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Deleting conductors

There seems to be a bit of a spate of nominating conductors for deletion at the moment. Markku Laakso is already deleted and Sasha Mäkilä and Leonid Korchmar are under discussion. Does anyone have any opinions? -- Deskford ( talk) 12:43, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Delete. -- kosboot ( talk) 15:11, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
Hold on, Kosboot and Deskford. The place for discussing whether Mäkilä or Korchmar or anyone else should be deleted is their own AfD entries. I don't quite see the purpose of Deskford's question, except maybe to ask whether someone is being too trigger-happy about deletions in general. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 20:21, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, my purpose was to make sure people were aware of these deletion nominations, not for individual cases to be discussed here. -- Deskford ( talk) 20:38, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
Sorry for assenting to being to trigger-happy. Perhaps someone is going around and judging articles by their citations (I know what's one way things get to AfD). -- kosboot ( talk) 20:59, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Dear classical music experts: Here's another one of those old Afc submissions which now is slated for deletion as a stale draft. Is this a notable musician, and should the article be kept? — Anne Delong ( talk) 00:41, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Anne. This chap scrapes notability on the basis of his recordings for Naxos Records and Brilliant Classics. However, the article is utterly dreadful and needs a complete re-write. I'll see what I can do. Voceditenore ( talk) 08:08, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
Follow-up for Anne—now cleaned up, referenced, and moved to Carlos Damas. Best, Voceditenore ( talk) 14:13, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Dear classical music enthusiasts: This old Afc submission, now slated for deletion as a stale draft, mentions unreferenced achievements. Is this worth saving and fixing up? — Anne Delong ( talk) 23:09, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd let this one go, Anne. It's an amateur orchestra/band, who appear to have won some rather obscure competitions in Slovenia. If the creators don't care enough to work on it, neither should we. If it is deleted, they can always get a WP:REFUND and work on it some more. Voceditenore ( talk) 07:53, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
Thanks again - it's gone. — Anne Delong ( talk) 14:21, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Dear music experts: I found this abandoned Afc submission that will soon be deleted as a stale draft. I didn't find any reviews in English, but I don't really know where to look. Is this a notable singer, or should the article be let go? — Anne Delong ( talk) 23:15, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd let this one go, Anne. He's at the start of his career with no significant coverage in the German press. He is active only in Germany at the moment, singing primarily in churches. The "leading opera roles" listed are in student productions. The closest he seems to have come in a real production is the relatively small role of Spoletta in Tosca. The VIAF link on the draft leads to Diana Damrau! His article was deleted from the German Wikipedia for similar reasons. [1]. Besides, the article is pretty much cribbed from his web site, so it's not as if the text will be lost forever. I hope he makes it big some day. He has a lovely voice, at least from what I saw on his YouTube videos. Voceditenore ( talk) 07:44, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
Advice taken. One more off my list. — Anne Delong ( talk) 14:22, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Reviews

What are Wikipedia's policies on "Reviews" sections in articles? I have just found one in the article Gediminas Gelgotas. Toccata quarta ( talk) 08:56, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I've seen it more frequently called "Reception." In this case it looks suspiciously as if the subject selected them himself. -- kosboot ( talk) 11:14, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
The Reviews section in that article is not a proper "Critical reception" section. It is a series of cherry-picked quotes/blurbs, copied verbatim from his publisher's site [2] with no context and fake sourcing used in the WP article. The whole section should be removed per WP:NPOV (and WP:VERIFY). The COI there is pretty obvious. Take a look at the initial version of the article—quite a magnum opus. Voceditenore ( talk) 14:13, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Please note that this article is under attack by a POV pusher, who has even removed mention of Tchaikovsky's homosexuality from the lead, claimed that Tchaikovsky having been homosexual is "unproven" and that the article has "no source [for it]", and has marked his content edits as " minor". There's also plenty of nonsense floating around on the article's talk page. Toccata quarta ( talk) 07:29, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Does anyone have time to open a sockpuppet investigation? There are four accounts that are obviously the same person (Major Torp, Pgarret, Septimus Wilkinson, and Koldewe) -- if you have any doubt, look at the first few edits for each account after its creation. Preceding the first account (SW) you will find an IP which traces to Tallinn, Estonia. You'll also find vote stacking at AFD. I'm tempted to banhammer them all but I'm WP:INVOLVED since I reverted him a couple of times at Rimsky-Korsakoff (he also pushes an anti-atheist POV). I'm going out of town and will have limited time the next four days or so. If nothing happens by then I'll open the investigation. Antandrus (talk) 14:37, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
same thing happening at Nadezhda von Meck... Cg2p0B0u8m ( talk) 23:02, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Dear classical music experts: Here's another one of those old abandoned Afc submissions. Is this a notable organization, and should the article be kept? — Anne Delong ( talk) 02:34, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd let this one go, Anne. It's a non-professional community orchestra. On rare occasions these can be notable if they have won awards for adventurous programming or have premiered notable works. My research indicates neither. It appears to have been written to coincide with their 60th anniversary and to pay tribute to one of their recently deceased members. They can always add a brief referenced mention of the orchestra to Claremont, California. But as a stand-alone article, it's a non-starter. Voceditenore ( talk) 07:51, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
That was my initial reaction as well - but I noticed this had a couple of decent footnotes. In searching "volunteer orchestras," I didn't find an article under that heading, but it revealed that there are plenty of articles on individual volunteer orchestras in WP. Maybe let it stand on that basis? -- kosboot ( talk) 12:29, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
The fact that there may already be articles on equally non-notable amateur orchestras here (almost invariably written by the orchestras themselves as self-promotion) is no reason to add to them. The only reference that would count towards notabilty is the Los Angeles Times article, and that's basically "local news". The others are college newspapers and local throw-aways. I don't think it merits a stand-alone article, but if it is moved to article space, it needs to be completely re-written. Voceditenore ( talk) 13:19, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
I don't think that an article about a volunteer orchestra should be deleted just because the musicians aren't paid, but it would have to pass WP:GNG, and have quite a bit of coverage in several publications. An orchestra that has been around for 60 years has had time to attract reviews if its concerts were attended by a lot of people outside its local neighbourhood. I also agree with Voceditenore that the article isn't written in a neutral way. About local news: When the newspaper publishing the news has a large circulation and covers an area with millions of people, its local news should count toward notability. After all, there were likely thousands of topics the reporter could have chosen to write about that day, and the resulting article would be read by more people than many a publication whose readership is spread throughout the world. — Anne Delong ( talk) 16:36, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
PS- I spent some time looking for online reviews or reports written after concerts, even by local papers, and didn't find anything. — Anne Delong ( talk) 16:54, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
@ Kosboot: that's covered by WP:OSE. Toccata quarta ( talk) 18:11, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, Tocc. -- kosboot ( talk) 18:22, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Dear classical music experts: This Afc page was never submitted to be added to the encyclopedia. Is this a notable pianist? He seems to have won some prizes, but I don't know if they are important competitions or not. — Anne Delong ( talk) 21:30, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Hello classical music experts! Here's another old Afc submission that has some references and a long list of compositions. Is this a notable composer? — Anne Delong ( talk) 03:54, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Anne. She's not hugely notable, but she probably just scrapes it. Her one-act opera Toussaint Before the Spirits, got a bit of coverage (quite favourable) and two of her works have been recorded for Albany Records (a reasonably notable label for contemporary classical music). She also has received a fair amount of coverage in the Boston Globe, mainly because she's based at MIT, and the paper tends to cover the university music scene in Boston. I'm not sure I want to spend the time working on it in the near future (at the moment it's a one-sentence stub which doesn't even assert her notability), but it's worth holding it over for a while. Perhaps Pkeets would like to have a go?. He/she has done quite a few articles on contemporary women composers. Best, Voceditenore ( talk) 08:10, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
Okay, it's done. A search didn't bring up the stub, so I started a new article. Check at Elena Ruehr. Pkeets ( talk) 07:37, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
Hmmm, now I'm not sure what to do with the Afc draft linked above. I had expected that someone would just improve it and move it into mainspace. Pkeets, did you use any material from it (in which case I can make it into a redirect to save attribution), or should it just be thrown away? — Anne Delong ( talk) 10:03, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Hi Anne. You could ask for a history merge. There shouldn't be a problem since there's no overlap in the edits, and it would preserve the references you added and the works list in the article's history. The 3 current ones in the article could use a lot of improvement. It needs page numbers for what I presume to be a book. The LastFM ref is inappropriate as it is user-generated content, and the third one is her bio on the website of the PR company of whom she is a client. Voceditenore ( talk) 11:49, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
I didn't use anything from the Afc draft--didn't notice the link. I've had a look now. The list of references isn't especially useful for a bio, as mostly they are music reviews that talk about this work or that, but not her. Do you think this list of works should be included in the article? It's a bit long, and not complete. Pkeets ( talk) 12:03, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Okay, since neither of you mentioned preserving the list of compositions, and the references were added by me, I just moved them myself to the new article. The draft will hang around for a while, and if anyone actually uses any of the content we can ask for a merge; otherwise it will fade away. Thanks for your efforts - Wikipedia now has one more article! — Anne Delong ( talk) 14:07, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks! It looks good. I was going to try to fit the references in, but this is likely a better job that I would have done. Any comments on the "works"? If the list in the Afc was meant to be complete, it's badly out of date. Pkeets ( talk) 18:24, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Capella multi-move

