# Talk:Karlheinz Stockhausen

I've read the discussions in the archives about the unusual referencing on this page. Are any active editors still willing to defend this style? Popcornduff (talk) 06:34, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

WP:CITESTYLE/WP:CITEVAR don't require that a particular style needs to be defended. There are >500 Harvard-style references in this article. I doubt there will be a consensus to switch styles. And which style would you suggest? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:15, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
I would suggest using the same format every other Wikipedia article I've ever seen uses. Why does this article use a different one, and why would the consensus be to stick with it? Popcornduff (talk) 12:17, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
{{harv}} and {{harvnb}} have >38,000 transclusions, so it's not uncommon. A citation style that has been used here continuously since the first citations were added in 2006 by User:Jerome Kohl shouldn't be changed without that editor agreeing – WP:CITEVAR: "it is normal practice to defer to the style used by the first major contributor". -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:02, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
Yes, but if there's a consensus to change it, we can do it. Do you (or anyone else) feel the current method is the best? Popcornduff (talk) 14:27, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I do.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:40, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
Why? Popcornduff (talk) 16:49, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
Since you have already consulted the relevant archive of this talk page, you will already have read my long answer. To summarize, Harvard citations are much less disruptive to the reader than either full-footnote or short-footnote style, which require continuous back-and-forth navigation merely to discover what is in the note (often not simply a reference). It is for this reason also that my rule of thumb is, "if a comment belongs in an article, put it there, not hidden away in a footnote; if it does not belong in the article, then delete it." I am surprised that you are unable to find any other articles on Wikipedia that use this referencing style. As Michael Bednarek points out, there are 38,000 transclusions for the harv citation tags on Wikipedia. I believe they are especially frequent in articles on music theory and 20th-century composers and their compositions (e.g., Rhythm, Tonality, Musical analysis, Whole note, Mode (music), Canon (music), Consonance and dissonance, Cyclic form, Microtonal music, Music semiology, Serialism, Neoclassicism (music); Béla Bartók, Frank Bridge, Arnold Schoenberg, Milton Babbitt, Luigi Nono, George Rochberg; Le Marteau sans maître, Piano sonatas (Boulez), Structures (Boulez), Il canto sospeso, Aquarius (opera), Symphony No. 7 (Davies), Bachianas Brasileiras, Rudepoêma, Impressions d'enfance, Octet (Stravinsky), etc.), but are also used, for example, in the articles Timbre, Renaissance music, Solage, Estampie, String Quartet No. 13 (Schubert), Delphic Hymns, Modernity, Lutheran chorale, etc.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:28, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
For what it is worth, I also found this style of referencing on this page very confusing. I guess if it is a style that works and has been used before then it is alright, but it is somewhat unsettling to see this style which is so much different from practically every other Wikipedia article.Ryzcheese (talk) 01:12, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 @Popcornduff and Ryzcheese: I'd support a 'conversion' to the usual style of in-line citations with a {{reflist}} at the foot of the page. GiantSnowman 10:30, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
Do you have reasons pertaining to this page in particular, or is this opinion aimed at all of the thousands of pages on Wikipedia using this style? If the latter, I suggest you take this to Wikipedia talk:Citing sources, where a related thread has recently been opened at Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#RfC_on_amending_this_guideline.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:52, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
I also came here to say that the style of referencing feels very difficult to read. I think there's probably good reason that it's not the norm in Wikipedia. Wikipedia's not an academic text; it should be written to make information easily accessible to the lay-person. The first priority for a lay-audience is to have the information available in a convenient, readable format, which means not interrupting every half-sentence with citations. Only after reading, if a particular fact is highly important to the reader, will they need to look at the citations. Since there's no-one active on this page who can make a case *for* keeping it this way, it seems permissible to change it. DTysen (talk) 11:08, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
You may like to have a look at the ongoing (?) discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Deprecate parenthetical citations. Toccata quarta (talk) 11:21, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
DTysen: "Since there's no-one active on this page who can make a case *for* keeping it this way" – first, there's the discussion above in this thread; second, this has been discussed previously (see the archives); third, WP:CITEVAR is still unchanged. "a convenient, readable format" – it can be argued that an inline citation which gives author(s) and year, which is clickable to the full citation, is more readable and convenient than [123]. The only problem with this article is its inclusion of about 100 works in "Sources" which aren't cited and thus ought to be in "Further reading" (that, and an unnecessarily small font for "Sources"). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:18, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
FYI, parenthetical referencing has been deprecated. Toccata quarta (talk) 13:47, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Tea2min I sympathize with the IP who removed the longish litany of references from the lead. Ideally, of course, this information should be referenced in the body of the article and then summarized in the lead without references. Is there any reason this is not done? It's also bad practice, if  not borderline original research, to say that something is "widely acknowledged" and then 'verify' this by widely citing sources. The best would be to cite one reliable source that says it's widely acknowledged. I think the lead is also a bit holographic, particularly the quote "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"; I think the essence of it is already included in being one of the most important but controversial. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:28, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

