Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music/Contemporary music task force/Archive 3

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Contemporary or post-romantic?

The Project page explains its scope is: " . . . articles which relate to contemporary music and especially contemporary music that demonstrates a modern aesthetic . . ." however I see that composers who died in the 1920s and 1930s like Gabriel Fauré‎ and Edward Elgar are being bannered by the project. This means that this project will overlap significantly with other projects such as Classical music, Composers, Opera etc.

Overlapping is normal enough, but usually it's clear which project is more relevant, more expert in a given field, and that project is left to work on it. Unfortunately if the overlap is too great, it's not apparent which group of editors is more involved, and the projects seem to be competing. (Late 19th and early 20th century music is well-covered on WP compared to the late 20th, so that poses the question whether we need another project covering this subject anyway.)

Would there be any support for defining 'contemporary' as post-1945 so the efforts of the project can be more focused? Thanks for reading this. Best. -- Kleinzach (talk) 04:28, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi Kleinzach, unfortunately when we began assessing articles several months ago were forced to provide the bots with fairly general categories to tag. This resulted in many articles which do not fall within our scope being tagged. It’s a mess we’re still cleaning up. Everybody please correct me if I’m wrong, but my impression is that current consensus here is to define our scope, particularly where the early 20th century is concerned, by the influence and modernity of the music, not by a specific date. In practice this focuses mostly on the post 1945-present period. For instance The Rite of Spring falls within our scope but Richard Strauss probably doesn’t despite the huge overlap. I’ve been bold and removed the tags from Gabriel Fauré and Edward Elgar.To clarify which project is more relevant to an artical we’re tagging very early 20th century composers as Low or Mid level importance to the project regardless of their importance as composers individually. In practice most of our efforts are expended on the very modern and very under developed articles (composers likeSalvatore Sciarrino and Helmut Lachenmann) or on very technical articles for which few other Wikipedian have the expertise to improve (articles like combinatoriality or Rothenberg propriety). Cheers, --S.dedalus (talk) 05:41, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

"The Rite of Spring but not Strauss" implies a selection procedure with many, many borderline cases. Who will decide between the Stravinsky-type-sheep and the Strauss-type-goats? Will there be an official list of who is in and who is out, I wonder? --Kleinzach (talk) 01:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Admittedly selection guidelines good be made more detailed. Perhaps we should add a section to the WikiProject Contemporary music/Assessment page. Generally in borderline cases the decision is made through consensus. We haven’t really had any problem with our current system so far though. The problem with setting a hard date is you get ridiculous situations where hugely important composers die right on or before the cutoff date. (Anton Webern was shot September 1945 for instance.) Then there are events that have profound effect on modern music like the premier of Le Sacre in 1913 or Schoenberg’s Op. 23 written in 1920 (which we ignominiously don’t have an article on). --S.dedalus (talk) 21:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

IMO the project is perfectly entitled to define its own scope. Nevertheless two points need to be made, (1) the scope should be clear and unambiguous, and (2) should correspond to the name of the project.

Let's take for example Alexander von Zemlinsky - just bannered by this project. He died in 1942. This was before I was born, probably before any editor here was born - so he is not a person of our time, ergo his music is not contemporary.

One solution would be to re-name the project using a title with a broader meaning, however the broader the scope and the greater the overlap with other projects, the more difficult it will be to decide which project has primary care of which article. Regards. --Kleinzach (talk) 01:45, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I’ve removed the tag from Alexander von Zemlinsky. It is a bit borderline case though since he had a significant influence on Schoenberg (in fact he was Schoenberg’s only composition teacher). If someone else thinks the tag should go back on I won’t object. Contemporary is a relative word so I think the title of the project is okay. I’ll try to right a paragraph on our tagging system however to try to make things a bit more clear and unambiguous. Thanks, --S.dedalus (talk) 06:58, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I would put it back. At least one of his works "was written in a style comparable to its fellow contemporary symphonic works by Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weill, and Dmitri Shostakovich." Badagnani (talk) 07:07, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I put back the tag, but change the importance to “Low.” Perhaps that’s a good compromise? --S.dedalus (talk) 02:08, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

