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Talk:Piano Sonata No. 1 (Beethoven)

Latest comment: 6 years ago by Craigsapp in topic Inferior musical example
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Requested move

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Latest comment: 13 years ago13 comments10 people in discussion
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Favonian (talk) 20:39, 6 September 2011 (UTC)Reply

– The main page for navigating among the sonatas is the Category:Piano sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven page, where currently all sonatas display only their basic cardinal number and do not display opus number. As many exeternal sources refer to these pieces by opus number it is potentially (and unnecessarily) difficult to identify the desired sonata by a cardinal number alone. This change would add the opus number to the page names and therefore make them available to the category page. This will improve the navigational usefulness of the category page. – Sneedy (talk) 13:03, 30 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

  • Oppose – disambiguators should be restricted to disambiguate; they are not descriptors. See Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Naming the specific topic articles and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (music). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:28, 30 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose - The ordinal numbers are universally agreed upon and are also used. The navigation template Template:Beethoven piano sonatas is available to ease navigate. I'm not sure the category page should worry about navigational usefulness but if there is that concern you could put the nav template on that page, too.DavidRF (talk) 13:49, 30 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
  • Michael - The category page is not a disambiguation page and is generated from the names of the individual pages. Category pages are primarily for navigation. There is nothing in either of the pages you mention that prohibit the move I'm proposing.
  • David - The opus number is standard for most of Beethoven's work (see Opus number), and as I mentioned it is frequently used as a reference, so it's odd - and inconvenient - for it to be missing on the category page. The navigation template is useful but it would be redundant on the category page, even without the opus numbers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sneedy (talk • contribs) 13:56, 30 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
  • Support (see my comment below for why I struck this support) (note: I fixed the opus numbers in the proposed article names in this edit). I have long thought Wikipedia has this wrong - see my opening comment from January 2006 at Talk:Piano Sonata No. 31 (Beethoven), shortly after I wrote that article. I would go further, and support expunging the ordinal from the article name altogether. For example, I know the Pastoral piano sonata as Op. 28, and couldn't have said what number it is without checking - and this isn't lack of learning (I studied the work quite seriously many years ago), but simply because I've never needed the information as I don't know anyone who thinks it's important. Perhaps this is a UK/US cultural difference? In my experience, the opus number is the one most often used, rather than its ordinal. Although the ordinal numbers are accepted, I don't believe they are generally seen as ideal; I think some musicologists believe that the inclusion of Op. 49 in the canon is a historical anomaly that gives them a prominence that outweighs their importance in Beethoven's output. And I think the same change should be made for the string quartets for analogous reasons (Op. 18 were not written in the order in which they were published, and the ordinal is simply not important). The symphonies are known by number rather than opus number ("Beethoven's Fifth"), but I do not believe Wikipedia should use this as a reason to impose that "standard" on the sonatas and string quartets. --RobertG ♬ talk 16:31, 30 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
I disagree with Sneedy's reasons because I think the navigation template solved that issue long ago. If names that formatted into a good list were needed, the keys and nicknames would also be included.
RobertG brings up an interesting issue, though. Whether the ordinal or catalog number is preferred for a particular composer-subgenre is a broad spectrum. Sometimes its one, sometimes the other, often its a mix. For the Beethoven Sonatas, I see both. Wikipedia has standardized on ordinal numbers where possible. As an aside, ordinal numbers were abandoned for the Schubert sonatas because there are large discrepancies as to how to number the early ones and some of the fragments. Also, I wouldn't mind abandoning ordinal numbers for the Mozart Violin Sonatas for some of the same reasons (He wrote a dozen when he was very young that no one ever listens to (or could be flute sonatas or trios) plus there is a puzzling gap in the later sonatas that no source ever explains because the ordinal numbers are never used). But, the ordinal numbers are possible here. The ordinal numbers for the Beethoven sonatas are fixed and agreed upon and always included in more verbose lists (e.g. liner notes, book appendices, etc.).
