Talk:Wind Quintet (Nielsen)

Name

How do we know it's "more correctly, the Quintet for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, French Horn and Bassoon"? Where does it say this? On the manuscript score? Where is it? Why would Nielsen write "French Horn" anyway? I doubt he would put the instruments in that order either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.159.18.21 (talk) 21:03, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the first published score, according to IMSLP and [http://imslp.org/wiki/Wind_Quintet,_Op.43_(Nielsen,_Carl) linked to at the bottom of the article, the title is "Kvintet for Flöjte, Obo, Klarinet, Horn, og Fagot" Take into account Danish uses ø instead of ö now. This is also the typical Wind Quintet score order, so it isn't really that unusual a subtitle. Most English Speakers who aren't really knowledgeable about the horn usually call it the french horn. Jonahman10 (talk) 01:37, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Infobox

Wind Quintet
by Carl Nielsen
The composer in 1917
Native name	Kvintet for Flöte, Obo, Klarinet, Horn og Fagot
Catalogue	FS 100 Op. 43
Performed	22 April 1922 (1922-04-22): Gothenburg
Scoring	flute oboe clarinet horn bassoon

I believe that an infobox would make better use of the white space on top ;)

Dear User:Gerda Arendt (for I believe it was you who added this comment, though you forgot to sign it). You may not believe it, but I like the idea of infoboxes on many musical-composition articles (as opposed to composer articles), but you have just provided a cardinal example of a major defect of them. First is the question of "native name", which in this case is silly because of the conventions used for genre titles (per WP:Manual of Style/Music, and any good style guide, such as the Chicago Manual of Style, Hart's Rules, or D. Kern Holoman's Writing about Music: A Style Sheet). The genre, including names of instruments, are always given in English in English-language articles, books, and so on. We have been having a little fun here with the Danish words printed at the top of the first edition, but I think it is time for this to stop, in favour of following the WP MoS. It is also the case that the article Wind Quintet has for a long time now been involved in this prank (to which I confess having been a party, though not the initiator), insisting on calling all Hungarian wind-quintet compositions Fúvósötös, French ones Quintette à vents, German ones Bläserquintett, and so on. This is of course not the case with the articles on the String Quartet, String trio, Piano trio, or any other ensemble type, as far as I am aware.

The second issue is less frivolous. The line marked "performed" could mean a great many things, but I presume the intent here is "world premiere". In the present case, you have supplied the date of a private performance, which preceded the public world premiere by a little over five months. It is conventional (though often problematic) to give the first public performance, and ignore any private run-throughs, rehearsals, or (in more recent cases) recordings or broadcasts made without a publicly invited audience present. Perhaps not everyone agrees on this protocol, and I do not find any guideline on Wikipedia governing it, but it is widespread, and the article Premiere defines it as "first public presentation". This can become difficult to determine in cases where portions of a work are performed seperately before the completed composition (e.g., Penderecki's Polish Requiem or Berio's Sinfonia), and of course with many earlier works may be completely unknown and in some cases of doubtful validity—for example, Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier or Haydn's Op. 76 String Quartets (both articles I notice lack an infobox).

I would be interested to hear opinions on this subject not only from you, Gerda, but also from other editors.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:13, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Jerome, for a thoughtful reply to my unsigned suggestion - but you guessed right. I am always delighted when a discussion leaves the black-and-white "infobox yes or no" and reaches a qualified yes, discussing the parameters.

• If you compare other compositions where I added an infobox you will find that most have the native title as the article title, and the others don't have the parameter. I made an exception here, because it was given in bold letters, and I think by you ;) - The parameter can simply be dropped. (When I noticed that the bold title wasn't even a redirect, I could have done that myself but missed it.)
• Performed is intentionally left open (not saying "premiere") and could as well be the first public performance, or both, or additional other significant ones. The idea (of an infobox in general) is to place the subject in history by giving some place and some time. The few months of a difference don't amount to much in world history ;) - If we chose the two dates we might add in brackets some description.
• The template has - on top of performed the parameters composed and published, - I think in a given case one is enough, keeping it simple, and composed will be often vague - how would we know from when a creative mind worked on a composition, - often it would be rather when a composition was completed (unless for some works by Mozart and Strauss a given date and a duration rather in minutes, for example). When a time is not known - as for many works by Bach not composed for a certain date - saying something like 1730s would still be better than no value in history ;)

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:59, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I am at a disadvantage because I do not know to which composition articles you have added an infobox. Now that I am thinking about it, they must be comparatively rare, since I have at least hundreds of such articles on my watch-list, and the only ones I can think of with infoboxes are operas.