FYI There is a multi-move discussion in progress on Talk:Capella (star) which also will move Latin Capella to Capella (disambiguation) which is not showing up on Classical music alerts. In ictu oculi ( talk) 08:21, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Possible WP:COI

If anyone's interested, there has been some edit warring at Karel Mark Chichon. Regards, Toccata quarta ( talk) 15:10, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

That article was a mess! I've taken my red pencil to it and left a note on the talk page. The subject and another editor who is obviously his PR helper were editwarring to remove all references to Gibraltar. "I have made further changes regarding my association with Gibraltar to keep this information inline with my webpage www.karelmarkchichon.com" It reached a bizarre height when these editors tried to remove the fact that his OBE was for services to music and culture in Gibraltar, and ultimately tried to removed the supporting reference from the The London Gazette as well. Voceditenore ( talk) 18:19, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Jakob Lindberg

Perhaps one of you could think of a good DYK hook for Jakob Lindberg, the first article by new user Avebury67307. The article is four days old now and needs to be nominated soon or the five-day window will expire. -- Hegvald ( talk) 17:11, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Should be easy: "....that Jakob Lindberg, a lutenist specializing in Baroque music, was inspired by The Beatles?" -- kosboot ( talk) 17:20, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

This article has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions would be appreciated. — Anne Delong ( talk) 00:54, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Members who enjoy hanging out in the Augean Stables, might want to have a go at cleaning up the associated article: Yaroslav Senyshyn. - Voceditenore ( talk) 09:16, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Dear classical music experts: This old abandoned Afc submission has a lot of references, but they were hidden by bad formatting. Now that they are revealed, is this a notable choir? — Anne Delong ( talk) 02:02, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

It looks as though Voceditenore has decided to work on this one. Thanks! — Anne Delong ( talk) 18:08, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, for my sins, I've cleaned it up and moved it to article space. Best, Voceditenore ( talk) 09:11, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

The French horn crusader

Many of you will have observed, as I have, an anonymous editor with various IP addresses beginning 72.223... making repeated edits to articles changing "horn" to "French horn". Curiosity led me to investigate this a bit further, and I have discovered that there was a user CameronPG ( talk · contribs), blocked indefinitely in 2010, who exhibited some very similar behaviour. Editing patterns common to both include:

  • changing [[horn (instrument)|horn]] to [[horn (instrument)|French horn]]
  • changing [[clarinet]] to [[soprano clarinet|clarinet]]
  • changing [[contrabassoon]] to [[contrabassoon|contrabassoon or double bassoon]]
  • an interest in editing Disney-related articles

A note on CameronPG's user page, apparently from his mother, indicates that he has been diagnosed with autism. This may explain his unwillingness to communicate on talk pages. I don't know if any of this helps us deal with the problem, but I thought I should at least share my findings. -- Deskford ( talk) 01:26, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

