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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Rebecca Clarke

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Rebecca Clarke

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Self-nom. This isn't a novel-length article, but I think it's a good size relative to her importance. Has been on peer review and also looked over for accuracy by Liane Curtis, author of most of the material in the References section. I believe it meets the featured article criteria. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 18:27, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

(UTC)

  • Support (and I don't think the length is an issue either as there are shorter featured articles) Rossrs 13:26, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments. Very good writing overall. I wish I could write that well. Some observations that concern me though: 1) The section on the contests notes reporters feeling that she could not have written the piece herself, but never presents any evidence supporting the fact that she did. 2) No inline citations make it hard to find what sources support what material. 3) It is truly fantastic that a knowledgeable person like Curtis has reviewed the material, but that also creates a worry. As founder of the Rebecca Clark society could she not be seen as a very biased source? Are there no other sources to draw material from? I see three, but they seem quite limited. The article has relatively few POV statements about Clarke, so it is just the subtle POV I worry about. 4) The part about her relationship with John Goss could use something helping to identify the timing of the relationship. Was it before she married or during her marriage? 5) What happened to the Strativarius she was willed? (Just curious, since it was mentioned). - Taxman 20:20, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the comments! 1) Hm. What sort of evidence are you looking for? No one else has ever made a claim to have written the work; the only reason the reporters had for doubting her authorship was that she was a female composer in the early 1900s; I'll see if I can make that clearer. 2) I am of the school who thinks inline citations in a non-controversial article are overkill. (Also difficult, both in terms of figuring out how to footnote sentences that contain material from several different sources of and my lack of layout-fu.) If insisted upon I can do them, but truthfully it's not on my to-do list. 3) The material of Curtis' I've read contains substantively the same information I saw in other reference works I consulted (but did not cite, as I merely skimmed them mining for additional details); I've attempted to maintain NPOV as much as possible but I admit this is difficult, as I am biased toward her music myself. Not many complete sources that I could find; scattered mini-bios and mentions in journal articles, some blurbs in biographical dictionaries of composers and such, but I used the most complete ones I had. 4) Ah, thanks, that could be clearer (it is before her marriage, incidentally). 5) I actually haven't read anything about its current whereabouts; I'll make an attempt to track that down, as now I am myself curious! Mindspillage (spill yours?) 01:59, 4 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • No problem, hope it helps. 1) I dunno, just whatever there is. The article just seemed to highlight that there were people saying she didn't write it, without anything other than stating that she did. 2) I know they are not fun, but the criteria do call for them. The more the better, but at least start with a) the most important facts then b) any potential contentious facts. For example "Viola Sonata... is a particular example, with its pentatonic opening theme, thick harmonies, emotionally intense nature, and dense, rhythmically complex texture." is an opinion; you or I may feel differently upon hearing it. That should be attributed to someone. 3) Well try to dig for more from those other sources, or if they have nothing new and don't contradict anything, add them as another reference to balance the piece out. Critical reviews of her work or playing might help with balance too. 5) No big deal, but since they are worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars in many cases, it was likely her most valuable asset. Perhaps her estate was probated, if so, her will is on record with the local authorities and could be looked up. Reminds me, who are her hiers. Did she have any children? - Taxman 16:05, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
        • OK. 1) I think it's clearer now with the addition of an explanatory sentence. 2) It didn't seem that they were explicitly called for, but I suppose my reading of that is wrong; that'll take a bit more time to do, as will 3)—have to get into the music library again. 5) will as well; I'll see what I can find out. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 17:00, 5 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • Side note: many other references I've found—even not very old ones—are out-of-date enough to be worse than useless; I would be hesitant even to suggest them as further reading much less cite them.
  • Comments (all stylistic and picky). In spite of the exhortation to be bold, I don't want to edit such an impressive article which is a FAC. From the top… Do the names of her parents tell us anything or are they superfluous? Lionel Tertis was considered the greatest performer of his day on the viola. "…nearly unheard-of in the day" would be better "…then nearly unheard of". Would "…really creative period" be better than "…real creative period"? What is "low grade" depression? Superfluous "as such". "…views on the her role, and the role of women in general as composers…" is unclear; would simplifying this to one clause "…views on the [social?] role of women…" be better? "She never wrote a symphony" - neither did I :-) Did she start one? Did she express a wish to write one? "…in recent years", "…recently-published", "…just coming to light" are time sensitive phrases; specify when. Two uses of "pseudonym" too close together. The string quartets were recorded just after what? Are the names of the current board of directors of the RC society encyclopedic? Selected works - can we have a reference to a more complete list? I tend to agree with the above comment that the citations need to be linked in the text, particularly when one of the references is "personal correspondence". Am I being too pedantic? Conditional support. --RobertG | (talk) 15:39, 4 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Very well written article about a subject that many people (me included) would know nothing of, but surely would leave the article feeling they have full knowledge of the subject. Good work. --Anderal 00:52, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • A good start on a biography, with traces of deep detail; but Oppose for now. Needs a fair bit of writing work, as well as a clearer explanation of Clarke's works and significance. Aspects of the article which could use clarification or improvement:
    1. Overwikification. "abusive" "psalm" "heirs" "patron" "printed" "recital" ...
      • That's the oddest objection I've heard in a while. The only overwikification I could think of is if so many words are links or redlinks that it makes the page distracting to read. Those you have mentioned are important concepts in their own right, and are therefore important to link to. Saying we shouldn't link to them is like saying we shouldn't have articles on them. - Taxman 12:56, May 6, 2005 (UTC)
        It's not useful to wikify a word if it links to an article that is unrelated to its context. Visit "abuse" or "patron" or "recital" or "printing" for instance. Linking "psalm" many times, or "role" to gender role twice, is overlinking of a different sort. I didn't choose those 6 quoted terms randomly from among the links in the article. +sj +
        • This one is between the two of you (Taxman and sj) to address, I believe; one of you wants them in and the other wants them out.
    2. NPOV. The article is in places more sympathetic than descriptive. "pulled out"... "greatest violist of the day"... "abusive father"... speculation on why she wrote little... these are all interesting notes or paraphrases from sources; but they could be presented in a more NPOV fashion.
      • These are indeed paraphrases, which I hope is clearer with the inline references. Can you point out specific examples? "greatest violist of the day" is a direct quote from the encyclopedic referecne work I cite; "abusive" I think is well-justified by the description which states that he beat her. The speculation has also now been attributed to the source from which it came.
    3. Writing needs a fair bit of work. There are dozens of places where the writing is unclear, or needs proofreading. "unheard-of" and "well-received" are only hyphenated when preceding the noun they modify, not at the end of a clause; use of commas and internal clauses should be improved throughout; many sentences could be made clearer (ex: "The vast majority of Clarke's work was in short forms." -- what? what are short forms? The following sentence is even harder to parse.)
      Ah, I always forget that point about hyphenation. "Short forms" was clarified by a sentence since removed -- "she never wrote a symphony" -- and that paragraph has since mutated; I'll try to spell it out further (though it's not usually ambiguous). Further clarification without the particular trouble spots pointed out I just can't do, lacking perspective; if I thought other points were unclear I wouldn't have written them that way.
    4. Many important threads and questions are left hanging. Why is Clarke important? This is never really clarified, and should be the focus of the article. None of her works, presumably what she is famous for, is discussed in any detail, or linked-to, either as an image of the music itself, or as a brief article about a particular famous piece.
      I've tried to add further detail that states her importance, though being second to Bloch and a pioneering female composer and musician is no mean feat itself. (Being a female composer at all in the early part of the 20th century is worthy of mention; being a prizewinning one more so yet.) I'd think detail about her work wouldn't belong in the main biographical article, actually, but rather in a split-off article about the works themselves. (The Viola Sonata at least deserves an article of its own.) I note, incidentally, that this article gives more detail about the character of Clarke's work than any encyclopedic resource I've referred to other than Grove. The main difficulty in discussing works is not engaging in original research; I can pull out the score and talk about it, but that belongs in my own papers rather than Wikipedia, while finding resources that detail what I want to talk about is more difficult. :-)
      Who really was her teacher's first female student? "(Clarke herself mistakenly claimed to be the first.)"
      I haven't found mention of this anywhere, as the reference works mostly state that she was indeed first; I'll have to ask, as the source for this was personal correspondence that also says this is fairly recent information.
      There is a Society devoted to promoting her work, "including several world premiere performances and recordings of unpublished material as well as numerous journal publications." Include details! Which performances by whom where, which recordings of what material, what publications in which journals on what subjects?
      I'll go through and add detail on that further.
      She wrote an entire memoir. The only section of it deemed worth mentioning in her article is a sentence about "her early life, marked by frequent beatings from her father and strained family relations." Why? Please at least clarify what makes that line relevant.
      I don't know what's in the memoir other than what has been summarized in other sources; it is currently still unpublished. Line explained a bit further.
    I made a couple small edits to give a sense of what I mean. +sj + 08:08, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Is that any better? Mindspillage (spill yours?) 19:01, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support A great article. Gave me some insight on this famous violist, who, I am shamed to say, I had never heard of until now. Bratschetalk random 02:39, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
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