Talk:List of major opera composers/Archive 3

message: He wasn't primarily an opera composer, and Fidelo wasn't so important as to boost him onto this list, was it?  --Ssilvers 18:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Shouting at us all is not going to help. Please calm down and read WP:CIVIL. Moreschi 20:13, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Delete Beethoven? 

message: Please do not add any definition until the discussion has been completed.Musikfabrik 20:15, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've re-reverted on the grounds that we need something to talk about and to serve as a first model. In my edit summary I said "first try". The definition was not meant to be the definitive definition and arbitrary removal is the wrong way to go. Moreschi 20:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I have removed the revertion because "objectivity" has been given as a criteria in the discussion underway.  This definition is subjective and cannot meet the standards of the current definition.  The definition should remain empty until the discussion has taken place.Musikfabrik 20:25, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Oh, and, although it's overkill, any definition should include a neutral, third-party source in a reputable publication....but I didn't need to add that, did I?Musikfabrik 20:52, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The definition has been removed pending a consensual decision-making process.  

message: is its existance. Sorry if I say this, but I don't see why to create a kind of "Olympus". IMHO the biographical and historical articles can clarify the importance of each composer without marking an ever thinkable boundary among major and not major (minor?) opera composers --Al Pereira(talk) 00:43, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The problem with this article.... 

message: I am not suggesting that this is the solution which should be used, but the idea was put forward by Adam Cuerden to collect representive lists and to make a cross-reference to see what was there.  Here is one that has been put forward 
Here is one, but it may nto be reputable.  Musikfabrik 08:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:   Collecting Representative Lists 

message: Musikfabrik wrote:
:It has been suggested that a timeframe be set in order that those who do want to see this article here have a chance to set objective criteria and make the necessary changes. I have made a proposition above which has not yet received a response. It might be pertinent to give people a chance to respond, or to respond yourself. We are trying to find a concensus before nominating the article for AfD.
Here is my response: There are two issues with this article, and they need to be distinguished.
#What are the criteria for a composer being considered "major"?
#Once a composer has met the criteria, what should be said about him?
In my view, the first question has priority. If we can't come up with criteria meeting WP:VER, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR, then the article has to be deleted, and the answer to the second question becomes irrelevant. So far, I haven't seen criteria meeting these requirements, so my presumption is that the article will have to be deleted. I would set a time frame of two weeks to answer #1, or at least, to demonstrate that significant progress is being made. Otherwise, the article should be AfD'd.
Should #1 be answered successfully, I do not favor a concrete time frame for #2. There is no clear consensus on Wikipedia for how much sourcing is required. Editors vigorously debate whether you need a footnote on every paragraph, whether it is sufficient to give a general list of resources at the bottom of the page, or something in between.
I have found Musikfabrik's approach to removing material somewhat unhelpful. Most Wikipedians think that if you find a problematic passage, your first priority should be to try to improve it. For instance, if someone has given a source but omitted the page number, either fill it in yourself, or flag the passage and give other editors a reasonable chance to fix the problem. Don't remove the whole citation. Removal should be reserved only for those cases where:
* It's patently obvious that the material is wrong
* The policy violation is flagrant
* Verification has proved impossible after allowing a reasonable interval to do so
Marc Shepherd 13:45, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Time frame?

