Talk:Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga

Untitled

I removed the line "He is remembered today as much for his potential as for his completed work." I read that somewhere but can't remember where, or who said it. Probably Fétis. I removed it because I thought it could trigger a copyvio red flag. Dmetric 21:19, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

He wrote the quartets at the age of 18, so I changed that.

What did he die of? Did I miss it?--T. Anthony 06:19, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

According to the program notes to the Naxos edition of the qartets, he died of a pulmonary infection. Opus131 (talk) 22:32, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Name

There are 79,000 ghits for "Juan Arriaga composer" without Crisostomo, and only 131,000 ghits with Crisostomo. That suggests he's best known simply as "Juan Arriaga". Comments? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 06:46, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Revisited

The above looks nonsensical. That must have been my day for being on drugs or something. Let me try again:

• there are 184,000 hits for juan arriaga excluding "crisostomo"
• but only 16,000 hits for juan crisostomo arriaga.

Ergo, he is much better known as simply "Juan Arriaga".

But the next issue is whether there's a "de" in his name, and even we have a bet each way. We call him "de Arriaga" in the lede and the infobox (which shouldn't be there anyway), but the article title and the section headed Life have just "Arriaga", without any "de".

Can we please agree on the form of his name, and use it consistently? -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 06:24, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Stature

I really don't know how to reflect this in an encyclopedic article, but... Arriaga's three quartets are undoubtedly the finest, other than Beethoven's own, between late Haydn and later Schubert. He was in a time warp in Spain, and his quartets are about 25 years late style-wise (being based on Beethoven's Op. 18). But the quality is outstanding! I believe the article as it stands understates his talent, and what was lost by his early death. Don't know how to remedy this. Anybody? Opus131 (talk) 07:33, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, who wrote "the finest" quartets is very much a subjective opinion. That makes it hard to get into the article without being challenged/reverted.

If you can find a reliable source that echoes your view, we might be able to quote their opinion on the matter in talking about the quartets' critical reputation. But that's still a long way short of declaring they "are" the finest. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 07:40, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, I do so declare. But don't worry, I'll leave it on the talk page! ;-) BTW I see that his quartets are described as "sparkling and idiomatic" without reference, but I'm not inclined to change that! Opus131 (talk) 22:32, 14 June 2012 (UTC)