Talk:Georg Christian Schemelli

Neutrality and lack of references regarding Gesang-Buch description

• "...with texts in the tradition of pietism, and probably intended for private contemplation" – is that so?
• "...a melody and a bass line" – a "bass line" and a figured bass are not the same
• "The melodies are often like simple arias, rather than like chorales" – says who?
• "...which explains the contact" – according to whom?
• "... [Bach's] authorship is certain only for two of them, "Komm, süßer Tod", BWV 452 (p. 478), and "Ich liebe Jesum alle Stund", BWV 468 (p. 505)" – quite atrocious POV.
• "...Bach probably wrote the bass lines for the others" – afaik some of the bass lines were definitely not by Bach
• "...modified some of the melodies" – says who? --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:09, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

I translated this article from the German Wikipedia. Yesterday. I had no time for the search for sources yet. If I made a mistake identifying the 505 from there with page 505 in the song book, I apologize. If you have better knowledge, just change the article. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:33, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Not so long ago I added the Wüllner (BGA) reference to the "Ich steh an deiner Krippen" article. At that time I re-read Wüllner's preface to that edition of the melodies in Schemellis Gesangbuch (that preface of BGA Vol. 39 being available on the IMSLP website), and thought about starting an article on that topic in Wikipedia. Alas, I had no time to do it properly, nor do I have time to do so today, still alas.

Thanks for translating, however:

• Some of the phrasing sounds quite Germanic to my ears: I didn't tag the article for that yet, as I thought it best to get the content right first, before asking assistance on wording.
• German Wikipedia is, as you (should) know, not a reliable source. I assess content according to English Wikipedia's standards.

If nobody has time to attend to the problems indicated by the tags, and further explained on this talk page, then it is best to keep such notifications up until someone has time to attend to them. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:06, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

I checked the German version, found that it was written in 2007 on liner notes and Bach Cantatas, and asked the author for details about the sources. Thank goodness it's someone who still edits. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:21, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Freundliche Vision? That link was probably unintended? --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:41, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Here's another useful link – There's only one which is 100% sure completely by Bach, and that's BWV 505, (which in the current article text seems unfortunately to have been confused with another one which appears on page 505 of the 1736 edition). --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:30, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

I apologized for that confusion above, thanks for the correction. Will do something about it but not right now. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:30, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

On taking a closer look at the German model and comparing it to the English translation here, I don't know in what universe

• "but his authorship is certain only for two of them, "Komm, süßer Tod", BWV 452 (p. 478), and "Ich liebe Jesum alle Stund", BWV 468 (p. 505)"

was intended as a translation of

• "jedoch gilt seine Urheberschaft in der neueren Bach-Forschung nur für BWV 452, 478 und 505 als wirklich gesichert"

I don't know what you were doing, but certainly not translating: you transformed an unreferenced phrase into some quite atrocious POV. So, please drop the "I was only translating" argument for introducing dodgy content in Wikipedia. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:41, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread, tried to fix, please check. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:56, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

"... in der neueren Bach-Forschung ..." seems an important part of the German original (indeed, e.g. Wüllner's 19th-century appraisal was quite different). But all of that should be covered by appropriate sources: the 1998 Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis *only* recognises BWV 505 as certain, so more modern scholarship should agree on the other two (***which can only be verified when proper references are given***), if we want to keep the English version of the German sentence in. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:11, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Here's a reference: footnote #23 says the attribution of BWV 452, 478 and 505 was Schering's, published in 1924 – not too modern, and older than the 1998 Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, which says something different. As I said, the text from German Wikipedia is unreliable, and should be replaced by something that can actually be verified. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:05, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Table?

Was thinking about starting a table, which could be something in this vein:

lyrics and settings in Schemellis Gesangbuch

# (p.)	incipit	lyrics	tune	Zahn	BGA	NBA	BWV
195 (131)	Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier	Gerhardt (1653)	Bach (likely)	4663	33	14	469
320 (215)	Auf, auf, mein Herz, mit Freuden	Gerhardt (1648)	Crüger (1648)	2543	03	27	441
868 (590)	Komm, süßer Tod		Bach (as good as certain)	4400	42	59	478

--Francis Schonken (talk) 06:53, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

That's a good idea, if we keep this article the place for it. I was thinking that we perhaps should separate all the later Bach research from the person, in a different article on the song book alone? Was also thinking of a similar table for the Paul Gerhardt hymns, with columns in historical order, Crüger / EG / GL. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:14, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

(ec) Both the

• Johann Crüger/Praxis pietatis melica approach (separate articles for hymnodist and their best known hymnal)

as the

• Gottfried Vopelius/Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch approach (hymnal as section in the biographical article of the hymnodist)

are possible for Georg Christian Schemelli/Musicalisches Gesang-Buch as far as I'm concerned. Re. separating "Bach research from the person": if you mean the biographical article on Schemelli by "the person", then I don't think that is very well possible. Do you know any significant secondary source on Schemelli *outside* of Bach-research? I think I never even saw an *insignificant* secondary source on Schemelli outside of Bach-research... (assuming that No. 913 pp. 315–317 in Zahn Vol. VI is rather a tertiary source: not inside Bach-research in a strict sense but about half of the Schemelli-related content about Bach nonetheless). Yeah, it may be some sort of forced marriage, but it is probably not very well possible to write much about Schemelli without referencing the lion share of the content to Bach-related research... --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:36, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Looking again, I'd prefer the text and tune columns before the many numbers, and would explain "as good as certain" before the table, having something shorter in the table. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:30, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Re-arrangement of columns: done; Explanations on likelihood/extent of Bach's involvement: sure, the problem is however the references, i.e. whether inside and/or outside of the table solid references should be given (if it weren't for that, the table would already be in mainspace). --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:36, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Another thought: perhaps have the hymns with an article linked, but those which are only a redirect not? With the poet in the following column, it would be easy to get to the same info, and some readers may be more interested in the composer. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:33, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Re. "With the poet in the following column, it would be easy to get to the same info" – not necessarily, the redirect wouldn't always go to an article on the poet. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:36, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Original research or Grove Music Online?

I noticed that there is a well-written article on Georg Christian Schemelli, with five bibliographical references (Kinsky (1937), Butler (1984), Wiemer (1984 & 1985) and Rempp (1991)). It was compiled by Walter Emery and Gregory Butler. It is very easy to summarise and/or paraphrase the content here. I suggested this resource to Gerda Arendt a few days ago. If she is still interested, I have given access to a private copy of the article (via Cambridge University Library). This seems to be the only place where this kind of information is available. Mathsci (talk) 09:30, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

I think Schemelli's works are primary sources, dating from 1736. It is not possible to create content from those. On the other hand the article of Emery and Butler are secondary sources, which should now be used. Mathsci (talk) 09:45, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

A better source

A very detailed source is Leaver, Robin A. (2014). "Letter Codes Relating to Pitch and Key for Chorale Melodies and Bach's Contributions to the Schemelli 'Gesangbuch'". Bach. 45 (1). Riemenschneider Bach Institute: 1533. JSTOR 43489888., pp.24-31. Ttocserp 12:20, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Added as "further reading" for the time being. Feel free to use as source for actual content of the article (in which case it should be extracted from the Further reading section and joined with the other sources for the article). --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:36, 18 May 2020 (UTC)