No. 67 (Haydn), Symphony No. 68 (Haydn), Symphony No. 71 (Haydn), Symphony No. 72 (Haydn), Symphony No. 75 (Haydn), Symphony No. 77 (Haydn), Symphony No. 78 (Haydn), Symphony No. 79 (Haydn), Symphony No. 81 (Haydn), Symphony No. 89 (Haydn), Symphony No. 91 (Haydn)

This table ignores links having to do with Template:Haydn symphonies and links to each other. --Pixelface (talk) 10:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the list. These symphonies are more notable than many people would first think, no? Haydn was very innovative and was always looking for interesting ways to make each symphony different. Because of that, these symphonies contain many "firsts" that are precedents for later compositions. DavidRF (talk) 15:17, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
It appears some may be more notable than others. Of the articles with 1 link to them Symphony No. 57 (Haydn), Symphony No. 66 (Haydn), Symphony No. 67 (Haydn), Symphony No. 68 (Haydn), Symphony No. 71 (Haydn), Symphony No. 72 (Haydn), Symphony No. 75 (Haydn), Symphony No. 77 (Haydn), Symphony No. 78 (Haydn), Symphony No. 79 (Haydn), and Symphony No. 81 (Haydn) have no references. --Pixelface (talk) 16:08, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Every one of them will be discussed in the usual musical sources -- in considerable detail. DGG (talk) 17:29, 8 March 2008 (UTC)