If Zemlinsky goes back in that implies that lots of other composers of the early 20th century will follow. Is this a good idea? Leaving aside the question of the project name, there is a real need for a project to cover late 20th century music, whereas early 20th century is already well-served. Best. --Kleinzach (talk) 10:48, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding here. As I understand it we are interested in composers like Alexander von Zemlinsky because of their influence on late twentieth and twenty-first century music. We keep them in the project because it is impossible to address modern trends without adding content about this future influence to earlier composer’s articles. No, I don’t think it implies anything about what other composers might be included in the project. I believe you’re still thinking in terms of dates Kleinzach. You think "Alexander von Zemlinsky was born in the 19th century; therefore it sets a precedent for including other similar composer", correct? I don’t think it has to work that way. Zemlinsky was uniquely influential to the Second Viennese School. We can include him and write about that connection while still remaining true to our objective of improving Wikipedia’s coverage of avant-guard music. Cheers, --S.dedalus (talk) 02:05, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Let's try to be clear about this - and the implications of the discussion. 'Avant-garde' and 'contemporary' are quite different concepts. If the focus is to be on 'Avant garde' then this should be written up on the project page and (IMO) the name of the project should be changed. However 'Avant garde' is more difficult to define than 'contemporary', note for example the WP article that states:

"Avant-garde represents a pushing of the boundaries . . . The notion of the existence of the avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark of modernism, as distinct from postmodernism. Postmodernism posits that the age of the constant pushing of boundaries is no longer with us and that avant-garde has little to no applicability in the age of Postmodern art."

However what I am concerned about is not so much the name of the project so much as the overlap with the other projects. Classical Music, Composers and Opera have successfully avoided bannering the same pages helping the projects work in harmony and follow similar guidelines. (For example, the opera project does not banner articles on people who have influenced opera only those directly involved.) --Kleinzach (talk) 09:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I had always previously associated him with 19th-century style, until I read the passage about some of his works showing stylistic affinity with Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weill, and Dmitri Shostakovich. Badagnani (talk) 02:18, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

John Adams restart

The article "John Adams" was mostly gutted almost a year ago after it was noticed that most of it was lifted as a copyright violation from the Pulitzer-Prize bio. While the article has grown a bit since the cut, it has basically had a big gap where the biography, works description, and musical style sections should be.

My students have produced a new version of the article at User:Mscuthbert/John Adams, which, though not perfect by any means, is I believe a great improvement over most of the current article. I want to be bold and make the replacement, but I will also give others a bit of time to look it over and raise objections. The musical examples should be moved over quickly, since they are Fair Use images that are currently only in user space, and need to be used. Thanks -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 19:27, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

That is indeed a huge improvement over the current version! Congratulations to you and your students for creating such a fantastic article! I completely support the substitution. It should make at least Good Article without too much trouble.

I will offer the following critique for anybody who would like to improve the article further. In fact I’ll work on it myself if the substitution is made.

1. Perhaps it should be made more clear that Adams didn’t self label himself as a minimalist? (He was labeled by music critic Michael Walsh.) Maybe this quote from The John Adams Reader would not be out of place:

   “It’s a depressing fact about the arts that many art consumers, listeners, or potential fans need a frame of reference. They need to know how, as an emerging figure, you fit in. Even if your work is essentially maverick and unallied with any movement, they’ll need to place as a ‘maverick.’ Only after you’ve become familiar and the public knows your name and work can they really begin to detect what it is that makes you different.”

1. In the Musical Style section the fourth paragraph states that “Minimalism offered the final solution to Adams's creative dilemma.” This seems to contradict the paragraph later on when it says “Although some of his pieces sound similar to those written by minimalist composers, Adams actually rejects the idea of mechanistic procedure-based or process music.” In fact I don’t think Adams embraced minimalism as a final answer at all. He changed it to allow the music to take rapid changes in direction. That first sentence needs to be rewritten I think.
2. More biographical information is needed. I’m ambivalent towards the necessity of describing each one of his pieces. Especially since many of them have their own articles. On the other hand his works are defiantly very tied into his life from 1977 onwards. One option would be to move these works descriptions to their own section. Regardless I defiantly think there needs to be more information about his actual life in recent years. This could include describing his collaborations. --S.dedalus (talk) 22:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi S.Dedalus -- I somehow missed your reply until right now. Thanks for the comments. I agree whole-heartedly that more biographical information is needed and that eventually, the best version of this article would not have nearly so much information on individual works mixed in with the biography (though I think a section "Compositions of John Adams" liked to a Main Article with the same title would not be a bad thing--a summary and concise description of each piece rather than needing to read every work article). It looks like a few students started adding information about a few pieces and others figured that was a good thing to do. Agreed also about the fourth paragraph -- in fact his current use of Slonimsky's Thesaurus could easily be called process-based music. (I also hate the term "final solution").

