Template talk:Schubert piano sonatas

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[edit] Controversy over the numbering of the sonatas

There's much controversy as regards the numbering of Schubert's piano sonatas, quite similar to his symphonies. The total number of sonatas ranges between 20 and 23. One of the disputed issues concerns the early D-flat sonata - should it have a separate number from the E-flat sonata, which is almost identical? There's a reference on all this stuff but I can't recall which one it is. Owing to this confusion, Schubert's piano sonatas are usually identified by their key and catalogue number, and not by their serial number. I therefore suggest removing the numbers from the template as well as the individual articles. This will prevent confusion as well as the biased representation of only one of the numbering conventions. Gidip (talk) 10:56, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

This reply was copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music:

I support that. I think I've only seen Schubert's sonatas referred by their catalogue numbers and/or keys, never by numbers. Jashiin (talk) 11:38, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I originally had just the key and D-numbers on the template. CenturionZ added the numerical numbers. Its just so common to use ordinal numbers in article names for pieces that I can understand why he did that. Many other series of works that are known primarily by their catalog numbers and keys have been able to get away with having ordinal numbers listed because there is indeed a common way of ordinally numbering them (e.g. Mozart sonatas, Beethoven sonatas & quartets, etc). Allmusic.com had a way of ordinally numbering the Schubert sonatas, but if those are not accepted, then I can understand the possible confusion there. I have no preference as to whether ordinal numbers are present as long as D-numbers and keys are both included. DavidRF (talk) 20:46, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

This may not be the "standard" way to cite them, but in my personal cataloguing efforts I've found that the one relatively foolproof approach is to use Deutsch numbers as if they were ordinal: Sonata D. 959 in A Major, Sonata D. 960 in B-Flat Major, etc. The opus numbers are spotty and misleading, and ordinal numbers are at least as bad, not to mention not terribly common in practice. Drhoehl (talk) 02:02, 22 November 2007 (UTC)