Wikipedia:Featured article review/Igor Stravinsky/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 18:24, 14 February 2007.

Igor Stravinsky

Review commentary

Messages left at Composers, Russia, Lupin, and Stephen Burnett. Jeffpw 11:45, 17 January 2007 (UTC) Additional messages at Marlowe and Bio. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm nominating this for FAR due to;

Insufficient inline citations. LuciferMorgan 16:40, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. Also the language is problematic in too many places. Eusebeus 11:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- 2a: Funny to go straight into the specific matter of his early fame through the three ballets before providing an overview of this greatest of the 20th-century composers. The five paragraphs in the lead would be better in reverse order. Is "symphony" a form, like "fugue"? Verdi was one of the three major composers who influenced him? Seems unlikely. The serial procedures in the 1950s were an aberration, yet they're treated as rather more central than that. His stylistic evolution needs to be summarised succinctly in technical terms in the lead; "clarity of utterance" will not do. I'd hardly give oxygen to his prose ("He was a writer").
1c: Seriously under-referenced. Factual vagueness ("He switched to composition later.") Misleading statements—"The next phase of Stravinsky's compositional style,.. is marked by two works: Pulcinella 1920 and the Octet (1923)". Well no, these were the first works of a long stretch of neoclassicism.

1a: The prose could do with a massage—"Classic music". Tony 11:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The above is a more thorough examination, and one which I agree with upon closer inspection of the article. LuciferMorgan 12:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly agree regarding the order of introduction; to go from the specific to the general feels as if it's the wrong way round. I'm currently working on the biography section, which was something of a muddle, and is still quite thin on the years he spent in the US, in comparison to the first half of his career. The biggest problem to my mind though is section 3, which seems in urgent need of a rewrite. For example, "L'Oiseau de feu, is notable for its unusual introduction (triplets in the low basses) and sweeping orchestration" doesn't really tell you a lot; it focuses on a detail which is probably one of the less remarkable features of the work, while the fact that the score calls for large percussion section including glock, xylophone and celesta, and requires three harps and a piano seems worth mentioning. As for "Petrushka ... is ... the first of Stravinsky's ballets to draw on folk mythology", this is just plain wrong: what is Firebird, if not a folk tale? --Stephen Burnett 21:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just want to chime in and comment that I was quite shocked when I read this article to see that it was a FA. The last time it was on the main page a couple months ago, the prose was horrible, sections were half in and half out of chronological order, there was a lot of redundancy, and far too few references. I hope this nomination improves it a LOT.-Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 01:33, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c), LEAD (2a), and prose (1a). Marskell 06:22, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Remove per my nomination concerns and Tony's concerns. LuciferMorgan 03:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Remove Bold statments such as "Stravinsky's work embraced multiple compositional styles, revolutionized orchestration, spanned several genres, practically reinvented ballet form and incorporated multiple cultures, languages and literatures" remain unsupported. Evidence of original research: "Stravinsky was nevertheless photogenic, as many pictures show". It's a shame to see it demoted however, we only have six FAs on composers. + Ceoil 20:33, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Remove per my comments above. Tony 23:48, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.