Getting to the first point, I'll see if I can find a way to bring in that Adams rejected the term minimalism, though I don't think that his rejection of the term is particularly important. During the late 70s and early 80s, he was certainly affiliated by the media and musical world with that group of composers, and that's the term that has stuck. So just as we don't put paragraphs on every Baroque composer's article talking about how they did not approve of the term "Baroque," it would seem undue weight to give too much stress to that on the minimalist composers (of whom only Tom Johnson embraces the term whole-heartedly).

I'm a little reluctant to do much editing immediately to the new version, because I don't want to savage any of my students' work so soon after the assignment. But I think that some edits still need to be done, including perhaps a reorganization of the article, keeping what prose is great and cutting other parts. Best, -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 15:54, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Portal:Contemporary music

Should we set up our own Portal? That might be one way to ease into the more active outreach program we were talking about in relation to the potential newsletter above. We’d have to commit to updating and maintaining the portal regularly. On a side note I’m going to be bold and add a “New articles” section to our front page. We can list articles we’re just created and get help and feedback. --S.dedalus (talk) 22:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Contemporary operas needing articles

The following is a short list of contemporary operas needing articles. I wonder if anyone would be interested in having a go at one or two of them?

• Gerald Barry (1952- ): The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
• Luciano Berio (1925-2003): Opera
• William Bolcom (1938- ): A View from the Bridge
• Daniel Catán (1949- ): Rappaccini's Daughter
• Peter Maxwell Davies (1934- ): The Doctor of Myddfai
• Peter Eötvös (1944- ): Three Sisters
• Carlisle Floyd (1926- ): Of Mice and Men, Flower and Hawk, Slow Dusk
• Philip Glass (1937- ): The Fall of the House of Usher
• Oliver Knussen (1952- ): Higglety Pigglety Pop!
• Helmut Lachenmann (1935- ): Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern
• James MacMillan (1959- ): Inés de Castro
• Nicholas Maw (1935- ): Sophie's Choice
• Thea Musgrave (1928- ): Mary, Queen of Scots
• Roxanna Panufnik (1968- ): The Music Programme
• Aulis Sallinen (1935- ): The King Goes Forth to France
• Salvatore Sciarrino (1947- ): Lohengrin
• Tan Dun (1957- ): Tea
• Udo Zimmermann (1943- ): Die weisse Rose (present link is a redirect)

BTW, the following are good models for structure and style: The Silver Tassie, Der Kaiser von Atlantis, Der Zar lässt sich photographieren. Best.--Kleinzach (talk) 12:00, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Great list Kleinzach! I’ve just created a stub for Lohengrin (Sciarrino opera). If I can find more sources I’ll expand it. --S.dedalus (talk) 21:01, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Looks good! --Kleinzach (talk) 23:38, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello WP:CONTEMPM! As a fan of Floyd's, I thought I'd get started on Of Mice and Men (opera). It's my first article (modeled off of The Silver Tassie, per Kleinzach's suggestion), and I would love to contribute to this project more. Nate LXXXVIII (talk) 01:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for Of Mice and Men (opera). Lots more available if you want to do them. Are you interested in English-language works? --Kleinzach 06:03, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for junkfreedom

I've looked at a number of articles on moderately recent composers in the last few minutes, and none of them has some goofy "infobox". While some of its "importance" ratings seem bizarre -- if Zemlinsky is "low", why is the equally dead Bartók "top"? how can the lounge pianist Nyman be rated as more important than Birtwistle? -- I'd like to thank this project for avoiding this tiresome gimmickry. Hoary (talk) 06:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Biographical infoboxes have been discouraged by the Composers project. Many editors feel like you that they are counter-productive. Best. --Kleinzach (talk) 03:02, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