IP addresses suspected of being used to avoid a block ( WP:IPSOCK) can be reported at WP:SPI. On the other hand, I did observe these changes in some articles and I can find no egregious error, or worse, in using those instrument names. In fact, calling a French Horn merely a Horn can be seen as misleading. -- Michael Bednarek ( talk) 06:39, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
I'm sorry I'm so late to this. I think the problem here isn't just the rightness or wrongness of the edits, but the editor's crusading zeal and unwillingness or inability to discuss what they are doing. Yes, there is an issue to discuss about horn vs. French horn and indeed some of this editor's other changes are more problematical. But what I object to is this sort of edit campaign with no consensus behind it. Surely if one wants to do a crusade like this then the way to approach it is to bring it here or somewhere and get consensus for it - then you've got something to fall back on when you start going off editing swathes of the encyclopaedia. Whether French horn or soprano clarinet are good edits is almost a red herring - the problem is that they are not wholly uncontentious edits and it's disruptive to go on making them without discussion when there's obvious opposition. Best wishes to all DBaK ( talk) 21:28, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
PS - have a look at Talk:Horn (instrument) for some worryingly lengthy discussion of the naming business. I had a quick look and just went aaaargh. :) DBaK ( talk) 21:32, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Category renaming proposals

Proposals have been made to rename

and

Interested editors can comment at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 March 15. -- Deskford ( talk) 21:19, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

When is an overture a symphonic poem?

I'm not disputing this edit by User:Grutness, but it does raise an interesting issue. How many other works titled "Overture" (and other works in Category:Overtures) should also be categorised in Category:Symphonic poems? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 23:43, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I was unsure of adding The Hebrides to that list and category for those very reasons - it seemed... if not a contradiction in terms, then certainly an odd combination. There were quite a large number of sites around the web, though, which gave the piece as a classic (if you'll pardon the pun) example of a symphonic poem. I think the clue might be found in a comment in our article on The Hebrides, though - The music, though labelled as an overture, is intended to stand as a complete work. I'd suggest this might be the difference. It may well be that if a work is a stand-alone piece rather than part of a larger work, it is more likely to be seen as a tone poem. If an "overture" (or "intermezzo", for that matter) is in reality designed as a complete piece in its own right, it may be more appropriate to consider whether it is a tone poem. Grutness... wha? 00:00, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
Titles are funny things. Mendelssohn could very easily have called it a symphonic or tone poem, and the world would have accepted that immediately. Mind you, that terminology hadn't been invented yet - but that never stopped him coming up with Songs without Words all by himself. We tend to dismiss Tchaikovsky's Manfred as not in the same class as his 6 numbered symphonies and not worthy of inclusion in a performed or recorded cycle. But he did call it a symphony; he just chose not to give it a number. Same with Mahler's The Song of the Earth. It is a symphony, Mahler himself said so. There are many miscellaneous and relatively short orchestral pieces that are not symphonies, overtures etc, that are not called "tone poem" but could easily have been so called, except they weren't. I just wonder whether it's up to us or anyone else to decide that they are tone poems, without the imprimatur of the composer. Is there a standard form for a symphonic or tone poem that they neatly fit into? If Sibelius had called The Swan of Tuonela an overture, would we nevertheless be classifying it as a tone poem? Just thinking aloud here. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 20:36, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
So much is in the intent of the composer, but - as you say - if the terminology didn't exist, it's difficult to tell. We do get into difficult territory, even with multiple movement works (I could quite easily see Antonin Dvořák's New World as a series of four symphonic poems, although the intention to present them as movements of one piece is clear). I suppose the logical thing to do is to go by the "no OR" route - if we can find reputable sources which claim a piece is a tone poem, then it qualifies. If not, it doesn't. Grutness... wha? 23:05, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
Belatedly, I agree with that approach. Thanks. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 10:52, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Categorisation of symphonies needs restructuring

Please see the short discussion at User talk:Stfg #Symphony categorisation. I hope it speaks for itself.

I'd love to hear from anyone who can explain why symphony categories are currently structured the way they are, and can convince us they should stay that way. Cheers. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 23:50, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Looking closer at the current categories, for period we have:
and for forces we already have:
as well as the article List of organ symphonies. If we want to change this set (as opposed to simply adding to it), we have a big job. But we could keep all these and then, if wanted, add new categories for the 18th and 19th centuries and for symphonies for chamber orchestra and full orchestra. In the latter case, though, we need to be clear what we mean, since perceptions of the boundary between chamber and full orchestra vary according to period. -- Stfg ( talk) 14:31, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Need eyes on Joseph Kerman

He may well have died (he was nearly 90). However, two IPs keep adding that he died yesterday. They provide no published source, and I cannot find one either. I'm at 2 reverts so could other editors keep an eye on this. We simply cannot publish this without a reference. Wikipedia is not a source of "breaking news". Voceditenore ( talk) 10:09, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

AOK. Reference found. Voceditenore ( talk) 14:33, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

This article may need a bit of cleanup, especially as regards WP:DUE. Toccata quarta ( talk) 10:36, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Holy Cow! I've chopped out at least half of that promotional mess, This was one of those drafts that got approved at Articles for Creation in the bad old days. The editor started reviewing and accepting articles after making about 50 edits minor edits to Wikipedia. All of the articles he approved where later deleted, some as blatant copvio and/or promotion. This was the only one that survived and the notability is extremely marginal. So much so, that I'm strongly tempted to take it to AfD. Voceditenore ( talk) 14:41, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

French-language texts

Somebody has just been adding a fair amount of texts in French to the article Ivry Gitlis. Any suggestions on what to do about it? Thanks, Toccata quarta ( talk) 09:48, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

