Talk:Schubert's last sonatas/GA1

GA Review

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I embarked on this GA review with some trepidation. First of all, the article is huge. Just to read through it carefully end to end took me several sittings. Secondly, the depth and scope of it is daunting - I asked myself if an analysis of this scope is suitable for a general encyclopedia. It has more the nature of a master's thesis (I am guessing that that is how it started out). Can we grant GA status to an article that the average Wikipedia reader - say a high school student with limited or no formal musical education - might have trouble understanding, at least in part?

I consulted. I asked Kleinzach, who in turn also consulted with Magicpiano. They both agreed that being thorough should certainly not be a roadblock on the way to GA status. MagicPiano did note that the article's relative inaccessibility to the musically uninitiated could be a problem for FA status, but certainly not for GA status. So, armed with that reassurance, I proceed.

I want to preface my review with two other remarks: first, the article raises for me a number of issues about writing about music in the Wikipedia, including the borders of original research and synthesis in writing about music, that I will discuss later in the review. Second, the article was an inspiration to me: it was partly because of this article that I embarked on my own article, String Quartets, Op. 20 (Haydn).

So now, avante:

Well-written

This is the first criterion of a GA, and the article passes. The writing is fine: clear, concise, correct. Gidip has occasional lapses - a few days ago I corrected a dangling participle - but almost all those errors have been cleaned up.

At the risk of being school-marmish, I must say that I think that there are occasional lapses in style. Take for example this sentence (from the lead): "Furthermore, like the rest of Schubert’s piano sonatas, they were mostly neglected during the entire 19th century, and have only gradually achieved public appreciation, after more than 100 years since their composition." A true pedant would not like this sentence. First, they weren't neglected during the entire 19th century - more than a third of the century was gone before they were even written. Second, "more than since" is an odd construction; better to write, "more than 100 years after their composition."

But, as I say, this is nitpicking. I was raised as a pedant, but have since succeeded in shedding the mantle. The writing is certainly as good as that of other GA articles.

The GA review guidelines say the article must comply "with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, jargon, words to avoid, fiction, and list incorporation." This it does. There are no listy sections, the layout is fine, it is nicely wikified. There is the issue of jargon. Can you use terms like "submediant" and "semiquaver" in a Wikipedia article without explanation? Of course, if you can't, that means you can't write an article of this depth. Well, Kleinzach has convinced me that you can. So I am not dinging the article for this, though I think the issue merits further discussion, perhaps on the Compositions task force talk page.

Factually accurate and verifiable

This article is wonderfully researched. I am not an expert on the literature, but my impression is that just about everything written on these sonatas is cited in the bibliography. Assertions that require attribution are always footnoted. Issues of debate are carefully documented. Good work.

This article raises an issue of synthesis and original research as it applies to music. As we all know, OR and synthesis are taboo in Wikiland. The Compositions task force article guidelines contain some discussion of this. A strict constructionist might contend that the following sentence constitutes OR, or synthesis:

"The recapitulation is traditional – staying in the tonic, and emphasizing the tonic minor and the flat submediant (F major) as subdominant tonalities."

I, however, am not a strict constructionist, and since I am writing the review, I am allowing statements like that. In fact, almost throughout the article, statements like this one are indeed footnoted; most notably in the section on Unifying_elements_and_cyclicism, which relies on Brendel, Fisk and William Kinderman.

Broad in coverage

I especially liked the section on Performance issues. This is an aspect of compositions that we editors have pretty universally ignored in our articles. There is a discussion of performance issues at Chamber music, but no others that I know of in articles on specific works. Kudos for this.

Illustrated

Here is my major criticism of the article. There are a great many places in this article where musical examples don't merely add, they are essential. "The opening of the Sonata in C minor is 'taken almost note-for-note' from the theme of Beethoven's Thirty-Two Variations in C minor, WoO 80." This statement needs a 20-second recording of the opening of the C minor sonata and the theme from the variations. It would hugely enrich the article.

Where do you get illustrations like these? Well, there was a minor flap about this when I wrote String Quartets, Op. 20 (Haydn). I had extracted 30-second extracts from commercial recordings, permitted as fair use. But Melesse nixed these, on the grounds that I could find free (uncopyrighted) versions if I really tried. I disagreed, but in the end, I did really try. I gathered together a string quartet, and we recorded the necessary excerpts.

Your mission in this article is considerably simpler than mine was. You don't need a string quartet, only a pianist (I am guessing that you, Gidip, are one), and a recorder with a good microphone. The playing doesn't have to be really outstanding (God knows, my examples in the Haydn article certainly aren't), only illustrative of the points you make.

Adding musical examples will make the article accessible to a much wider audience, and will also make it much less laborious to read. You can't have too many of them, in my view.

Conclusion

I considered putting GA status on hold, to force someone to provide the musical examples that I think are necessary. However, everyone who has worked on the article - and Gidip, of course, in particular - seems gung-ho enough to add these without this added sanction. What's more, the article as it stands, even without the examples, is GA level. So, by the power invested in me by absolutely no one, I hereby declare this to be a Good Article.

Laus. Omnip. Deo

--Ravpapa (talk) 14:24, 18 December 2008 (UTC)