Talk:List of concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was:  Not done - this RM has been open for almost a month and the numerous options need discussing individually until a final proposal can be put forward. DrStrauss talk 12:25, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

List of concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach → Concerto (Bach) – not a list. The (prospective) content of this page is what has been called "Bach's activity in the concerto genre", "Bach's involvement with the concerto genre", "(his) compositional engagement with the concerto genre", "Bach's preoccupation ... with the concerto style", "Bach's preoccupation with concerto form", "Bach's ... contribution to the concerto", (in German) "Johann Sebastian Bachs Konzertschaffen" and "Konzertschaffen Johann Sebastian Bachs" (which shows that separate scholarly articles and books have been published about this topic), etc., not a mere list. Francis Schonken (talk) 06:33, 11 July 2017 (UTC) --Relisting.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:48, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Oppose. Not an improvement -- the proposed title suggests that there was a single concerto, when in fact there were many. I don't see how this is "not a list" – it contains very little prose and most of its contents are either sub-lists or links to more detailed articles such as Keyboard concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach. For consistency, perhaps a better target could be Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach, but I think it's just fine as it is. No such user (talk) 14:29, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • @No such user: We currently have following Bach concerto pages (omitting the ones ending on a BWV number, which wouldn't be practical here):
    • Italian Concerto (Bach)
    • Violin Concerto in A minor (Bach)
    • Violin Concerto in E major (Bach)
    • Concerto for Two Violins (Bach)
    • And for the multiple concerto pages:
      • Concerto transcriptions for organ and harpsichord (Bach)
      • Brandenburg Concertos
      • Keyboard concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach

  I see more consistency ending on "... (Bach)" than ending on "... by Johann Sebastian Bach", the former also being more logical WP:AT-wise ("Conciseness", one of the five WP:CRITERIA for article titling). --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:00, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  But (Bach) is merely a disambiguator for an ambiguous title. The topic of this article is not a work named Concerto written by Bach, but the totality of all concertos written by him. Therefore, it calls for a descriptive title, and the current one fits just well: as a reader, when I see the title List of concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach, I find the article contents below matching my expectations. When selecting a descriptive title, we need WP:RECOGNIZABILITY and WP:PRECISION first and foremost, while conciseness and consistency rank far below. No such user (talk) 15:09, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Re. "I find the article contents below matching my expectations" – I suppose you didn't catch "prospective" in the OP. Labelling this as a list hampers the article's development, while the reliable sources proposed for this article promise enough prose content.

  Further: Suite (Bach) and Church cantata (Bach) are about more than one composition, and that is a situation that has been uncontested for many years. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:28, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  But you're taking the examples from a rather walled garden of Bach articles (and I presume you're the (co)author of many of them). I'm commenting from a broader perspective, and I consider myself a RM regular. I find Suite (Bach), Church cantata (Bach), and Concerto transcriptions for organ and harpsichord (Bach) rather oddly named, and I'd prefer them renamed to Suites by Johann Sebastian Bach etc. And more specific ones still have WP:NDESC such as Church cantatas of Bach's third to fifth year in Leipzig. Compare Suite (Cassadó) – that is the single work titled just "Suite". Above, I suggested Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach as an alternative target, if you feel that the "list of" format is too limiting. No such user (talk) 16:02, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Still, "... by Johann Sebastian Bach" as a prose disambiguator fails the conciseness principle horribly. We don't have Cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, but Bach cantata (which, btw, is also singular for a multiple-composition page).