The only ones seem to be to his autobiography in French which is verifying some of the information added. Are you talking about all the links in that massive "Recordings" section? They are to material at the Institut national de l'audiovisuel, which is OK, but they ought to be formatted better. And frankly, that whole section out to be hived off to a separate article and maybe pruned (especially the "Live, private, radio TV archives, uncommercial" sub-section which is pretty obviously original research). Voceditenore ( talk) 10:24, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
I was referring to the some of the content of the section "Filmography". Toccata quarta ( talk) 08:06, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, that's a sub-section of Recordings and all those links are to material at the Institut national de l'audiovisuel, so OK but technically they should be formatted as citations/footnotes instead of using that column for (badly formatted) external links. Voceditenore ( talk) 09:01, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm not talking about the external links, but about some of the content of the column "Gitlis role / content" in the table in that section. Toccata quarta ( talk) 10:11, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
DOH! How could I have missed that?! It all has to go. Apart from being in French, it's all pasted verbatim from the web pages in the info/note column and is a copyright infringement. Ditto the three lengthy entries in English: Legends Interview Series - Ivry Gitlis pasted from [3]; The Soul of The Violin pasted from [4]; and Ruggiero Ricci - Life is a Violin pasted from [5]Voceditenore ( talk) 10:35, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I think TQ is referring to this sequence of edits done on 16 March. Not only is it in French, but it's copy-pasted from various pages on www.ina.fr. I think this may be a good-faith attempt to contribute by someone who doesn't yet know how we work. I've posted a gentle warning on the IP's talk page. If it continues, it may be necessary to seek intervention by the copyright team, but we should AGF for one round of this. -- Stfg ( talk) 10:34, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, we can assume good faith, but the material has to go. Voceditenore ( talk) 10:36, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, absolutely. I've removed it. Some of the English-language material was copyvio too, and has gone with the rest. It was gushy editorializing anyway. -- Stfg ( talk) 12:11, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Just now an IP added back some of the copyvio from one of the entries. A different IP, but both of them geolocate to Padua. I've placed a {{ uw-copyright}} on that one's talk page, for what it's worth on an IP's talk. If this goes on, I believe we'll need admin intervention. -- Stfg ( talk) 14:25, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

References sections

Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music/Guidelines#References calls for "the use of the semi-colon to provide bold-face (without the item cluttering the table of contents)". This directly violates Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Headings, which states: "Do not make pseudo-headings using bold or semicolon markup. Screen readers and other machines can only use correctly formatted headings. If you want to reduce the size of the table of contents (TOC), use {{ TOC limit}} instead." Guideline#References also seeks to restrict the use of options in WP:LAYOUT, and as such is a case of instruction creep. The archives of this talk page and the Guidelines talk page show no indication of these matters having been discussed. Is there any reason to retain the Guideline#References section? -- Stfg ( talk) 14:43, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

For some time, it has been the practice of several editors to follow the MoS you mention and replace semicolons with Wiki markup to bold those lines; the guideline just hasn't been updated and it should be. I would not call the section Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music/Guidelines#References "instruction creep" but "helpful guidance" which, if followed, creates a consistent appearance. I don't think anyone would try to enforce that scheme against editors who use other recognised layout options. -- Michael Bednarek ( talk) 15:45, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Dear classical music editors: This old draft was never submitted to be added to the encyclopedia. I had no trouble finding news and reviews for this musician. It needs a little work - anyone interested in improving it? — Anne Delong ( talk) 15:30, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Anne. I'll do it in a couple of days and move it into article space. He's definitely notable, although the article needs a bit of... er... work. Best, Voceditenore ( talk) 16:48, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Dear classical music experts: Here's another one of those abandoned Afc submissions. Is this a notable musician? Could there be references in Italian? — Anne Delong ( talk) 22:31, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Anne. Frankly, I'd let this one die a death. He's not remotely in the same league as Maxim Rysanov (above), despite the way he describes himself all over the place. The article is so full of puffery, that it's not worth rescuing. He might scrape a pass because of his two recordings with Claves Records, although they are a far-from-frontline label. He has no major concert career, and there's no coverage of him as a person. Despite going on about the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, he did not win 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place—just two of the small prizes and I cannot even find verification for that. Voceditenore ( talk) 19:24, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
Okay; if no one edits it. it should disappear in a month or so. — Anne Delong ( talk) 22:02, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

It looks like this article was an attempt to list all the (presumably original) works composed for piano duo (4 hands at either one or two pianos). Only someone who doesn't know the literature would think they could create such a list; a near-complete list would probably include hundreds of works, each one of which would need to be annotated (in keeping with WP's preference for lists). I'd say this article should be deleted. -- kosboot ( talk) 23:37, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I doubt it was meant to be exhaustive. Maybe if we insert the word "notable" after "of"? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 12:03, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Notable according to whom? or based on what criteria? -- kosboot ( talk) 12:06, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Dvorak symphonies sub-titles

Over the last few weeks, I've seen a slow edit-war by IPs trying to place unsourced sub-titles on Dvorak symphonies, for example calling No 8 in G major "Czechoslovak". This has extended to the Template:Dvořák symphonies as can be seen from its history to February 2014:

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Template:Dvo%C5%99%C3%A1k_symphonies&action=history&offset=201403

Although the articles seem well-watched, I'm not sure the template is, so I'm considering asking for semi-protection for the template. Before I do, I thought I'd better ask if there is any validity in the appellations and I hope this is a good place to enquire. Thanks in advance for any insights. Cheers -- RexxS ( talk) 14:56, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

This is an ongoing problem - I just reverted a couple more new changes. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 11:51, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
There may be some mention in the literature of sub-titles other than for the 1st and the 9th, but if so, they would be so obscure and unknown as to be meaningless. Never once in over 50 years of Dvorak appreciation have I ever heard No. 8 called the "Czechoslovak". We had a similar problem with all 24 of the Chopin Preludes. A small handful have epithets, the rest do not; but will that satisfy some people? No way. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 12:07, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Dear editors: This may not be the right place to report this old Afc submission. Is there a project for choral music? — Anne Delong ( talk) 19:40, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Free access to Grove online for Library Week, April 13-19

In honor of National Library Week in the US, Oxford University Press is offering free access to all online OUP products during the week of 13-19 April. The official blurb is at: http://global.oup.com/academic/librarians/national-library-week/?cc=us&lang=en& Username & password are the same: libraryweek -- kosboot ( talk) 01:04, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Symphony_No._7_(Mahler)

I'm thinking of suggesting Symphony No. 7 (Mahler) as a Good Article. Do you think it's ready? If not, what remains to be done? -- Leptictidium ( mt) 12:41, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

It needs quite a lot of work before going there:
  • There are cleanup tags calling for better citations and less promotional tone. The Background, Structure, 3rd movement, 4th movement, Critical analysis, Premieres, Recordings and Other appearances sections are completely uncited.
  • Much of the text is to be found on this page of the Philharmonia Orchestra's web site, and also on a Youtube page and a couple of other probable clones. None of them credit Wikipedia -- that doesn't mean it isn't ours, but we should make sure it really is.
  • There are some words-to-watch issues, such as the use of "pointed out" in the lede.
  • There is lots of WP:OR and some of it is appallingly gushing. For example: "Scampering woodwind pass off into the distance as the horns introduce a rich, somewhat bucolic theme, surrounded by dancing strings."
  • The Other appearances section is trivia.
  • The list of recordings, apart from being uncited, contains no useful information. It's just a list of conductors and orchestras.
So I think it would need quite a lot of work to get it to GA standard. -- Stfg ( talk) 13:10, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Page move