@Finnusertop: I don't have a very strong opinion on this. It's just that I would never leave claims like "widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries" unreferenced even in the lead section of an article, even if these claims were referenced later in the article body, if only out of fear of endless edit wars over these claims and drive-by removals. But then I must confess that me reverting the IP's removal of the references itself was some sort of a drive-by edit. It's just that these claims have been part of the lead section since at least 2007, and I am somewhat surprised that after all this time people see the need to change them now. But this of course again is a very weak argument. – Tea2min (talk) 06:48, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

As parenthetical referencing on Wikipedia was deprecated in September 2020, would anyone object if I began the task of converting it to standard citations on this article? If not, help with that task would certainly be appreciated. Popcornfud (talk) 23:14, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Popcornfud, what form of citations were you planning on using? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:34, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
I converted to sfn in In Freundschaft, and wonder if a bot could do such things. RexxS, what do you think? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:40, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
@Gerda Arendt: you could probably get a bot to do much of the work with reasonable accuracy, but to be honest it's not the sort of job I'd leave to a bot. Folks can be really sensitive about citations and I think that even slightly controversial changes are best left to humans in these sort of cases. --RexxS (talk) 13:40, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
I actually believe that not much is won by changing the citations which are - to my knowledge - only used in this field. But what if templates harv and harvnb get deleted? - On the other hand, we could slowly do the job manually, as Francis Schonken also suggested. I guess with Br'er Rabbit around, it would be done overnight. Such a loss. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:10, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
Done – For clarity, bots performing tasks as suggested above would need an explicit approval, per the WP:PARREF RfC outcome. That usually means, approval before going to WP:BOTREQ or a similar request page, while going there without prior consensus usually means that the task would be turned down. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:13, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
For a start: below are converted citations to be copied, because I believe we could at least copy those already done once, sorted by author name, and year within one author, as Jerome did it. The citations in Stockhausen's are not numbered but look like a 3-digit figure. The timing of the deprecation was as bad as can be, coinciding with Jerome's death. Reverting the deprecation - in honour of his personal preference - might also be an option.


### What to convert
The references in the body come in two forms, with (automatic) brackets when only one, with added brackets and semicolons as separators when more than one. The punctuation comes after the reference(s). Change 1: get the punctuation to the front, replace harv and harvnb by sfn, elimit exttra brackets and separators when more than one.
Change 2: Under header References, have reflist|20em and subheader Cited sources.
For an easy approach, that is enough, and has been done by Francis Schonken for Stockhausen, and by me for the Licht works. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:47, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
The sources (I saw so far) are defined per {{wikicite}}, without specific parameters. Change 3: Choose appropriate citation template (cite book, cite journal ...). For sfn referencing, you need only parameters last (or editor-last) and date, all else is not needed, but once there, I changed it all, for added granularity. In cases of no author, you need to specify a ref parameter. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:42, 27 September 2020 (UTC)


### Converted references
So far from In Freundschaft and Originale (from the latter: only general topic, not those specific to the piece). 
B

Bauermeister, Mary (2011). Ich hänge im Triolengitter: Mein Leben mit Karlheinz Stockhausen (in German). Munich: Edition Elke Heidenreich, C. Bertelsmann. ISBN 978-3-570-58024-0.
C

Conen, Hermann (1991). Fritsch, Johannes; Kämper, Dietrich (eds.). Formel-Komposition: Zu Karlheinz Stockhausens Musik der siebziger Jahre. Mainz: Schott Musik International. ISBN 3-7957-1890-2. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor2link= ignored (|editor-link2= suggested) (help)
F

Fricke, Stefan (1998). "Attacken auf Karlheinz Stockhausen: Fluxus im 'Kampf gegen das musikalische Dekor des Faschismus". Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. 159 (4): 38–41.
Frisius, Rudolf (2008). Karlheinz Stockhausen II: Die Werke 1950–1977; Gespräch mit Karlheinz Stockhausen, "Es geht aufwärts". Mainz: Schott Musik International. ISBN 978-3-7957-0249-6.
G