  Don't worry about what I've been involved in or not (I practically wrote the relevant article titling guidance too, where I'm a regular), I'd be glad with any workable consistent solution: if it works it will be adopted in guidance forthwith. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:42, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  There's another problem with "by Johann Sebastian Bach", specific for this page: about half of the compositions mentioned on this page are not "by" Johann Sebastian Bach. They're by Vivaldi and other composers: Bach's involvement with the concerto genre included a lot of transcribing. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:59, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  I really don't favor conciseness on expense of clarity, as long as the title is reasonably concise; it should not be an exercise in word compression, and not written in headlinese. "Bach cantata" and "Suite (Bach)" IMO fail in this regard – and if you were writing a school essay on the subject you'd get a B solely on the title; at a minimum, cantatas should be in plural; "Bach cantata" is not a type of cantata. Imagine if it's a chapter in a book on the Baroque century music, or on history of cantatas – would you really expect mere two words where the reader must parse the intended meaning and scope? And short titles do not work in general case, so we aren't consistent even within the field of Bach's opus – contrast List of secular cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach (I surely wouldn't expect Secular cantata (Bach)).
  As for the argument that many of concertos are just transcriptions: I think it is still reasonably covered under the "Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach" title, or at least it's not worse off than "Concerto (Bach)" – by does not imply the sole authorship, and titles should not be exercises in overprecision either. No such user (talk) 08:29, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  You seem over-concerned regarding the conciseness/clarity issue of "Bach cantata": I don't think the initiators of the Bach Cantata Club (est. 1926), the Dorset Bach Cantata Club (est. 1955), the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage (est. 2000), etc., would have chosen that expression as part of the name of these initiatives if they were doubtful about whether or not the expression could be parsed by a general audience. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:05, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Support This move is logical. The page as it exists is not a list page. It is a mix of prose, a chart, a list here or there, more prose and so on. This is a typical main space "prose" page. Also, this page functions as a navigation page, which happens due to spin-offs. Just look at the templates directing to other "main" and "see also" pages. So, this is not a list page and the proposed title for the move is more than appropriate. The idea is these are navigation tools and prose for Bach's concertos, and not someone else's compositions, hence the name - Concerto (Bach). It is a good fit. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 04:57, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Further comment - I suppose this page can also be called a set index article. I prefer navigation page, but potato - pot-ah-to; six of one - half dozen of the other. As an aside, I think the discussion above should be moved to the below section entitled "Discussion". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steve Quinn (talk • contribs)

Re. "moved to ... below" – I'd avoid refactoring for the time being: it is usually more trouble than it's worth in a !vote/discussion, and it is not as if the comments are not germane to the expressed !vote. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:13, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you can't have them both – a set index article is something halfway between a dab page and a list, and Francis has already expressed an incentive to add more prose in this article, thus moving it further away from the list/SIA format. No such user (talk) 08:33, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Francis Schonken: no problem. @No such user: no problem. Let's see how this RFC goes. I think Francis has expressed a view that shows he knows what he is doing as pertains to the issues surrounding this page and Classical music composers. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 04:22, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong support – This is an article, not a list. Looks like the original title was Concerto (Bach) before it was moved without consensus in December 2016.[1] — JFG ^talk 16:12, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose but no objection to concertos of Johann Sebastian Bach or concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach per WP:NATURAL. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:28, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose the proposed alternatives. We have many list articles that also offer prose and other related information. Nothing wrong with "List of ...". However, I'd support Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach, - and even more the concise former Concerto (Bach). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:58, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Gerda Arendt: so seems like you support the original move request (List of concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach → Concerto (Bach)) — please reserve the first word in bold of your !vote comment for your position w.r.t. the original proposal. Please think about the one who would close this sooner our later: writing "oppose" in bold and have that followed by something that means, in fact, "support" for the original proposal, is more difficult to parse. Closing something like this is difficult enough, let's not make this harder for your fellow-editors (that is: including for the closer of this RM who should preferably get a rough first idea about the original proposal by reading the succession of bolded words with which each comment opens) than necessary. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:11, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • You are right, I didn't see the little thing for all the long blue lines. Yes, Support. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:54, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      • The banner on top of this section has (with its original emphasis): It has been proposed in this section that List of concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach be renamed and moved to Concerto (Bach). – it eludes me how that could have been confusing. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:50, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        • Other than you, I make mistakes, in this case not looking at the banner at all (more or less the same for every RM), but attracted to all these blue things that looked like possible titles. Sorry, will not happen again. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:48, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
          • No snark needed. I'm genuinely interested in how I could improve my OP if it were confusing. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:32, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. The simple title Bach concertos, commonly found in the literature, is superior and ought to be used instead. There's no need for anything longer. 64.105.98.115 (talk) 15:00, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re. "... Bach concertos, commonly found in the literature ..." – nah, as it happens I couldn't find a single instance of this being used in relevant literature. Apparently there's an album by Janine Jansen with this name (thus nl:Bach concertos), but that album is not the topic of this page. Could you give some concrete examples where you encountered this in literature?