So this is a broader issue which I think should be brought up at the WP:CM discussion page. This same issue could be brought up about the Mozart Piano Sonatas, the Mendelssohn String Quartets, and several subgenres. I'll admit that part of what I like about the ordinal numbers is editorial simplicity. You don't have to worry about commas, capitalization, ordering of the qualifiers, etc. People go back and forth on those all the time and changing those in the title requires page moves. I don't know how important editorial concerns should be, though.DavidRF (talk) 18:20, 30 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
  • Support - I also prefer the versions without the serial numbers, but I don't object to the serial numbers strongly if they are the norm in some parts of the English-speaking world. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (music) is a guideline, and I feel that this case is right for an exception. --Stfg (talk) 17:09, 30 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose - As DavidRF said above, the ordinal numbers are universally agreed upon. Wikipedia naming conventions prefer shorter forms when they are unique and the reference is clear:
Article titles should be recognizable to readers, unambiguous, and consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources (WP:OFFICIALNAMES).
They should also be the most common names, see WP:COMMONNAME. Hence we say Bill Clinton rather than "William Jefferson Clinton", and just Brave New World instead of e.g. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley book) even though there are several other works called "Brave New World". Furthermore, look at List of compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven and you'll see that all Beethoven works are specified by ordinal number, not opus number -- yet another reason to keep the ordinal numbers. When I studied the Beethoven sonatas, I knew them by name first (e.g. "Pathetique Sonata" or "Hammerklavier Sonata"), secondly by their ordinal number and/or key, and lastly (if at all) by opus number. My piano teacher never mentioned opus numbers when asking me to play a sonata, instead going by ordinal number or key. I think this is typical. The ordinal numbers will also be more familiar anyway, simply because people will remember which book a sonata is in and where in the book it is, much more easily than a never-used opus number.
Note that according to WP:COMMONNAME, we should probably actually use titles like "Beethoven Moonlight Sonata" or just "Moonlight Sonata" rather than Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven); but this is certainly better than Piano Sonata No. 14, Op. 27 No. 2 (Beethoven), which strikes me as somewhat similar to referring to Caffeine as 1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6(3H,7H)-dione or Snoop Dogg as Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr.. Benwing (talk) 23:41, 30 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose. The proposed names are absurdly long and awkward. In either format, all the pieces have names that are confusingly similar. I fail to see the upside of this kind of systemic naming. The titles should be in the form "Moonlight Sonata", "Pathetique Sonata", and so forth. If the piece is most commonly given by ordinal, call it that. If it is most commonly given by opus number, do it that way. Kauffner (talk) 11:13, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
Hmmm, I just googled: "Beethoven Pastoral Sonata -Wikipedia" returns 755,000, "beethoven piano sonata Op. 28 -Wikipedia" returns 899,000, "beethoven piano sonata No. 15 -Wikipedia" returns 3,000,000. (BTW, "Beethoven String Quartet No. 11 -Wikipedia" returns outnumber "beethoven String Quartet Op. 95 -Wikipedia" by about 4:1.) While googling isn't conclusive, I concede with considerable surprise that there is evidence that the ordinal is more popular than the opus no. for Beethoven piano sonatas. So I wistfully withdraw my support for changing the names of these articles, and accept the status quo. I reserve the right to think that the use of different titles for these articles (not including the ordinals) would be better, although I expect from my experience of this and similar discussions that such an idea is not going to become adopted. Invocations of WP:COMMONNAME usually worry me if they imply that its axioms are popular usage and convenience - when the axioms are "recognizability, naturalness, precision, concision and consistency". On these terms, to me Piano Sonata in A flat, Op. 110 scores higher than Piano Sonata No. 31. I am, however, quite content to be in a minority of one, if so it is. --RobertG ♬ talk 12:23, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move: Piano Sonata No. 1 (Beethoven) → Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 2

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Latest comment: 12 years ago32 comments12 people in discussion
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 05:01, 29 November 2011 (UTC)Reply