message: There are six lists: Two encyclopedic, two lists of composers the author thinks important, and two lists of baroque composers. Note that last fact: It means the most a non-baroque composer can get is four cites, so baroque composers may not be directly comparable.
That warning said, 
===Composers with 5 cites===
Handel, Lully, Monteverdi, Rameau (2 baroque cites each)
===Composers with 4 cites===
====Non-Baroque====
Britten, Donizetti, Mozart, Puccini, Rossini, Richard Strauss, Verdi, Wagner: These are the core group, appearing on every relevant list.
====Baroque====
Purcell, Henry (2 baroque)
Peri, Jacopo (1 baroque)
===Composers with 3 cites===
====Modern====
Adams, Glass, Menotti: One of the lists cuts off at Britten, so these three are on all relevant lists. 
====Other====
Bellini, Berg, Bizet, Giulio Caccini(1 baroque), Cavalli (1 baroque), Gustave Charpentier (1 baroque), , Gluck, Gounod, Leoncavallo, Massenet, G.B.Pergolesi (2 baroque), Rimsky-Korsakov, Scarlatti (1 baroque), Weber
===Composers with 2 cites===
Barber, Beethoven, Berlioz, Marcantonio Cesti (1 baroque), Debussy, Glinka, Henze, Janácek, Luigi Mancinelli, Mascagni Meyerbeer, Mussorgsky, Schoenberg, Tchaikovsky, G.P. Telemann (1 baroque)
===Composers cited once===
[Number of times cited with baroque not given]
Argento, Auber, Birtwistle,  John Blow, Arrigo Boïto, William Bolcom, Borodin, Campra, Emilio del Cavaliere, Francesco Celia, Chabrier, Cherubini, Domenico Cimarosa, Dargomijsky, Maxwell Davies, Delibes, D'Indy, Dvorak, Floyd, Clemens von Franckenstein,  Vincenzo Galilei, Gershwin, Ginastera, Umberto Giordano, Fromental Halévy, Jacques Halevy, Haydn, Hindemith, E.T.A Hoffmann, Korngold, Stefano Landi, Lesueur, György Ligeti, Heinrich Marschner, Méhul, Mercandante, Pietro Metastasio, Douglas Moore, Orff,
Giovanni Paisiello, Krzysztof Penderecki, Pfitzner, Ponchielli, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Schreker, Smetana, Carlo Soliva, Spontini, Standfuss, Stockhausen, Alessandro Stradella, Ambrose Thomas, Tippet, Walton
===Composers cited once, and significantly weakly===
Fux, Pepusch (Listed in a discussion of the Beggar's Opera), Heinrich Schültz.
I'd say two cites or more looks like a reasonable cutoff, except for the baroque composers, which should probably need three, as they have 50% more lists. I will happily send my excel file to anyone who wants it for future use and reconsideration of the list. Adam Cuerden talk 15:08, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Woah, can you please use the preview feature to not clog up the edit history? O_O. Anyway, the problem here is you still seem to be looking for some special number of composers. That's still POV -- instead of looking at it that way, it should be "is he significant, or is he not" (forgive the pronouns, per above). It shouldn't matter how many are on the list, Wikipedia is not Paper. Still, this is a very nice start. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 16:04, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: True, number as such doesn't matter, but the one-cite composers have a significant number of odd choices brought in from biases in the lists (for instance, the BBC cite has 21 20th century composers compared to 22 19th century and 9 16th, 17th, or 18th century. This is extremely modernist-loaded, and, since nothing else, not even the quite comprehensive columbia university press encyclopedia article includes most of them, this appears to be a strange bias of that list alone. The stanford.edu cite is of very low quality (It's basically, "articles we happen to have done in a project we're diligently working on to list all major composers", despite MusikFabrik's claims for it, and will probably be deleted in favour of better cites when we get Fontatin's full list, if there's consensus on this. As such, I don't think the 1-cite composers are significant until they gain another cite, as they may be just a reflection of the bias of the list maker. Adam Cuerden talk 17:28, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Research Totals

message: Fux, Pepusch (Listed in a discussion of the Beggar's Opera), Heinrich Schültz.
I'd say two cites or more looks like a reasonable cutoff, except for the baroque composers, which should probably need three, as they have 50% more lists. I will happily send my excel file to anyone who wants it for future use and reconsideration of the list. Adam Cuerden talk 15:08, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Woah, can you please use the preview feature to not clog up the edit history? O_O. Anyway, the problem here is you still seem to be looking for some special number of composers. That's still POV -- instead of looking at it that way, it should be "is he significant, or is he not" (forgive the pronouns, per above). It shouldn't matter how many are on the list, Wikipedia is not Paper. Still, this is a very nice start. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 16:04, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: True, number as such doesn't matter, but the one-cite composers have a significant number of odd choices brought in from biases in the lists (for instance, the BBC cite has 21 20th century composers compared to 22 19th century and 9 16th, 17th, or 18th century. This is extremely modernist-loaded, and, since nothing else, not even the quite comprehensive columbia university press encyclopedia article includes most of them, this appears to be a strange bias of that list alone. The stanford.edu cite is of very low quality (It's basically, "articles we happen to have done in a project we're diligently working on to list all major composers", despite MusikFabrik's claims for it, and will probably be deleted in favour of better cites when we get Fontatin's full list, if there's consensus on this. As such, I don't think the 1-cite composers are significant until they gain another cite, as they may be just a reflection of the bias of the list maker. Adam Cuerden talk 17:28, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Composers cited once, and significantly weakly