Just wondering, what do you all think of this page move? Toccata quarta ( talk) 06:37, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Fascinating! I suppose it must be the primary topic by quite a large margin, but I think the move is unhelpful, because many readers won't know that. The justification claimed is WP:PRECISION. That section of the AT policy says "Exceptions to the precision criterion may sometimes result from the application of some other naming criteria. Most of these exceptions are described in specific Wikipedia guidelines or by Wikipedia projects ..." So I wonder if we'd like to have a rule stating that when an article's title just mentions the genre and the number, then the composer should always be named in the article title, regardless of whether this work is the primary topic. (Don't you just know that someone will come along and argue that Symphony No. 5 has a primary topic too ;) -- Stfg ( talk) 10:23, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
  • (Reluctant to appear here at all:) I wouldn't say the composer should always be named, but yes if there's a series, such as the Mozart's piano concertos or Beethoven's piano sonatas. Remember No. 14, in 2012? Many thoughts about series can be found among the rubbish of Moonlight, -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 11:16, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
Agree with Gerda. Although it's too late for Mozart now (as well as Beethoven sonatas), I never would have used consecutive numbers when more distinctive numbers (in this case, Köchel) would have been more succinct and unambiguous. -- kosboot ( talk) 13:03, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
(ec) @ kosboot: If not there yet, make redirects, such as K. 220 and Missa, K. 220. Once in that article, I highly doubt that "No. 10" and the key should be bolded. It is "Mass", better "Missa", and has no title, just a nickname. The talk shows ways how that could easily be sorted out. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 13:18, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
In the spirit of WP:BRD I've moved it back – the next stage in the process is discussion. Personally I agree with Kosboot that Köchel numbers might be more helpful that these sequential numbers... but that's a different issue! -- Deskford ( talk) 13:09, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, Deskford. A good criterion is what happens in the real world. No radio announcer would ever say "We hear now the Nineteenth Piano Concerto, performed by Malcolm Bilson with John Eliot Gardiner leading the English Baroque Soloists." Ditto for CD covers, published scores, etc. etc.. Opus33 ( talk) 19:55, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to Participate in a User Study - Final Reminder

Would you be interested in participating in a user study of a new tool to support editor involvement in WikiProjects? We are a team at the University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within WikiProjects, and we are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visual exploration tool for Wikipedia. Given your interest in this Wikiproject, we would welcome your participation in our study. To participate, you will be given access to our new visualization tool and will interact with us via Google Hangout so that we can solicit your thoughts about the tool. To use Google Hangout, you will need a laptop/desktop, a web camera, and a speaker for video communication during the study. We will provide you with an Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page ( http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster ( talk) 01:49, 15 April 2014 (UTC).

Cleanup needed

The article Idin Samimi Mofakham needs massive cleanup. Help in fixing the article is welcome. Toccata quarta ( talk) 17:46, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Dear classical music experts: Does this old Afc draft have any information which should be added to the mainspace article Tatiana Shebanova? Or should be just let it go under db-g13? — Anne Delong ( talk) 02:27, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

No opinion here, so I have gone ahead and done it. Someone may wish to check my work. — Anne Delong ( talk) 20:07, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Dear classical music experts: Here's another one of those old Afc submissions soon to be deleted as a stale draft. Is this a notable subject. and should the article be improved instead? — Anne Delong ( talk) 20:20, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any reviews for him, just lots of promotional material. -- kosboot ( talk) 21:32, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I had the same experience. It'll soon be gone unless someone else finds reliable sources. Thanks for taking time to look. — Anne Delong ( talk) 22:05, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Article needing improvement

Please take note: the article Musethica contains no references and does not comply with WP:NPV. The topic of the article may not even be notable. Toccata quarta ( talk) 11:56, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Removal of "Pau" Casals from all articles

Please someone have a look at Talk:Pablo Casals. An IP has been removing all use of the Catalan name of Pau/Pablo Casals because the Spanish name is more common than the Catalan name in English sources (it is, by a ratio of 3:1), but I was under the impression that in articles specifically about Catalan culture we use Catalan not Spanish names if that is what English sources do - at least that is what I've seen. Unfortunately neither WP:ESMOS nor WP:CAMOS exist (or rather only as drafts we left on the shelf years ago) so I'd think asking at WP Classical music constitutes neutral ground. Guidance please. In ictu oculi ( talk) 23:46, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I would like to provide some information here. I am the IP user and I changed the names in good faith, not realising that it could be considered to be problematic by some. From the links that In ictu oculi has provided and the searches I have made, English sources do not appear to prefer Pau in relation to the song or to Catalan culture generally. I have given more information on Pablo Casals that you can read. There is a further mention of this on El cant dels ocells, where In ictu oculi has claimed that Pau is far more common. His assertion is a Google Books search for ' "el cant dels ocells" "pau casals" song ' , which will inevitably suggest Pau is more common, because the user has included Pau in the search. If we change Pau to Pablo, more than twice as many sources are found, which indicates that Pablo is preferred. 131.111.185.66 ( talk) 00:28, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
Another good example showing why users should register - so that others can communicate with them. -- kosboot ( talk) 03:02, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
Our IP friend has now been putting in a new variant, for example in Music of Catalonia article from "cellist Pau Casals is admired" to "Cellist Pablo (known in Catalonia by his Catalan name, Pau Casals) is admired". This seems to me to be (a) WP:POINTY and (b) not true, since Casals is known as both Pablo and Pau in Catalonia depending on what language the speaker is speaking, and also the same in English books which are not "in Catalonia" but 3:1 use Pau. FWIW Talk:Pablo Casals#Survey. In ictu oculi ( talk) 09:35, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Initially, you said you opposed my exclusion of Pau from these articles. This is why I restored Pau alongside Pablo, as given in your above edit, yet you still oppose this, since it appears as if you do not want Pablo in any Catalan-related article. Perhaps it might be better, instead of opposing any mention of Pablo, to help think of a better wording that maintains Pau but lets the reader know that Pau is Pablo. I would be more than happy to work with you.
Your unsupported assertion that Pau is used by a ratio of three to one goes completely against the evidence given at Talk:Pablo Casals#Survey. Both of the two links you have previously given actually suggest that Pablo is preferred to Pau. Please support your assertions.
For those who have not read the full discussion, I have manually gone through the first few pages of various search results to consider usage. I shall summarise these results here. In general books where Casals is mentioned, Pablo is preferred 17 to 0. In audio recordings by Casals, Pablo is preferred 34 to 1. In a books search for mentions of Casals and the El cant dels ocells, which is the article where this dispute began, Pablo is preferred 11 to 2. In the very specific field of books written English about Catalan music, Pablo and Pau were used equally: 2 to 2. This is all discussed fully at Talk:Pablo Casals#Survey, which includes relevant links and descriptions of the methodology. Please take the time to study the evidence properly, rather than believing the above user's unjustified and unsupported assertions. 131.111.185.66 ( talk) 15:20, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Update. The request for comments has been closed and it has been judged by an administrator that Pablo should be used. 86.131.145.4 ( talk) 21:07, 19 April 2014 (UTC) This is the same user as 131.111.185.66 ( talk), who has relocated since the beginning of this dispute.

