Talk:Kneisel Quartet

Bertha Tapper

Hi T. E. Meeks. A couple of questions about Bertha Tapper and the Kneisel Quartet:

• Since the quartet played with literally hundreds of soloists over their 32-year history, it seems odd to me to single out just one of them for notice in this very stubby article, especially since the fact that she sometimes played with them is already noted in her own article, which is where readers would naturally look for that information. Would it be possible to expand the sentence here to include examples of other pianists well, in order to provide some context? Or, if you want to keep the emphasis on Kneisel's support for women musicians in particular, perhaps she could be combined in a sentence with Amy Beach, who also played with them on occasion and some of whose compositions they introduced? It's just a question of balance, and leaving aside Tapper's own merits as a musician, right now her prominence in this article gives a misleading impression of her importance for the Kneisel Quartet specifically.

• If you are determined to keep her in this article, can you find a better source? Prabook.com is not considered a reliable source and your reference to it has already been replaced with a "citation needed" flag (by another editor, not by me; see their edit summary). If you go searching through the Boston papers or the Musical Courier or other contemporary sources in search of concert announcements in which she appears, perhaps you could keep track of some of the other soloists you run across as well; then you or I or someone else can add them to the article to provide more representative coverage.

Cheers, Crawdad Blues (talk) 16:32, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi again, T. E.. Since I was doing a little more work on the article this morning, I've taken the liberty of moving the mention of Tapper down from the history section to the section on repertoire and reputation, where I've revised the sentence on American composers to read as follows:

They also played contemporary works by American composers, such as Edward MacDowell and Arthur Foote, and were exceptionally supportive of the work of women composers and musicians, such as Amy Beach and Bertha Tapper, with whom they sometimes performed.

How does that sound to you? If it's okay, then all we have to do is add citations. MacDowell, Foote, and Beach are easy, because they all have books devoted to them. Tapper will be more difficult, but I trust you can come up with something. (I see there's an article in the Newark Sunday Call cited in the Bertha Tapper article, but the newsapers.com link doesn't lead to it so I haven't had a chance to confirm it.) And of course if you object, let me know. Cheers, Crawdad Blues (talk) 17:29, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Crawdad Blues: Thanks for your thoughtful consideration of this issue. I have added four citations and can add more if you want. Some of the newspaper citations (like “Newark Sunday Call”) are behind a paywall but can be accessed through public or college libraries. T. E. Meeks (talk) 01:42, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Looks good to me, many thanks. I don't plan to do much more work on this article myself; I only came to it because I was revising the article on Anton Hekking, who was (very briefly) the cellist of the quartet during his two seasons with the Boston SO. I don't spend a lot of time on WP, but perhaps I'll bump into you again in some other music article. Cheers, Crawdad Blues (talk) 14:11, 22 December 2022 (UTC)