Talk:Ludwig van Beethoven/Archive 9

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Archive 9

Article class

I don't understand why this is only a class B article. The writing is good and there are a lot of sources. There are many articles about composers which are also class B and not nearly as good as this.

Is there something I'm missing? If not, I think we should vote for a reevaluation to have the article graded A, GA, or even featured. Cheers. Wikieditor662 (talk) 02:25, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Only certain WikiProjects have an A-class process, and as far as I know none of the relevant ones here do. GA and FA are not votes; GA status requires evaluation by a single reviewer against the GA criteria, whereas FA status requires a candidacy process involving multiple reviewers considering the FA criteria. In both cases nomination should be done by or with the agreement of the most significant contributors to the article. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:37, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Well the nomination would require someone who significantly contributed to this article and who is available to respond in a timely fashion for the next couple months, neither of which describes me. Do you know anyone who could do this? Wikieditor662 (talk) 02:50, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

New sandbox

Thank you everyone for your help with finding citations for Beethoven. I have created User:Wikieditor662/Beethoven sandbox and started adding notes on there. Please remember that it's not finished. You're all free to add stuff on there too. Here are the notes the other members suggested:

- Get only the most reliable evidence, notably books written by musicologists such as taruskin - There are other good sources, such as Grove, JSTOR, and other archives like https://archive.org/search?query=Beethoven+reception (look at the above comments for other things. You guys posted a lot of useful information). Wikieditor662 (talk) 01:29, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Other good resources I've been told are https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Resource_Exchange/Resource_Request by ColinFine, google books, https://archive.org/details/texts?tab=collection , https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/?next_url=/users/my_library/ , and https://www.jstor.org/stable/746794 (the value of Beethoven). You can find more info on these at #Trouble_finding_reliable_sources in Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities

Also, any feedback on the sandbox is greatly appreciated. Thank you! Wikieditor662 (talk) 11:40, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

This would be helpful to you, if you do not have access to Grove/Oxford: https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani0000unse_f9p8/page/272/mode/2up MONTENSEM (talk) 20:00, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

(The surrounding chapters would also be helpful.) MONTENSEM (talk) 20:23, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

As for the archive, I sadly haven't found anything useful enough to add in the two pages that I could see. Doing more would require you to create an account with your email which I am not willing to do, so if there's anything useful there, perhaps you could add it to https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User:Wikieditor662/Beethoven_sandbox. Wikieditor662 (talk) 20:38, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

It's worth creating an account for utility you'll enjoy. You can read more about it at Internet Archive. MONTENSEM (talk) 23:51, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Also, as a rule, beware of relying on Norman Lebrecht among other journalists and writers, not because they're necessarily bad or wrong (let us bracket that question), but because their will generally be more liable to contest by scholars working in an academic context. MONTENSEM (talk) 20:10, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback and the archive link.

Hopefully mentioning that the quote is by Lebrecht shows the reader that it's just his opinion on the matter. Let me know if you think it should be removed, but I would argue that we should show some different opinions on Beethoven -- especially from those who are involved in the subject. Wikieditor662 (talk) 20:24, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

It's great to have different opinions. This might be a good resource, too, in relation to Beethoven and US pop music: https://archive.org/details/beethoveninameri0000broy/page/292/mode/2up MONTENSEM (talk) 23:59, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you once again very much. I added some of the information I saw on here to the article (as well as a portrait, which I'm not sure is okay since the same one is used in the Romantic music article).

Please send me any other useful information you find. I hope that once the sandbox is ready there won't be heavy resistance when it comes to adding it to Beethoven's legacy section -- so far there have been no objections, so I assume that people are okay with what I have written up until this point. Wikieditor662 (talk) 01:31, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Adding information about Beethoven's legacy section

Should I add what I have written down right now, and add any new information to Beethoven's page, or should I wait until the notes are complete before adding it?

The problem is that right now there is very little information regarding his influence and legacy, despite him being by far one of the most significant composers. Even though much more information could be added to what I wrote, I think including it would be far better than leaving only what we have now. With exceptions for some opinions, I believe Everything I wrote is supported by highly reliable sources including Taruskin and other musicologists and books. Wikieditor662 (talk) 21:53, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikieditor, I'm afraid your current sandbox doesn't seem ready for the mainspace. It is primarily just a series of quote, with no overarching context. You said you were basing it off what I did at Josquin des Prez#Legacy, but I can't see the resemblance. Yes there are quotes there, but there is only three, and they are by prominent Josquin scholars. The rest of the section is carefully cited reception analysis which creates a fully-formed narrative.