Pablo Casals

I am writing to inform you that there is currently a request for comments on Talk:Pablo Casals in which some users of this project might wish to participate. 131.111.185.66 ( talk) 22:47, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

See my added comment above regarding the latest variant among the 30 articles affected. For comparison I note we have Jiří Antonín Benda as WP:AT but no blanket ban on Georg Benda redirect with 20 incoming links from other articles. There must be many other German/Czech, German/Hungarian/ Latin/French, Latin/Italian, French/Occitan etc. cases in the article corpus where we are applying (a sort of) WP:ENGVAR. I don't see a reason to make a special case out of Casals. In ictu oculi ( talk) 09:39, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
There is a distinct difference with Benda: Jiří Antonín and Georg are both used commonly in English. See the below links (be warned that some of the Amazon results are for an unrelated conductor called Benda):
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=sr_nr_n_0?rh=n%3A229816%2Cn%3A697386%2Ck%3Abenda&keywords=benda&ie=UTF8&qid=1393773858&rnid=520920
http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/c/Benda%252C%2BG/all/1
On the first three pages of Amazon, Jiří Antonín is preferred to Georg 8 to 6. On the three pages of Presto Classical, Jiří Antonín and George are used 6 times each. In other words, both names are used commonly in English. Compare this to Casals, where Pablo is preferred 17 to 0 in books (Google Books) and 34 to 2 in recordings (Amazon) (sources are provided at Talk:Pablo Casals#Survey). We cannot presume that English readers will recognise such an obscure name.
Also, please note the advice given at WP:EN: 'If a particular name is widely used in English-language sources, then that name is generally the most appropriate, no matter what name is used by non-English sources.' 131.111.185.66 ( talk) 15:32, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Amazon is a web retailer.
While we're on the subject of Amazon This however is a CD cover of the Sony Pau Casals edition with Casal's signature "Pau Casals" over printed name "Pablo Casals" ...not that Amazon is relevant... In ictu oculi ( talk) 08:21, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Amazon is a web retailer that gives results for recordings that indicate that Pablo is vastly more common that Pau (34 to 2). I have already responded to the comment about Casals' signatures (which he regularly signed as both Pablo and Pau) on Talk:Pablo Casals. 131.111.185.66 ( talk) 10:08, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Update. The request for comments has been closed and it has been judged by an administrator that Pablo should be used. 86.131.145.4 ( talk) 21:07, 19 April 2014 (UTC) This is the same user as 131.111.185.66 ( talk), who has relocated since the beginning of this dispute.

Dear classical music experts: This old Afc submission needs a rewrite for NPOV, which I am willing to do if this is a notable musician. Any opinions? — Anne Delong ( talk) 17:53, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure she is notable. I'm surprised we don't have an article on her already. -- Deskford ( talk) 18:03, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks; I've postponed G13 deletion for six months to give time for improvement. Please, everyone, feel free to work on it if you so choose. — Anne Delong ( talk) 17:09, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

"Pupils and pupils of pupils of X"

Hello, maybe I'm just not with the program and if so let me know. But I just noticed this:

/info/en/?search=Category:All_music_pupils_by_teacher

The categories this page lists are not the (normal-seeming) "Pupils of X" but something that is called "Pupils and pupils of pupils of X". This seems terribly awkward to me (indeed my first thought was that it was a joke or vandalism). This very complicatedly-named category type includes information that would be readily deducible from a simpler category type "Pupils of X". If someone can explain what is going on here, please do. Regards, Opus33 ( talk) 04:13, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

