Talk:Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and The Five

Good Article Candidate?

I read this article, and I think it might make a good Good Article (or possibly even Feature Article) candidate. It's got a few tractable problems, though:

1. Even though it's well cited, it needs more. I'll add some {{fact}} and similar tags. Jonyungk, if you can cite them, that would be great.
2. It needs some copyediting (typos, naming consistency of Rimsky, and other such trivia). (I'll be doing this.)
3. The extended quotations ought to be set off differently from the text (I'll change them to use {{Quotation}} unless someone objects.)

I've copyedited and tagged the first part of the article (up to "With the Five").

-- Magic♪piano 18:01, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Little Russian

You've got a whole section about this, without apparently mentioning that it actually means Ukrainian. Peter jackson (talk) 16:16, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Interesting point, Peter. Apparently the method chosen to redress this is to write statements like, "As for the piece that had initially captured Stasov's attention, what endeared the ''Little Russian'' to the kuchka was not simply that Tchaikovsky had used Ukrainian folk songs as melodic material. It was how, especially in the outer movements, he allowed the unique characteristics of Russian folk song to dictate symphonic form." Such articles are supposed to be written for English-speaking readers who probably have little knowledge of the region. The resultant information is so convoluted & uninformative as to give the impression that everything East Slavic is "Russian" by default. And how, precisely, does the blatantly ill-defined concept of "Russian folk song" tally with 'the unique characteristics of Russian folk song' linking to Ethnic Russian music? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 06:24, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments

Ruhrfisch comments: This looks much better than the last time I read it, here are some suggestions for improvement.

• It sill is not entirely clear from the lead who the members of The Five were. Perhaps something like Along with critic Vladimir Stasov, a critic who supported The Five, he [perhaps say expliciltly that he is Balakirev?] attacked the Conservatory and Rubinstein relentlessly both verbally and in print.[1] Stasov and Balakirev, along with the other members of The Five, composers Alexander Borodin, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, wanted to produce a specifically Russian kind of art music,... Not the smoothest, but you get the idea
• Could the approximate date be added to the caption of the lead image (the file says circa 1868)?
• Perhaps even better, could a composite image of six photos of Tchaikovsky and the Five be made and added as the lead image? I got the idea from the article on The Fice which has a composite of all five (one large at the top, four small across the bottom). This could either be two across by three tall, or perhaps (assuming Tchaikovsky is more important) one large Tchaikovsky portrait and the five small portraits in a row across the bottom. If you have no image editing skills, ask and I can try something.
• Maybe a BE /AE thing, but entirely sounds odd here, would all work better? ...but while a senior position of court music director was created and held by a string of distinguished composers, these composers were entirely [all?] foreigners.[14]
• In the Tchaikovsky section, could you say where Tchaikovsky's family lived and where the prep school was (assume it might have been in St. Petersburg too). Also say where Tchaikovsky was when he was a civil servant.
• Since this is a Russian article, should metric units come first (km, then miles)?
• The Five section These four points would distinguish The Five from its [their?] contemporaries in the cosmopolitan camp of composition.[28] Is it a singular noun (The Five as a group, use "its") or would it read better here to refer to them as five (plural) composers (and use "their")? Their sounds better to me. However you decide, probably wannt to make sure that the usage is consistent throughout the article.
• Per WP:MOSIMAGE, images should face into the center of the screen, to draw the reader's eyes into the text. This is not followed for the images of Rubinstein (should be left justified) and Miranda (should be right justified)
• In the St Petersburg firestorm section, this seems somewhat POV One thing that should be stressed, given the negative connotation of the term conservative, is that Rubinstein could not be accused of any lack of artistic integrity.[35] Perhaps attributing it would help "According to X, one things that should bestressed..."?
• It occurs to me that it might be useful to explain early in the article that St. Petersburg was the political and cultutral capital of Russia at the time (modern readers will tend to think of Moscow)
• Any reason to spell out the full name here? He matriculated his first class of graduates from the Conservatory — among them Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.[42] MOS would say just to us "Tchaikovsky:.
• Why is Mussorgsky linked in the long STravinsky block quote?
• Is "melos" a typo in the same quote (perhaps for melodies)? ...the tradition of which, even though it employs popular Russian melos, does not fear to present it in a Europeanized aspect
• In the Learning from failure section, can the lawsuit Tchaikovsky won be explained briefly?
• Mixed feelings section, long R-K quote, is this a typo? an for and? By this time quite and [an?] accretion of new elements and young blood had accumulated in Byelayev's circle. New times, new birds, new songs.[114]
• It seems quite good to me - the only thing still perhaps missing is some sort of legacy section - the article ends shortly after Tchaikovsky's death, would it make sense to add how Russian music developed afterwards (at least until 1918)? Or the influence of Tchaikovsky and The Five outside of Russia? Or how they were seen in the decades / century since?