  The other unsolved issue with this proposal is that it is plural, which we'd rather avoid (see discussion above). --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:50, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose strongly. The rationale makes no sense. We are told that the title is bad because the current article is "not a list", but how does "Concerto (Bach)" better indicate "Bach's activity in the concerto genre"? According to our existing guidelines, the proposed title looks like a piece by Bach named "Concerto". In Ictu Oculi and 64.105.98.115 have proposed acceptable alternatives if the "list" issue is a big deal (I don't think it is). Srnec (talk) 22:21, 20 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Really, I don't see what would be the problem with actual article titles such as these:
    • Church cantata (Bach)
    • Chorale cantata (Bach)
    • Weimar cantata (Bach)
    • Suite (Bach)
    • Magnificat (Schütz)

  Nowhere is it implied that these composers only produced one instance of the type indicated by the article title, and in each case the article is about more than one composition by the composer. We have article titles such as church cantata, chorale cantata and Magnificat nowhere implying there is only one instance of each of these types, so neither should the type disambiguated by composer implicate there would be only one instance of such a composition by that composer.

  The rationale I tried to explain is that there are too many different ways to indicate the topic of such pages if one tries to approach it with a descriptive title: none of these descriptive titles are anything near to a WP:COMMONNAME for the topic. Usually conciseness and precision are opposite principles and one has to make a choice somewhere in the middle. In this case the longer versions don't add precision:

  • Concertos by ... is less concise than Concerto (...)
  • But surprisingly Concertos by ... is also less precise than Concerto (...), while the former misses by a long shot the implication that not half of these concertos are actually "by" the composer (see above).

  In sum, no, I can't agree with these proposed unnecessary and counterproductive deviations of the provisions of the WP:AT policy, in particular the five WP:CRITERIA. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:33, 23 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Explain how Concerto (Bach) implies many concertos composed by and transcribed by Bach while Violin Concerto in A minor (Bach) implies a single piece of music by Bach. The form is exactly the same. There is no limit on how many violin concertos in A minor he could have written. Srnec (talk) 00:12, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

None of these titles "implies" in or by itself anything about the number of compositions: for comparison, String Trio (Schubert) and String Trio in B-flat major (Schubert) is about three known compositions, whatever way it is turned. Similarly Magnificat (Bach) explores what has been said about the "multiple" Magnificats the composer would have written, i.e. according to his earliest biographical records (see Magnificat (Bach)#Other Magnificats by Bach?).

The principle behind this is explained at WP:AT, e.g. at WP:AT#Conciseness: the goal of conciseness in article titling is "... to identify the topic to a person familiar with the subject area" (emphasis added). So if you're not familiar with the topic area, you'd never know how many violin concertos in A minor or Magnificats Bach (or Schütz) wrote, nor how many string trios Schubert wrote, and in which key(s). All you'd have to know (if not familiar with the subject area) is that whatever is commonly known as "Violin concerto in A major (Bach)" is explained at the page with that title, as well as whatever that is commonly known as "String Trio (Schubert)" is documented at that page. Again, the overarching principle of article titles in mainspace (as opposed to category space) is that generally, unless one is speaking about a definite set like Brandenburg Concertos, a singular article title never in and by itself "implies" that there's only one instance of whatever the name is. E.g. the article title Roger Taylor does not imply that there's only one single "Roger Taylor". --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:46, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think your interpretation of WP:AT#Conciseness matches broader consensus (and that particular wording has undergone several changes through history, and for a while it used to read something like to a person familiar with, but not necessarily an expert in, the subject area). I'm certainly somewhat familiar with Schubert's opus, but I really wouldn't know how many string trios he wrote; I'd consider that an expert knowledge. Thus, I claim that String Trio (Schubert) is mistitled as well, and to anyone familiar with our naming conventions indicates a single string trio, thus it should be named String trios by Schubert or like. For comparison, we don't have Tragedy (Shakespeare), or Comedy (Shakespeare) but Shakespearean tragedy and Shakespearean comedy. We can have a debate how best to balance recognizability and conciseness (whether to include the full author's name or just the surname, for example), but parenthetical disambiguation it is not. No such user (talk) 12:03, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not impressed by the hair-splitting. For instance, I take the WP:AT policy as it reads today. If a prior version of that policy led to hair-splitting, and that old version obviously still does today, then I'm glad we got rid of that language, leaving me unimpressed by reasoning built on that discarded version.