You are citing a journalist and some rather niche musicologists and seemingly random composers. Instead, you should be quoting much less, and exclusively to important Beethoven scholars like like Cooper, Kerman, Lockwood and Solomon (otherwise, deciding who to quote becomes too arbitrary). There is a whole "Reception studies" section of the Grove bibliography which is not touched at all here. There are also some major formatting issues throughout, in the text and sources.

I would gently suggest that perhaps you direct your efforts towards other places at the moment, these kinds of big topics take much time and experience to get right. Beethoven has plenty of individual compositions with poor Wikipedia pages, and they could better benefit from your efforts. Aza24 (talk) 22:05, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

@Aza24 Thank you for your opinion and being gentle. Beethoven's article is probably read by many more people than even his most famous compositions, and I find it very unfortunate that the article does not mention his influence on other composers, the romantic era, and music today.

With that being said, I realize that this is a very difficult task and that I cannot do it on my own. Could adding in the future be possible if the sandbox were to also be worked on by you and / or other editors as well? Some of the stuff on there could be useful, and I don't see why other experienced editors wouldn't want to improve Beethoven's legacy section. Wikieditor662 (talk) 22:31, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Well it's tricky, most editors (including me) often have big to-do-lists in mind. You're quite right that this biography is read more than most of his compositions, and perhaps more than most composers, but in reality, I would tentatively assume that the vast majority of readers don't scroll past the lead. That's not to say it isn't a priority, but in the time it takes me to write a fully-fleshed, sourced and comprehensive legacy section, I could improve 10 women composer bios (which no one would touch otherwise), or write the entire article for an ancient empire's musical tradition—all information which might be very difficult for readers to access, were it not on Wikipedia. Is information on Beethoven difficult to access? Not particularly. This is of course a big oversimplification and I will certainly put this section on my radar—I'm just hesitant to commit to anything right now.

If you want to touch base on this in December, we could plan to take a crack at it then, when some of my other projects have wrapped up. Aza24 (talk) 23:37, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

I see what you're saying. While most people will only look at the lead, people interested in learning about Beethoven may read the whole article. Since there is no proper legacy section here, they will resort to other places online such as reddit, which are completely unsourced and likely contain misinformation.

I understand that writing the entire legacy section by yourself will prevent you from doing other things. What if a large number of people each do a little to contribute to it? It won't be very time consuming for the individuals and I bet a lot could get done. Wikieditor662 (talk) 00:42, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

The problematic pretty picture

This picture:

was appearing in this Beethoven article and on numerous places on the world's Wikipedias ([1]). But I have had a lot of trouble trying to find out its origin and authenticity.

It is not a plausible portrayal of Beethoven, since it depicts a strikingly handsome young man with a glowing complexion. However, biographies of Beethoven (right now I'm reading the very thoughtful one by Jan Swafford) tell us that Beethoven, sadly for him, was pretty darn ugly. Some other portraits give a hint:.

If I can offer a conjecture, I think that the origin of the "beautiful Beethoven" portrait is this engraving by Neidl, after Stainhauser (caption appears in current version of article):

The earliest known portrait of Beethoven; 1801 engraving by Johann Joseph Neidl after a now-lost portrait by Gandolph Ernst Stainhauser von Treuberg, ca. 1800

This seems to be authentic, and only modestly sentimentalizing. Somebody then made a prettier version :

which beautifies the engraving quite a bit (wide eyes, neater eyebrows, little smile). Then someone took this portrayal and colorized it, yielding the version seen above.

There is quite a bit of activity in creating sentimentalized phony portraits of the great composers (see this outrageous one of Haydn: [2], or this one of Mozart: [3]). We may have been the unwitting victims of this activity.

If it turns out I am wrong, and you have seen some evidence of authenticity for the color portrait, do please feel free to revert my edit, explaining your rationale on this talk page. Opus33 (talk) 22:10, 11 September 2024 (UTC) Opus33 (talk) 22:10, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Opus (and good to see you around!) - for what it's worth I agree with the swap. I strongly suspect we will see even more prettification and other varieties of fanciful but nonsensical portraiture, given the abundance of artificial intelligence tools. I could provide some amusing suggestions, but, um, WP:BEANS. Antandrus (talk) 22:34, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Same: good to see you around, and good arguments for a change! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:45, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Opus33, perhaps you belong on TV. I'm wholly convinced. I've always imagined Beethoven as more grizzly/ ugly /scowlly, and less like Robert Schumann on a date night. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:33, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

How nice to point at Schumann on his anniversary ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:01, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for friendly greetings! It would be fun to work on that TV show. Opus33 (talk) 03:11, 14 September 2024 (UTC)