This project works with other projects such as WP:Composers to insure consistency where our project goals overlap. You’re right about Bartók. I’ve downgraded to article to “Mid” because he’s not very modern. Thanks, --S.dedalus (talk) 05:30, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree with Bartók (one of the top 3 or 5 composers of the 20th century) at "mid." Badagnani (talk) 05:39, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, perhaps “High” is better. His influence isn’t quite as high as say Schoenberg I don’t think, but it’s true that he very much influence Ligeti and others. --S.dedalus (talk) 05:46, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

His greatest influence on later composers probably lies in his motoric rhythmic impetus and use of chromaticism and clusters, as well as his embrace of folk materials, actually collecting them himself then working them into original compositions. All of these things were later adopted by many other composers, though the influence may not be immediately apparent. Even the "night music" style can be heard in Crumb, and Carter did his own Concerto for Orchestra. Badagnani (talk) 06:07, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I’m confused by your objection to the rating of Michael Nyman (Mid) and Harrison Birtwistle (High, though better as Mid perhaps). Those ratings seem appropriate to me; Nyman is a minimalist composer. --S.dedalus (talk) 05:46, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

And, I'm tempted to add, minimally interesting. The last time I heard (when boredom impelled me to walk out of a concert), it was Terry Riley meets Penguin Cafe Orchestra. But I'll admit that this was more than a decade ago. Meanwhile, I've no wish to knock the status of Bartók in the 20th century, but the old chap died over sixty years ago; how important is he for/within what could reasonably be called contemporary music? But I suppose all these attempts at rating relative "importance" are probably doomed; my own would no doubt be much worse than yours. -- Hoary (talk) 05:56, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Birtwistle was "low" until I changed him to "high" yesterday after reading that comment. Badagnani (talk) 06:00, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Well done! -- Hoary (talk) 09:56, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Placeholder images

There is currently a campaign to put a 'No Free Image' graphic on all biographical pages. This is the 'female version':

I've been trying to find out why this is not going on Talk pages rather than articles.--Kleinzach (talk) 02:14, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

because it is aimed at readers and readers don't look at talk pages.Genisock2 (talk) 18:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Because putting it in articles is more obnoxious? Because putting it there satisfies its proponents' bossiness? (I'm tired of attempting to be polite about junk such as this.) -- Hoary (talk) 04:55, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - The placeholder is extremely obnoxious and I believe we should eschew such (though removing them all is going to take just as much bandwidth as it was to bot-spam them across WP). It's also unnecessary, as we formerly used official promotion/publicity photos from the composers, released by their managers for this purpose, until such photos were deleted. The placeholder isn't going to improve matters by spurring Wiki-papparazzi to show up at composers' doorsteps and photograph them, so why not simply use the promotional photos released for such purposes? Badagnani (talk) 05:11, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Because they are not under a free license.Genisock2 (talk) 18:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

If you feel strongly about this you might like to join the discussion here. As you will see, I've been trying to get some information about the campaign. It's possible that only two or three editors are involved. --Kleinzach (talk) 05:17, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I've followed this up with a proposal, see here. --Kleinzach (talk) 01:17, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

There is now a centralized discussion about the placeholders at: Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders. --Kleinzach (talk) 02:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

This discussion will close at midday GMT/UTC on 23 April. --Kleinzach (talk) 01:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

This discussion has now ended - more or less in a state of chaos - see Conclusion. --Kleinzach (talk) 02:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Crumb photo