I see clear article titles such as Shakespearean tragedy and Bach cantata, both singular, and conforming to WP:AT. Similar for chorale cantata (Bach), etc, and the proposed concerto (Bach). --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:26, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For my part, I can assure you that non-impressedness is mutual (and not the first time, by the way). No such user (talk) 21:10, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Re. "...not the first time..." – no need to make this personal. I couldn't remember where we may or may not have agreed or disagreed before. Whatever that may have been, it should not have a bearing on the issue we're discussing here: let's keep prejudice of this kind far away from this discussion, as I already suggested above ("Don't worry about what I've been involved in or not ... [&c]").

I try to keep as close as possible to current article titling guidance. I'm not impressed by arguments based on obsolete guidance. I'd rather have it that way than the other way around. This is not a discussion about what we would have liked to be in the guidance but isn't actually there. The talk pages of these guidelines and policies exist for that purpose. Until if and when there is a consensus to change the guidance (back), we should go by the guidance as it is today. According to that guidance there is no problem whatsoever with concerto (Bach) for the proposed content (i.e. rather an overview than a list). --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:39, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. Stricken. Re the substantial issue: WP:CRITERIA lists Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness, and Consistency as five goals, stating that These should be seen as goals, not as rules. [...] It may be necessary to favor one or more of these goals over the others. This is done by consensus. Traditionally, they are weighed in that same order on RMs. Recognizability says that The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize and that's actually from where I remembered that wording. Naturalness says that The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for, and WP:PRECISION Usually, titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that.. Further, WP:NCDAB has Natural disambiguation is generally preferable to parenthetical disambiguation; for instance mechanical fan and hand fan are used instead of fan (mechanical) and fan (implement). Titles like Concerto (Bach), although very concise, fail several other criteria:

• It is not recognizable to someone familiar with the subject (classical music) – it implies that it is about a single work named Concerto
• It is not natural. Since it is about multiple works, WP:PLURAL applies, so natural names include "Bach concertos", "Concertos by Bach", "Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach", "List of concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach" and so on.
• It is not consistent. Well, we don't have consistency now in the field of Bach opus, as can be seen by browsing e.g. Category:Cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach – there are Church cantata (Bach) but Bach cantata, List of Bach cantatas, but List of songs and arias by Johann Sebastian Bach. It is only slightly better by browsing e.g. Mozart's opus: most articles are in form (List of) Piano concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but there are outliers like Horn Concertos (Mozart). But consistency is apparently a reachable goal.
• For the same reason, it fails WP:NCDAB as well, although it is questionable if disambiguation criteria even apply – there's natural language to express the topic of the article. We have Cantata (film) or Cantata (software) for things named just "Cantata", but out of context nobody would use just "cantata" to refer to Bach cantatas specifically.

Now, I don't have a strong opinion whether to use "Johann Sebastian Bach" or just "Bach" (would prefer the former for consistency with the main article, category, and articles on lesser authors), or whether to use "Works by Author", "Author Works", or "Works of Author", but I would like to see a broader consistency within the classical music domain, and it seems that "[List of] Works by Author" is the most broadly applied form. No such user (talk) 09:53, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Re. "Concerto (Bach) ... implies that it is about a single work named Concerto" (emphasis added): nah, nothing of the sort (see above). On the other hand:

• Starting an article title with "List of ..." implies that the page is primarily a list, which is not what this page is about;
• Ending an article title with "... by Johann Sebastian Bach" implies that the page is primarily about item(s) created "by" Johann Sebastian Bach, which is also not what this page is about.