Geddert, Geesche (1985). "In Freundschaft von Karlheinz Stockhausen jetzt auch für Altblockflöte". Tibia: Magazin für Freunde alter und neuer Bläsermusik (3): 416–419.
Goodman, Susan (10 September 1964). "Anti-Art Pickets Pick on Stockhausen". Village Voice.
H

Harvey, Jonathan (1975). The Music of Stockhausen: An Introduction. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-02311-0.
K

Kohl, Jerome (1999). Misch, Imke; Blumröder, Christoph von (eds.). Die Rezeption der Musik und Gedanken Karlheinz Stockhausens in Amerika. Saarbrücken: PFAU-Verlag. pp. 74–86. ISBN 3-89727-050-1. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
Kurtz, Michael (1992). Stockhausen: A Biography'. London and Boston: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-17146-X.
M

Maconie, Robin (2005). Other Planets: The Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Lanham, Maryland, Toronto, Oxford: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. ISBN 0-8108-5356-6.
S

Stockhausen, Karlheinz (1964). Originale (1961), musikalisches Theater" (in German). Cologne: Verlag M. DuMont Schauberg. pp. 107–29. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
Stockhausen, Karlheinz (1978). Blumröder, Christoph von (ed.). In Freundschaft für Flöte oder Klarinette oder Oboe, Trompete, Violine, Viola (1977). Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag. ISBN 3-7701-1078-1. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
Stockhausen, Karlheinz (1989a). Blumröder, Christoph von (ed.). In Freundschaft (1977): Einzelausgaben für Klarinette, Flöte, Blockflöte, Oboe, Fagott, Bassetthorn oder Baßklarinette, Violine, Violoncello, Saxophon, Horn, Posaune. Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag. pp. 136–138. ISBN 3-7701-2249-6. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
Stockhausen, Karlheinz (1989b). Blumröder, Christoph von (ed.). Die Kunst, zu hören. Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag. pp. 669–698. ISBN 3-7701-2249-6. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
Stockhausen, Markus (1998). Markus Stockhausen spielt Karlheinz Stockhausen: Meinem Vater zum 70. Geburtstag von Herzen gewidmet. Cologne: EMI Electrola.
W

Wörner, Karl Heinz (1973). Hopkins, Bill (ed.). Stockhausen: Life and Work]. London: Faber and Faber;. ISBN 0-520-02143-6.{{cite book}}:  CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
Z

Zelinsky, Beate; Smeyers, David (1985). "Karlheinz Stockhausen In Freundschaft: Eine Herausforderung für Interpreten und Publikum". Tibia: Magazin für Freunde alter und neuer Bläsermusik (3): 412–416.
anon

"Stockhausen: August 22nd 1928–December 5th 2007 / English edition of brochure with official worklist and list of CDs" (PDF). Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag. 2010.
In Freundschaft, - we had a long chat about Originale. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:25, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

 This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 March 2023 and 28 April 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Trinityrosee (article contribs).
— Assignment last updated by Ceiap (talk) 20:35, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I suggest to give this composer an infobox, to get to some key facts about his achievements - works, WDR, awards - at a glance. As for Mozart. -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:03, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