If not a joke, it's certainly bizarre. I noticed those categories' original version at Category:Pupils of Heinrich Schütz and left my observations there. However, I sense that my reasoning will not be met with rational arguments by the categories' creator, User:Hyacinth, so I'll let it be. -- Michael Bednarek ( talk) 08:00, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
What is your reasoning? Hyacinth ( talk) 08:05, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Hello, here is a bit of reasoning. It's really more interesting and important to know who a composer's pupils were than to know who the pupils of the pupils were. But mixing them up in one category makes it impossible to make this distinction without looking up each individual article. Opus33 ( talk) 00:18, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
Hello.
Are there any pupils of a pupil of a teacher in the "pupils and pupils of pupils of" category for that teacher?
I did not object to the "pupils of" format (such as "Category:Pupils of Giovanni Gabrieli"), and the creation of the "pupils and pupils of pupils of" format was my response to another editors complaint about the "pupils of" format. Hyacinth ( talk) 00:30, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
Hello again, Hyacinth. Given that you don't actually object, do you think you could change these categories back to "Pupils of"? I think the category would be helpful in this format and people would enjoy checking who studied with who. Yours sincerely, Opus33 ( talk) 03:10, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
History: On 4 April, I noticed that Hyacinth added the category:Pupils of Giovanni Gabrieli (now deleted) to Category:Pupils of Heinrich Schütz. I removed that category with the edit summary "Schütz was, his pupils not." Two edits later, Hyacinth added the category:Pupils and pupils of pupils of Giovanni Gabrieli and commented at Category talk:Pupils of Heinrich Schütz: "I believe I have solved the problem."
As it now stands, the category:Pupils of Heinrich Schütz is undiscoverable unless one already knows that Schütz was a pupil of Gabrieli and is listed at Category:Pupils and pupils of pupils of Giovanni Gabrieli; however, that category is also undiscoverable unless one already knows that Gabrieli was a pupil of Orlando and is listed at Category:Pupils and pupils of pupils of Orlande de Lassus. That category is discoverable because it's listed at Category:Music pupils by teacher where Schütz and Gabrieli are not. There is a category:All music pupils by teacher, but it's hidden and thus of little value; it also does not include Category:Pupils of Heinrich Schütz.
Having categories "Music pupils by teacher" is useful, but it's wrong to add a "Category:Pupils of Giovanni Gabrieli" to a "Category:Pupils of Heinrich Schütz" because, althought Schütz was Gabrieli's pupil, Schütz's pupils were not. Naming all these categories "Pupil and pupils of ..." in order to create a cascade of categories creates a meaningless morass, impossible to navigate. That theses categories are sorted by "first name, last name" in the hidden category:All music pupils by teacher only compounds the problem. Many of these categories are empty or contain other empty categories. Consider this subtree:
Category Pupils and pupils of pupils of Aaron Copland not found
which contains no articles but five empty categories. The Copeland category itself is categorised as Category:Pupils and pupils of pupils of Nadia Boulanger and Category:Pupils and pupils of pupils of Isidor Philipp and Category:Pupils and pupils of pupils of Paul Vidal and Category:Pupils and pupils of pupils of Rubin Goldmark and is thus not directly discoverable. I believe most of the categories in Category:All music pupils by teacher are empty.
This whole exercise is an elaborate, but misguided attempt to display a large set of relationships which might be suited to a list, a table, or most probably to a set of family tree displays. -- Michael Bednarek ( talk) 09:59, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
I agree. To continue the Copland example, the article Leonard Bernstein, for example, doesn't seem to be in any pupils-of category at all, and it's hard to see the point of this tree of article-less categories. Sometimes in the music literature one sees statements that some pianist was a pupil of someone who claimed (not always truthfully) to be a pupil of Liszt, Chopin or Clara Schumann (usually those three). But on the whole, I'd have thought that who someone was a pupil of is enough information. -- Stfg ( talk) 10:21, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
In any event, isn't the term "grandpupil" (and "great-grandpupil" etc) pretty standard these days? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 13:34, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Would User:Michael Bednarek and others prefer that I move these categories back to their original format: "pupils of X"? Hyacinth ( talk) 21:35, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes. And perhaps in the future you might want to discuss such modifications before implementing them. -- kosboot ( talk) 12:50, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
I hate loading work on anyone, but yes, if you're willing to, I think that would be better. -- Stfg ( talk) 14:29, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes indeed, I would appreciate your doing this. Opus33 ( talk) 22:41, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

In response to the change from "pupils and pupils of pupils of" to "pupils of", a user has complained at Category talk:Pupils of Heinrich Schütz#Categories for this category. Hyacinth ( talk) 21:19, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Your understanding of how categories work is deficient. If you don't understand that adding the category:Pupils of Nicola Porpora to the category:Joseph Haydn makes the indentation on Mercury, Haydn (crater), a pupil of Porpora, I can't do much more than roll my eyes. -- Michael Bednarek ( talk) 04:12, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Aside from reasoning, I would also appreciate if we could quote polices/guidelines. Hyacinth ( talk) 07:29, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
We have solved the question of whether the categories should be titled "pupil and pupil of pupil of X" or "pupil of X". There is still another question, posed by Michael Bednarek, as to whether it should exist at all. Hyacinth ( talk) 05:08, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