message: *The rest of Kenyon's list from the "Viking" intro (I might have missed a few): Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, Auber (for political reasons: one of his operas sparked off a revolution in Belgium), Rossini, Berlioz, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Wagner ("about whom more has been written than any other musician"), Glinka, Mussorgsky, Bizet ("Carmen"), Gounod ("Faust"), Offenbach, Lalo, Ambroise Thomas, Massenet (the last four unappreciatively, for what it's worth), Tchaikovsky, Moniuszko (founder of Polish opera), Szymanowski, Smetana (whose "Bartered Bride" is "secure at the centre of the repertoire"), Dvorak ("whose operas are not"), Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Kurt Weill, Krenek ("intolerably dated"), Debussy, Bartok, Janacek, Britten, Gershwin, Schoenberg, Berg ("Wozzeck" is "unparalleled in our century's opera"). More contemporary: Tippett, Berio, Judith Weir, Aribert Reimann, Peter Maxwell Davies (none of the last three "have travelled well"), John Adams, Philip Glass, John Corigliano, Harrison Birtwistle, Hans Werner Henze.
*"The Standard Repertoire of Grand Opera 1607-1969", a list included in Norman Davies's Europe: a History. The composers with works listed are: Monteverdi, Lully, Alessandro Scarlatti, Purcell, Handel, Rameau, Pergolesi, Gluck, Mozart, Cherubini, Cimarosa, Beethoven, Rossini, Weber, Bellini, Donizetti, Meyerbeer, Glinka, Verdi, Wagner, Berlioz, Offenbach, Gounod, Ambroise Thomas, Bizet, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, J. Strauss the Younger, Saint-Saens, Chabrier, Tchaikovsky, Delibes, Massenet, Debussy, Smetana, Borodin, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Puccini, Cilea, Gustave Charpentier, Janacek, Richard Strauss, Bartok, Manuel de Falla, Ravel, Prokofiev, Hindemith, Berg, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Schoenberg, Poulenc, Britten, Walton, Tippett, Penderecki.--Folantin 17:04, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Chronology by Mary Ann Smart in  "The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera" (NB: might be worth noting the compiler seems to have an unusual fondness for Canadian and Australian opera) . Composers with works listed are: Peri, G.Caccini, Monteverdi, Gagliano, Landi, Schuetz, Marazzoli, Sacrati, Cavalli, Lully, Purcell, Campra, Keiser, Handel, Destouches, Vinci, Alessandro Scarlatti, Gay/Pepusch (i.e."Beggar's Opera"), Hasse, Charles Coffey/Mr.Seedo, Pergolesi, Rameau, Thomas Arne, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Duni, Piccinni, Jommelli, Gluck, Gugliemi, Philidor, Hiller, Mozart, Haydn, Schweitzer, Anfossi, Benda, Paisiello, Grétry, Dalayrac, Gazzaniga, Quesnel, Cherubini, R. Kreutzer, Cimarosa, Lesueur, Zingarelli, Paer, Méhul, Spontini, Rossini, Spohr, Weber, Schubert, Henry Bishop, Boieldieu, Auber, Marschner, Bellini, Donizetti, Hérold, Meyerbeer, Wagner, Halévy, Mercadante, Balfe, Glinka, Lortzing, Berlioz, Verdi, Erkel, Edward Geoghagen, Flotow, Isaac Nathan, Moniuszko, Nicolai, Schumann, Gounod, Dargomizsky, Offenbach, Bizet, Smetana, Ambroise Thomas, Boito, Mussorgsky, Ponchielli, Chabrier, Saint-Saens, Tchaikovsky, Calixa Lavallée, Delibes, Massenet, Lalo, Borodin, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Humperdinck, Richard Strauss, Giordano, Hugo Wolf, Rimsky-Korsakov, Dvorak, Gustave Charpentier, Debussy, Cilea, Janacek, Puccini, Dukas, Delius, Wolf-Ferrari, Ravel, Schoenberg, Bartok, Schreker, Stravinsky, Boughton, Prokofiev, Pfitzner, Berg, Zemlinsky, Busoni, Szymanowski, Hindemith, Krenek, Kurt Weill, Vaughan Williams, Shostakovich, Gershwin, Blitzstein, Britten, Menotti, Dallapiccola, Bernstein, Tippett, Walton, Douglas Moore, Barber, Hans Werner Henze, Nono, Ligeti, Zimmermann, Healey Willan, Harry Somers, Birtwistle, Maxwell Davies, Penderecki, Berio, Kagel, Sculthorpe, Glass, Knussen, Stockhausen, Messiaen, R. Murray Schafer, Meale, John Adams, Cage, Judith Weir, Casken, Harvey. (NB: let me proof-check this list tomorrow in case I've missed someone. My eyes are pretty tired now. Still, probably more to come). --Folantin 18:09, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, enough lists from me. I think I've spent enough of my time off dealing with them. The "Rough Guide" was not available at the library. I could probably reconstruct a list of most of the composers listed there from memory, but that probably wouldn't satisfy everybody here. If anyone can add this list, go ahead. If GuillaumeTell could check I haven't omitted anyone from the New Kobbé list later this week, that would be great too. I agree with Adam Cuerden above that the stanford.edu list is far from ideal and we should probably dismiss it. Lists provided by commercial ventures such as opera houses might also fail the ultimate test of objectivity too. --Folantin 10:43, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: More lists