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog. I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 17:26, 18 November 2009 (UTC) PS On further thought, I had two more suggestions.

• The first is that the article needs to do a better job of making clear where people are geographically - I already mentioned this above for St. Petersburg, but it needs to be made clearer when Tchaikovsky was in Moscow and the Five were in St. Petersburg.
• I also think the various phonetic spellings of kutchka should be noted somewhere, probably in the section on The Five. That way when someone refers to the "Koochka" it will be clearer what is meant.

Signing out, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:41, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Image sources

These are all images from Google Books sources published before 1923

• Tchaikovsky
  • Tchaikovsky By Edwin Evans, 1906 Bearded portrait, signature on frontispiece; in 1863 p. 30, latter years p. 48, manuscript p. 70, autograph p. 120
• Tchaikovsky; his life and works: with extracts from his writings, and the ... By Rosa Harriet Jeaffreson Newmarch 1900 nice frontispiece, older
• The standard concert guide: a handbook of the standard symphonies, oratorios ... By George Putnam Upton 1912 Older portrait page 437
• Modern music and musicians By Richard Alexander Streatfeild 1906 p 313 older portrait

• The Five
  • Modern composers of Europe: being an account of the most recent musical ... By Arthur Elson 1904 frontispiece is Rimsky-Korsakoff, Cui is p 252, Moussorgsky is p 256, Borodin is p. 258, Balakireff is supposed to be p. 250 but is not the Google books version. All decent portraits.
  • different version of same book with Balakirev, p 250 This has better scans of all the Five portraits

So what do you think of these? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:07, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Composite image

OK, I have scanned and uploaded the six portraits. Tchaikovsky is at right. Those of the Five are in the order Balakirev, Cui, Borodin, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov. I will use crops of their heads in the composite, but is the order OK? This way the heads look right then left.

Let me know what you think. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:31, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Prologue

While I love the long prologue outlining the cultural milieu these figures came from, I don't think it's entirely appropriate or necessary for this article. It's supposed to be about "Tchaikovsky and the Five," which I suppose means Tchaikovsky's relationship with the Five, which could include some discussion of the artistic trends of their time. But spending an entire section discussing Russian cultural history all the way back to Ivan the Terrible and Pyotr the Great and the Russian identity crisis that raged throughout seems excessive. Since this background informs any subject related to Russian music, why put it here? I suggest shortening it to one paragraph and then directing interested readers to a different page. I think the problem might be that national identity crises aren't usual encyclopedia articles because the subject is so nebulous and academic, but I guess you could try.

Also, the lead seems a tad too long. Brutannica (talk) 15:52, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. This article could do with some serious pruning. Essentially, it should be a synthesis of Tschaikovsky's perception as it differed/opposed the others'. Yes, it is interesting to a degree but ends up tripping itself up in trying to address highly complex issues that should be directed elsewhere unless someone is prepared to write what would, essentially, be a treatise at the risk of original research. As regards the lead, it reads as an article unto itself. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:18, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Last but not least

As Dave Barry might say, "Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and The Five" sounds like a great name for a 1960's era tribute rock band.Partnerfrance (talk) 19:21, 24 July 2013 (UTC)