I never said that; I said the opposite: "Having categories 'Music pupils by teacher' is useful" (just as I think List of music students by teacher is useful). My disagreement is with your placement of these categories. The categories "Pupils of ..." must never be applied to any other category "Pupils of ...", only to the article of the pupils. Example: Category:Pupils of Aaron Copland (which should not be a hidden category) must not be applied to any of the categories Pupils of Samuel Adler (composer), Pupils of Leonard Bernstein, Pupils of Mario Davidovsky, Pupils of Jacob Druckman and Pupils of Alvin Lucier, but to the articles on Samuel Adler (composer), Leonard Bernstein, Mario Davidovsky, Jacob Druckman, and Alvin Lucier. -- Michael Bednarek ( talk) 06:16, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
I think Michael is right. Things in a subcategory could also have been in the parent category, but for the desire for greater precision. Thus for example, Category:Symphonies has Category:Choral symphonies as a subcategory, and this works because we're saying that Beethoven's 9th is a choral symphony, and by virtue of that, is also a symphony. In general, if we make SC to be a subcategory of C, we are claiming that everything that is an SC is by definition also a C.
But it is not the case that everyone who was a pupil of Aaron Copland was a pupil of Nadia Boulanger: some of his pupils definitely weren't. For this reason, the article Aaron Copland should be placed in Category:Pupils of Nadia Boulanger, but the category Category:Pupils of Aaron Copland shouldn't.
We would have the right structure if every pupils-of category were a subcategory of Category:All music pupils by teacher and not of any other pupils-of category, and if these categories were to be populated with the articles of those composers who actually studied with that teacher (and not with the teacher's "grandpupils", etc).
Sorry if that's a lot of work. Ping me if you want some gnoming done. -- Stfg ( talk) 11:39, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
Hyacinth, you asked that we quote polices/guidelines. The one we need is probably the guideline WP:SUBCAT, where it says: "When making one category a subcategory of another, ensure that the members of the subcategory really can be expected (with possibly a few exceptions) to belong to the parent also." -- Stfg ( talk) 11:45, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the clear explanation, Stfg, this seems totally right to me. Opus33 ( talk) 13:00, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Um, sorry to change the subject but: I only noticed just now (when I started editing the Haydn pupil category) that these categories are hidden (except to users who specify they want to see hidden categories). Is this what we want? I feel that a "Pupils of X" category would be at least as useful as many of the other non-hidden categories we already have. So I'm curious what people think about this issue. Opus33 ( talk) 13:00, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Hidden categories are used for certain administrative categories which these are not, and I've argued above against hiding them. The technical reason that they're hidden is the template {{ Music pupils by teacher}} which is applied to each category under discussion, including the parent categories Music pupils by teacher and All music pupils by teacher. The term {{ Hidden category}} needs to be removed from that template. -- Michael Bednarek ( talk) 03:30, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes, it does seem unnecessarily complicated. I suggest removing Category Music pupils by teacher and the template altogether and unhiding all the subcategories of All music pupils by teacher. It's a pity to hide those, since the information in them has good surfing potential. -- Stfg ( talk) 10:02, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
Rats, I've tried to implement the unhiding but the change doesn't seem to be effective. If someone more wiki-handy than me wants to take this on I would be grateful. Opus33 ( talk) 19:49, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
Phew, this is so complicated! The article Ludwig van Beethoven, which you manually added to Category:Pupils of Joseph Haydn the other day, shows that category as not hidden, and so do the other three pages in that category. OTOH, John Mauceri shows Category:Pupils of Leonard Bernstein as hidden. Yet these two categories have exactly the same form: first they invoke Template:Music pupils by teacher, then they list their sub-categories, and nothing else. I can't see why the difference. Could it be a server caching issue? As you say, we seem to need some wiki expertise to help us. -- Stfg ( talk) 10:03, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
Hi Stfg, I should have updated -- the changes I made did get made visible eventually. So hopefully the ones you noticed will become visible sooner or later. I agree that the Wiki-software is behaving weirdly. Opus33 ( talk) 02:42, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
Hi. Well, let's see, but I'm a bit pessimistic. I've just done a minor c/e on John Mauceri, which I'd have expected to clear any server caching, but the category is still hidden. I've also added Category:Pupils of Aaron Copland to Samuel Adler (composer), which wasn't in any pupils-of category at all before, so I'd have thought that any reconstruction of the HTML by the servers should take the latest version of the added category, as affected by your edits. But that one is hidden as well. Those edits should be harmless and can be reverted if necessary, but this whole issue is beyond my technical knowledge, and I'm reluctant to try any wider experiments that may just make things harder to fix. What do you think? Do we just wait for a week and see what shakes down, or ...? -- Stfg ( talk) 16:02, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
It does seem extraordinarly long for those changes of visibility to take effect and like Stfg, I'm not confident that they ever will. Maybe it would help if those misleading categorisations of categories would be removed – e.g. remove Category:Pupils of Nadia Boulanger, Category:Pupils of Isidor Philipp, Category:Pupils of Paul Vidal, Category:Pupils of Rubin Goldmark from Category:Pupils of Aaron Copland – etc etc for all 182 Category:All music pupils by teacher. The only category appropriate for all these categories is Category:Music pupils by teacher (with a proper sort term), and any eponymous categories where they exist ( Category:Wikipedia categories named after composers), e.g. Category:Johann Sebastian Bach. -- Michael Bednarek ( talk) 02:04, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
I just spent some veg time on the pupil categories for Haydn and Mozart. My sense is that if you take out the dangerous "nested pupil" categories, the changes you make get updated promptly as they should. In other words, I think Michael's diagnosis of the problem is correct. Opus33 ( talk) 02:58, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
Ah, good news! Thanks, Opus33. I'm offering now to go through all the nested categories. Wherever a category Pupils of X contains a subcategory Pupils of Y, I'd add the article for Y to Pupils of X, and then remove Pupils of Y from Pupils of X. The aim is to solve the visibility issue and make these useful categories more browsable by general readers. I could start this evening if there's consensus. @ Hyacinth: would you be OK with that? -- Stfg ( talk) 09:48, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
I'm going to start this, and do it in alphabetical order. Hyacinth hasn't replied, but has edited, so I'm now assuming this is acceptable. Cheers, -- Stfg ( talk) 16:07, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
A wiki-halo for you! Opus33 ( talk) 16:54, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks :) Just a quick note: empty categories are being CSD'ed with C1, so I'm doing it in two passes, first putting categories in articles, and only then removing subcategories. To avoid losing info, we shouldn't turn categories into leaves of the tree until we've populated any that can be populated. Cheers, -- Stfg ( talk) 20:21, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
I believe it's all done now. -- Stfg ( talk) 21:50, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Mozart's death discussion

There is currently a discussion at Talk:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in this section. Members' input there would be appreciated. The discussion concerns the content of the article's section Final illness and death. Voceditenore ( talk) 15:07, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet For Classical music At Wikimania 2014

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Adikhajuria ( talk) 15:23, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Schools of instrument playing

We refer to, e.g. the Russian "school" of pianism, the Belgian "school" of violin playing, the French "school" of flute playing, and so on. The only such article I've come across is Hungarian school of violin playing (which I've renamed from "Hungarian violin school" to make sure it didn't sound like an educational institution). It’s currently categorised in Category:Music schools, which is normally reserved for your actual educational institutions, so that needs a rethink.

Any thoughts about how we name and categorise any similar articles? Are there any other others lurking? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 20:50, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Something like "Hungarian violin tradition" might make it even clearer that it isn't an institution. Is something like "National traditions of musical performance" close to a suitable category name? (By the way, that article is both completely unsourced and an orphan.) -- Stfg ( talk) 21:28, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
If we keep all but the first word lower case, that should indicate that it's not an institution but a stylistic characteristic ("German school of singing" vs. "German School of Singing"). It would be easy to come up with a euphemism, but I think we should try to stick to the phrases the sources use (they often use "school" in describing such stylistic traits). At least in vocal music, I know these terms are used occasionally, but I can think of only one source that actually tries to define them. -- kosboot ( talk) 03:27, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 15/05

Mind having a look at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Olga Pashchenko? Voceditenore and I aren't so sure about this one... Thanks, FoCuSandLeArN ( talk) 14:45, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

She has a detailed profile at the official website of the Mariinsky Theatre and her website lists reviews and press articles in multiple languages, so I would say she might be notable. -- Vejvančický ( talk / contribs) 14:52, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
[6] ( de Volkskrant, nl), [7] ( Télérama, fr), [8] (Trentino Cultura, it), [9] ( Klassik.com, de). -- Vejvančický ( talk / contribs) 15:07, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Dear classical music experts: I have no idea what a "historically informed performance specialist" is, but this old AfC submission is about one and will soon be deleted as a stale draft unless it's a notable topic which should be kept and improved instead. What do you think? — Anne Delong ( talk) 12:06, 17 May 2014 (UTC)