File:Crumb.jpg

George Crumb

Could someone with knowledge of photo editing software crop this photo please? It’s driving me crazy, and all the empty space makes it look like it was taken by a voyeur. :) --S.dedalus (talk) 06:17, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I could do it, but the photo doesn't seem to have a valid license at all. I think this is a publicity photo and should definitely be used under fair use, but it's almost certainly not a free photo. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 06:36, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Whoever put the chair there most certainly did it for a reason, presumably an artistic one. Badagnani (talk) 06:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Its legality aside, that's a good photo as is. Incidentally, anyone wanting to crop and using the World's Favorite Operating System (WFOS) can simply download and install IrfanView. Free! Easy! (It even makes me miss WFOS.) -- Hoary (talk) 09:56, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, you’re right; the source is defiantly odd. Sadly it looks to me like this is a copyright violation. Should I tag it as such? --S.dedalus (talk) 23:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I dunno -- it is clearly a released publicity photo that has been sent out to numerous places. Many people on WP don't believe that justifies these photos' use on WP, but I am not one of them. So I figure, while I won't upload them myself, I won't go out of my way to delete these useful images that are highly unlikely to be challenged by their copyright holders. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 02:27, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

It's in C. F. Peters's interest to get all the publicity for Crumb that they can. He is, in fact, one of the few composers who makes significant income for that publisher. Badagnani (talk) 02:36, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

But it's for Peters (if they're the copyright holder) to make that decision. Incidentally, further consideration of the photo tells me that cropping would be a bad idea: not only is the photo good as it is, but the lighting and pose would be wrong, wrong, wrong if the photo were cropped in an attempt at something conventional. (Not to mention any disrespect to the photographer, etc.) -- Hoary (talk) 02:48, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Then is the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 incorrect? By the way it seems the C. F. Peters site is already using a cropped version of this picture. --S.dedalus (talk) 02:50, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

This discussion brings up the point of fact -- how DO we know people aren't lying in their licences? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 11:31, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Melodeclamation

Does this even exist? It looks like OR to me. The only “Reference” is a mirror of Wikipedia. --S.dedalus (talk) 04:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Well obviously the 'recitation atop musical accompaniment' thing IS a real genre. Probably best the page is called something else and/or merged with what that is. I've usually heard it described as melodrama. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 11:31, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I think this is covered by Melodrama#Melodrama_in_opera_and_song. Merge? --Kleinzach (talk) 12:11, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Melodeclamation seems to be a neologisms. Only about 300 Google hits [1], most of which are explained by Wikimirrors. It doesn’t look like there is any useful content to merge. I’ll just put it up for deletion. Thanks, --S.dedalus (talk) 23:03, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Merging Ondine (Sir Frederick Ashton ballet) into Ondine (Henze) or vice versa?

These two articles exist. Merging is proposed. --Kleinzach (talk) 02:46, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Ondine (Henze) has now been renamed Undine (ballet). I think the U-spelling is correct. Perhaps that will make a compromise easier between the ballet and the music camps? --Kleinzach (talk) 04:24, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Template:Infobox classical composer

I have put this up for its 4th consecutive deletion Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:Infobox_classical_composer and ideally blocking from further recreation. Thank you. --Kleinzach (talk) 03:04, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Use of bass guitar in contemporary classical music

I just added a new section here. Can anyone think of any other early uses of the electric bass guitar in contemporary classical music? Badagnani (talk) 02:48, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

How early? You have a 1989 piece listed - Paul Schoenfield's Four Parables definitely uses it; that was 1983. Bernstein also used it in Slava, from 1977 (I think, it may have been a guitar and not bass, now that I think of it) ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 03:26, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, the earliest I could find was 1969. It's been used a lot since the mid-1970s. Badagnani (talk) 04:07, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Also see Electric_guitar#Contemporary_classical_music to see if any other notable examples have been left out. So was Stockhausen's Gruppen the first contemporary classical piece to use the electric guitar? Badagnani (talk) 02:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[2] shows that Slava! uses electric guitar. Badagnani (talk) 16:57, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

The Schoenfield doesn't show either instrument.[3] Badagnani (talk) 17:22, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Well it certainly sounds like one (track 2). Maybe it's just being amped or the synth or something... ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 19:28, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Bernstein's Songfest (1977) calls for a Fender Bass. [4] -- megA (talk) 10:57, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Third opinion needed

Please see this edit, as well as the several earlier. Links to contemporary classical music have been removed three times. Many thanks for expert editors' input, Badagnani (talk) 16:52, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Lior Navok

This article is currently at Articles for deletion for those who wish to comment. Voceditenore (talk) 10:32, 20 June 2008 (UTC)