• I did add the bold-text "native title" but, as I said, this was more in jest than in earnest. Heaven help us if we are to do this with all articles. The article on Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, for example, already displays the cover of the first edition, in French and in the characteristic style of 18th-century prints, where the title includes the complete instrumentation of the work, no key or number, and a host of other quaint features of little interest to the general reader. (It is my understanding that infoboxes are principally for the use of beginners, rather than for scholars already well-acquainted with the article's subject and for whom such ephemera might be of use.)
• Leaving "performed" open like that could be an open invitation to those trivia-minded editors who like to document all performances of a work (which, in the case of this quintet, could easily run into the tens of thousands). Equally it might be understood to mean the most recent performance, or the best performance, and so on. I think it is reasonable to assume that most readers would expect this to refer to the world premiere, but it would be best to actually use those words to avoid any uncertainty. The difference between year of composition and year of first performance is sometimes a great deal more than just a few weeks, and it is in such cases that the information is the most interesting and useful. A spectacular example is Haydn's opera Orfeo et Euridice, which was only first performed in 1951. This information really does "place the work in history", in more ways than one.
• "Composed" is indeed often vague, and even when the facts are well-established may be given in different forms (ranging from just the year of completion to the span of time from the first sketches to the exact date on the final fair-copy score). Your example from Bach is a good solution when the exact date cannot be determined.
• "Published" is, I think, the kind of really useful information that is better placed in an infobox than in the body of the text, where it will may even seem superfluous. It should of course not be just a year, but should also include the place and publisher of the first edition. Perhaps (for an infobox) it would be going too far to include subsequent editions, even very important ones (e.g., Bartók's Viola Concerto or Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring). —Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:11, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Wind Quintet
Dedication	Copenhagen Wind Quintet
Published	1923 (1923): Copenhagen by Wilhelm Hansen
Premiere
Date	9 October 19222 (19222-10-09)
Location	Odd Fellows Mansion, Copenhagen
Performers	Copenhagen Wind Quintet

• Thank you for more thoughts. The articles I publish are found on my user page and its archives, most recently promoted to FA was BWV 165, an old example is Messiah Part II (giving dates of composition time).

• I got the jest now ;)
• I would give "performed" with the Copenhagen event, but also not see a problem with leaving it open. I have added infobox to more than hundres articles, and none of them was vandalised. AGF?
• When the difference between composed and performed is notable, I would of course mention both.
• For an example of specific premiere information, see Bruckner's No. 8, for different editions his No. 6, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:55, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I added how detailed premiere info might look, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:03, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

The Bruckner symphonies make excellent illustrations, and the solutions look good to me (though I would like to see the place and publisher added to the "published" information). The same principles should work here, and I assume that the small infobox you have just created would become part of the main infobox. And presumably the Quintet will not have to wait another 17,207 years for its first performance ;-) If you are disappointed because none of your hundreds of infoboxes have been vandalized yet, I'm sure I could do something to rectify that situation! :-D—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:58, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I will leave the year here for smiles ;) - Publishing could be added, but I don't find it yet in the article, nor on the first page of this (which I think should be in the article). - From free score: Copenhagen: Wilhelm Hansen 1923, added, also dedication. - Thank you for support. I will stay on the safe side of my restrictions and wait before adding, - it's 72 hours of no response, or consensus, - I will not test the boundaries by defining an agreement of the two of us a community consensus. - I am sure you can spend your time better than vandalizing, - making music, for example, in Freundschaft, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:23, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for making me smile. Anybody but me could install that infobox right away to make sure the correct date gets in the article. I will wait 72 hours since the last comment (actually I made it 4 days for the other suggestions, to ease calculation), - I know arbitration enforcement too well to deviate from something that could be construed as teh ruling, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:23, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Moved. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:11, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Flutist?

Noticed that our article on Holger Gilbert-Jespersen says that he was the flutist, replacing Hagemann in the quintet. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:11, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Interesting. Is a reliable source cited for each musician? If so, the difference of opinion should be noted. If on the other hand the sources cited merely state that Hagemann was the regular flutist with the quintet, then it is plausible that Gilbert-Jespersen took his place on this one occasion.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:29, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I understand the Gilbert-Jespersen took over permanently, but don't know when, and sourced where (and no time to look, would start his article). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:08, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

That would make it a lot easier to verify. I'll see what I can discover. Thanks.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:13, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

This is proving trickier than I had supposed it would. Only one source I have so far found actually states that Gilbert-Jespersen replaced Hagemann starting with that concert on which Neilsen's Quintet was premiered, and that is the Danish Wikipedia article, together with its mirror on English Wikipedia. Neither one offers a source for this specific claim, though there is no question that Gilbert-Jespersen succeeded Hagemann at some point, possibly as late as 1926. The problem is complicated by the fact that several different ensemble names are mentioned in the Danish article, and it is possible that some of them are simply alternative titles for the same group. The source cited here, from the Carl Neilsen website, is unequivocal: Hagemann was the flutist at the premiere. In the absence of better sources, I think we have to retain Hagemann as the flutist at the premiere, and put a "citation needed" for the contrary claim found in Gilbert-Jespersen's biographical article.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:55, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Reasonable. There must be a reason though that Nielsen dedicated the flute concerto to G-J. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:03, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

There is no question about for whom the Flute Concerto was written, and there is equally no question that G-J replaced Hagemann in the quintet. The only issue is when. There is an article by the oboist, Svend Christian Felumb, in which he stated that Hagemann was actually an amateur player, and was replaced by Gilbert-Jespersen at some point. It does raise the question whether Nielsen's quintet may have been the precipitating factor. Perhaps that private run-through in April 1922 was sufficient to demonstrate—either to Hagemann himself or to his colleagues—that a professional flutist was really needed for the quintet. However, this speculation does not even amount to original research, and a reliable source is desperately needed.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 08:15, 28 June 2015 (UTC)