This doesn't do a particularly good job of summarizing what is key about the subject. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:20, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
It doesn't have to "summarize", just point at key facts, with the list of compositions even the best possible summary. As for Mozart. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:38, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
The MOS indicates that the purpose of such a template would be to summarize key facts, so I don't agree that we can conclude it doesn't have to do so. Nor would I agree that a link to that list of compositions is the best possible summary - in its present form that article serves as more of an index rather than providing a summary at a glance. I'm also surprised to see you make this suggestion, given Jerome's stated position on the topic. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:36, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
Jerome, when someone complained that an infobox was added without establishing consensus first: "Gosh! that was three years ago". I met a generous undogmatic person, - we discussed an infobox for Georg Katzer, for example. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:25, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
I am not really sure what you intended to show with the Katzer example - it appears that Jerome disagreed with your position there, and likely would have disagreed with your edit. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:13, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
You reverted again, although we discussed here, and you were the only person to object. I said in my edit summary that Stockhausen was one in a list of great composers, Sylvano Bussotti, John Cage, Mauricio Kagel, Luigi Nono, Olivier Messiaen, Wolfgang Rihm. Both the quote above as the Katzer discussion show that Jerome Kohl was a person who understood different opinions. Did he revert Copland? No. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:39, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
But Katzer yes. Keep in mind that these points apply in reverse as well, and part of understanding different opinions is understanding that different articles may look different as a result. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:06, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Starting over: for me, the discussion about an infobox for Mozart changed the "game", and even my dear friend Jerome Kohl might have agreed that presenting when and where he was born and died + an easy access to his works at a glance would actually improve accessibility to this articles. About the other parameters, we can talk. He was a great friend of infoboxes for compositions, as you may know. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:57, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't see a reason to agree that the places warrant that degree of prominence, and dates already have it. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:14, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
I don't agree that an infobox means prominence. For me, it's just a service to a reader to find facts in a predictable position. The majority of commenters for Mozart seem to agree with me, for example Voceditenore saying
"Infoboxes are an integral part of editing and more importantly of the reader experience. They allow us to cater both to the reader who is looking only for the basic facts concerning the person quickly and easily presented and to those who want a lengthy and more detailed artcle. The "repetition" argument is simply a canard. The Encyclopædia Britannica doesn't have a problem with "repetition" via infoboxes [1]. Nor does the Australian Dictionary of Biography [2].
The other "oppose" reasons are equally weak.
•They contain "unimportant factoids"?? The dates and places of birth and death, the subject's primary occupation are not factoids, they are highly salient and essential facts of a biography which is why music reference books include them in the first sentence of an entry." --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:19, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
EB entry for Stockhausen --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:23, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
Expanding the first sentence of the entry to match other subject references is not a bad idea; happy to agree to that to resolve the matter. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:48, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
I assume that our MoS avoids the places in the first sentence as a repetition to the infobox that is assumed to be there (and in most biographies I read is there). The first sentence is long enough already, and I prefer the common solution to keep it slim. Being able to move information into the infobox instead of the prose was one thing Jerome Kohl liked about infobox musical composition. Kindly read User talk:Jerome Kohl/Archive 18#Precious five years! - Mozart mentioned, 2017. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:50, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
I see some compelling points being made in that discussion, but none supportive of a change to the status quo here. There was reference to material not otherwise mentioned in an article at all, which doesn't seem to apply here unless you are also proposing changes to the prose? Nikkimaria (talk) 12:51, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
Page should have an infobox, looks bare and lacking as is. Kkollaps (talk) 16:23, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

You can see that one editor is against it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:34, 26 March 2025 (UTC)
An infobox should be absolutely placed. Taylor swift has an infobox and not stockhausen? It's absurd Marcodicaprio (talk) 20:03, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

You can see that one editor is against it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:21, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
Hi gerda, I don't understand why you're against an infobox. If not for classical composer, at least one should be placed as a recording artist@Gerda Arendt Marcodicaprio (talk) 13:30, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
@Gerda Arendt all the avant garde composers of his generation have an infobox. I don't understand why stockhausen doesn't deserve it Marcodicaprio (talk) 13:34, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
Either my English is not clear enough or your understanding of it. I proposed the infobox, so I am of course for it. One other editor, Nikkimaria, is against it. Please read the discussion. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:37, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
@Nikkimaria
This article needs an infobox because a lot of composers of his age have one and I think it's quite fair to add it. Why are you against it? Marcodicaprio (talk) 13:53, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

Because, as noted above, it doesn't do a very good job of summarizing what is key about the subject. "a lot of composers of his age have one" isn't a reason to support. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:05, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

i will Marcodicaprio (talk) 17:57, 25 October 2025 (UTC)
This is my idea. It seems to summarize everything
@Nikkimaria Marcodicaprio (talk) 20:02, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
With respect, I think you're approaching this the wrong way: it shouldn't try to summarize "everything", but only what is truly key about the subject. Is it key, for example, that his birth name is the same as his normal name? No. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:26, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
His birthname is karlheinz stockhausen. I just checked. Date of birth and death, occupation and list of his most famous composition. Why are you against it? I don't understand Marcodicaprio (talk) 20:44, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
I'm not disputing that his birthname is Karlheinz Stockhausen. My question is, what makes it key to emphasize that, when name is the same? Nikkimaria (talk) 20:52, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
I didn't notice it and I fixed what you suggested. Do you want to make other changes? Marcodicaprio (talk) 21:23, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
See above. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:32, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
At this point, I noticed that you two worked with the infobox I had proposed (in the article, where it was reverted). It was part of my comment, and I restored it, placing the last version right here. We can give the versions names and have them parallel, for easier discussion. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:50, 26 October 2025 (UTC)