  • Oppose – 1) The naming derived from one particular album is clearly unsatisfactory (even your proposal doesn't strictly follow Amazon's listing of the Kempff album you cite). 2) You overlooked several other sentences and phrases in WP:NCM with which the current naming scheme conforms. 3) The current naming scheme allows readers to find works in a predictable manner without requiring them already to know two or three additional details. 4) Have you seen the proposal above which was closed on 6 September? BTW, there is only one article for Op. 49. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:26, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
We can follow only one source, but Brendel's titles and Arrau's titles are almost identical to Kempff's. So I think these forms are more or less standard. Kauffner (talk) 13:47, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
I notice that you previously took an opposite view, calling the titles you propose now "absurdly long." -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:27, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
IMO, either the formal names (proposed above), or the common names (Moonlight Sonata, Pathétique Sonata, etc) would be a major improvement on the current "invented here" names. Kauffner (talk) 16:39, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
There is no consensus among publishers about the canonical names for these sonatas; one of your "sources" lists: "Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major ('Waldstein'), Op. 53" which is not what you propose. We have naming guides because published sources will always lack consistency. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:42, 23 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
Inconsistency is everywhere. That's not a reason to use a made up name. "Do not, however, use obscure or made up names," according to WP:PRECISION. I doubt if any publisher puts a "(Beethoven)" at the end of the names. Kauffner (talk) 04:59, 23 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
Whoa. You make sense, except for your last sentence. When we use parenthetic disambiguation the disambiguator we add in parentheses is not part of the name of the topic; it's just a disambiguator. So when evaluating a title as to whether it's "made up" or not, consider only the part preceding the parenthesized disambiguator. --born2cYcle 05:16, 23 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
But I would like to see "Moonlight" return to "Sonata #14", as expressed before, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:01, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
You sure you don't want Klaviersonate Nr. 14 (Beethoven)? Kauffner (talk) 14:07, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
Would you mind explaining what you mean? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:27, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
I explain (if you really need it) that I mean Moonlight Sonata → Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:11, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
Gerda, you misunderstood. I wanted Kauffner to explain what exactly he meant by linking to the German article. -- Michael Bednarek (talk)
I think I would support that for reasons of consistency. I can't think of any other examples where we use a nickname, however widespread, rather than the formal name. But this discussion probably belongs elsewhere...! --Deskford (talk) 15:19, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
We had this discussion, just I am not happy with that outcome, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:01, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven) gets 1 result on Google Books, compared to 9,710 for Moonlight Sonata. Kauffner (talk) 16:09, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
I'm not aware that Wikipedia's naming conventions are guided by ghits; if they were, WP:CAPS and MOS:CAPS would look quite different. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:22, 23 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
Wiki "prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources....A search engine may help to collect this data," according to WP:COMMONNAME. Kauffner (talk) 04:59, 23 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
Did you read WP:NCM? It says to use this form only when the common name is ambiguous. NCM cannot override WP:COMMONNAME anyway. Kauffner (talk) 18:17, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
If this is a quesiton to me referring to my mention of the Moonlight, you're the one with the current proposal to move the article.--Peter cohen (talk) 20:00, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
You're avoiding the issue by shifting attention to my motives. If you cared about those, you would at least read the nomination, which you obviously haven't done. Kauffner (talk) 20:35, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
No, I did not read those. But should I conclude that Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat, Op. 106 - "Hammerklavier" is regarded as a common name??? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:22, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
… where the spelling of the key does not conform with Wikipedia usage (it's B-flat major) and the nickname should be offset by an endash (–), not a hyphen (-). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:22, 23 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for pointing this out. Kauffner (talk) 04:59, 23 November 2011 (UTC)Reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Inferior musical example

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Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The current musical example:

 

is aesthetically inferior and contains numerous notational errors (an astounding average of nearly one error per measure). Why did this replace the previous example which does not have errors and aesthetically matches the other examples on the page:

 

Craigsapp (talk) 17:30, 22 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

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