message: With 6 of the 9 lists added [The baroque-only and stanford cite were discarded, an I couldn't face another massive list, here's the current totals. .51 indicates, in practice, that the Viking opera guide mentioned them, but disfavourably. (hence half a point) Weir is likely to move up the list a bit: She has a couple cites left to add. Note that some lists do not include modern composers. As there are over 100 of them, some very strange, I do not include composers with only one cite.
* Berg 6  	 
* Britten 6 	 
* Donizetti 6 	 
* Gluck 6 	 
* Handel 6 	 
* Lully 6 	 
* Monteverdi, Claudio 6 	 
* Mozart 6 	 
* Puccini 6 	 
* Rameau 6 	 
* Rossini 6 	 
* Strauss, Richard 6 	 
* Verdi 6 	 
* Wagner 6 	 
* Adams 5 	 
* Glass 5 	 
* Peri, Jacopo 5 	 
* Bellini 5 	 
* Berlioz 5 	 
* Bizet 5 	 
* Glinka 5 	 
* Gounod 5 	 
* Mussorgsky 5 	 
* Schoenberg 5 	 
* Tchaikovsky 5 	 
* Massenet 4.51 	 
* Menotti 4 	 
* Caccini, Giulio 4 	 
* Debussy 4 	 
* Janácek 4 	 
* Smetana 4 	 
* Tippet 4 	 
* Cavalli 4 	 
* Henze 4 	 
* Leoncavallo 4 	 
* Meyerbeer 4 	 
* Rimsky-Korsakov+A183 4 	 
* Scarlatti 4 	 
* Weber 4 	 
* Charpentier, Gustave 4 	 
* Pergolesi, Giov. Battista 4 	 
* Purcell, Henry 4 	 
* Thomas, Ambroise 3.51 	 
* Beethoven 3 	 
* Birtwistle 3 	 
* Borodin 3 	 
* Mascagni 3 	 
* Ravel 3 	 
* Saint-Saëns 3 	 
* Walton 3 	 
* Bartok 3 	 
* Prokofiev 3 	 
* Shostakovich 3 	 
* Stravinsky 3 	 
* Barber 3 	 
* Auber (Viking mentions him partially for political reasons) 3 	 
* Gershwin 3 	 
* Chabrier 3 	 
* Cherubini 3 	 
* Cimarosa, Domenico 3 	 
* Delibes 3 	 
* Hindemith 3 	 
* Penderecki, Krzysztof 3 	 
* Davies, (Peter?) Maxwell 2.51 	 
* Dvorak 2.51 	 
* Offenbach 2.51 	 
* Cesti, Marcantonio 2 	 
* Haydn 2 	 
* Pfitzner 2 	 
* Schreker 2 	 
* Stockhausen 2 	 
* Berio 2 	 
* Campra 2 	 
* Moniuszko (f. Pol. Op) 2 	 
* Szymanowski 2 	 
* Weill 2 	 
* Cilea 2 	 
* Dargomijsky 2 	 
* Halévy, Fromental 2 	 
* Landi, Stefano 2 	 
* Lesueur 2 	 
* Ligeti, György 2 	 
* Méhul 2 	 
* Moore, Douglas 2 	 
* Paisiello, Giov. 2 	 
* Pepusch (Beg. Opera) 2 	 
* Spontini 2 	 
* Krenek 1.51 	 
* Lalo 1.51 	 
* Weir, Judith 1.51
WARNING: My data has not been proofread and may (probably does: Leoncavallo at 4, Mascagni 3?) contain mistakes. When the rest of the lists are finished, I will upload my excel file here or to a site, but would appreciate if someone else proofread.
Peter Maxwell Davies will be much lower if he's not the same as Maxwell Davies.  There is some fall-off in quality after the 2.51 point: Composers get a lot more obscure. Appearing on half of the lists might be a reasonable guide, though. And, as I said, it is not unlikely I made some mistakes: Indeed, I know I missed a Wagner before him not appearing on all lists surprised me so I double checked. Still, I'd start adding biographies for anyone with 5 points or more if they don't have one already: I think this works out to Adams, Glass, Peri, and Schoenberg, but my eyes are going a bit funny from data entry, so double check that. Adam Cuerden talk 15:00, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think if you drop the .51's, and include anyone with three or more mentions, you'll have a good common-sense list that is totally defensible from a methodology standpoint. Marc Shepherd 18:15, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Preliminary results