"List of ..." and/or "... by Johann Sebastian Bach" may be highly recognisable, but if that is the case that would be for the wrong reasons. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:13, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Any additional comments:

• Possible formats (overview):
  1. List of concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach
     • (other examples in this format): List of secular cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, List of motets by Johann Sebastian Bach, List of operas by Alessandro Scarlatti, List of operas by Antonio Vivaldi, List of concertos by Christoph Graupner, List of concertos by Joseph Haydn, List of symphonies by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, List of songs by Franz Schubert, List of string quartets by Béla Bartók, List of operas by Siegfried Wagner
  2. Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach
     • (other examples in this format): Keyboard concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach, Piano concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Stage works by Franz Schubert, Sonatas, duos and fantasies by Franz Schubert, Symphonies by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
  3. Concertos (Bach)
     • (other examples in this format): Passions (Bach), Passions (Telemann), Passions (C. P. E. Bach), Orchestral suites (Bach), Organ Sonatas (Bach), Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (Bach), Concerto transcriptions for organ and harpsichord (Bach), Horn Concertos (Mozart), Piano sonatas (Beethoven), Late string quartets (Beethoven), Impromptus (Schubert), String symphonies (Mendelssohn), Piano sonatas (Chopin), Symphonic poems (Liszt), Violin Sonatas (Grieg), Cello suites (Britten), Klavierstücke (Stockhausen)
  4. Concerto (Bach)
     • (other examples in this format): Suite (Bach), Church cantata (Bach), Magnificat (Schütz), String Trio (Schubert), Clavier-Übung (Bach), Klavierübung (Busoni)
  5. Bach's concertos
     • (other examples in this format): Bach's early cantatas, Schubert's last sonatas, Schubert's symphonies, Schubert's song cycles
  6. Bach concertos
     • (other examples in this format): Mozart symphonies of spurious or doubtful authenticity
  7. Bach concerto
     • (other examples in this format): Bach cantata, Fibonacci number
  8. List of concertos by Bach
     • (other examples in this format): List of operas by Handel, List of operas by Telemann, List of operas by Hasse, List of works for the stage by Wagner
     • (relevant guidance): WP:NCM discourages disambiguation by last name only after "by": "... descriptive titles (including category names) would usually give the full name for any composer after "by" ..."
  9. ???
     • (other examples in this format): ...

imho we're very far from any sort of serialisation (a.k.a. "consistency", 5th of the WP:CRITERIA). Neither is this individual RM a suitable instrument for working towards article title serialisation, which I don't think very well possible yet for "genre-by-composer" overview articles (as the wide variety of formats in the examples above illustrates). Even the little bit of direct guidance that is available on the matter (i.e.: preferably a full name after "by") isn't always followed. In other words:

• Current "consistency"-related practice and guidance are of little or no consequence for the current RM. It is certainly not so that the "List of ..." format is most often used for overviews that are not mere lists.
• We may all have our wishful thinking about what a more coherent article title format in this matter could be – that is however not the discussion here: I'd refer to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (music) or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music for those who are optimistic enough that a consistent article title format would be possible here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:22, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the analysis – so let us start a discussion there and try to forge a convention. Without one, we're going to go round in circles as on this discussion. No such user (talk) 12:00, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that I wrote "... serialisation, which I don't think very well possible yet for "genre-by-composer" overview articles ..." (emphasis added) means that I'm not "optimistic enough that a consistent article title format would be possible" in this context for initiating a discussion on it at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (music) or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music (Don't let that stop you from being "optimistic enough" though). Such possible future discussion has however, for the time being, no impact whatsoever on the current RM (we'll have to do without it in the foreseeable future for deciding the matter at hand here), and I even seriously doubt there will be any influence on RMs or impact on the applicable guidance after such discussion has taken place. Take it from a regular contributor to such guidance. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:53, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.