Talk:Frédéric Chopin/Archive 4

message: Why is the French name used instead of the Polish one, despite the fact Fryderyk is Polish? I would understand it if the name Frédéric was English... BeŻet pl (talk) 12:47, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure, but I think Chopin himself changed it when he emigrated to Paris. --LaPianísta! 00:36, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Doubtless he did what many, if not most, people do when they migrate:  adopt the local versions of their given names.  I expect that, in correspondence with family and other Poles, he used the original Polish versions.  Nihil novi (talk) 04:34, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Frédéric instead of Fryderyk? 

message: Hullo, Can anyone help me please I need to know what the hell (if anything) Chopin though about Beethoven, for some reason I remember somewhere I heard/read that he disliked him but later on started to respect him. Can anyone confirm or deny this? Please! 193.60.133.205 (talk) 14:00, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: See the article about Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 32. It notes that Chopin "greatly admired" this sonata. But you'd best ask the Humanities reference desk if you need further help; general talk pages aren't generally accepted as places for questions such as that. =) --LaPianísta! 02:12, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Hullo

message: Who exactly thought it was a good idea to replace an actual PHOTOGRAPH of Chopin with a painting?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Purple Elite (talk • contribs) 06:35, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't know whose idea it was.  But it seems a good idea to have, at the beginning of the "Chopin" article, a representation of Chopin from the period of his prime (Delacroix's 1838 painting) rather than from his final year, when he was at death's door (Bisson's 1849 photo, which is now in the section where it should be).  Nihil novi (talk) 17:53, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Balls.  We should have both.  Or "bolth" as I sometimes say.  When drunk.  Sugarbat (talk) 21:42, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why did it change? 

message: A trifling thing...isn't it about time to archive the Chopin discussion page? --LaPianísta! 22:44, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Done ... :)  I retained threads from April for continuity (feel free to move any back that anyone thinks are active)  Antandrus  (talk) 22:57, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archive? 

message: Nihil novi's edit, as soon as his little hands could reach the keys from as soon as his hands could reach the keys is verging on editorial.  The only reason I don't take "little" back out is that most people would agree that a child just barely able to reach piano keys most likely does have small hands -- but that's also the reason the adjective could be considered gratuitous (since it's empirical knowledge).  I can see this user has devoted lots of time and energy to this article and I'm not at all interested in discouraging that effort, but please do try and keep the style encyclopedic.  Sugarbat (talk) 14:58, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The "little hands" simply follows the source, Jachimecki.  I wouldn't fight for "little," but on the other hand it does make it easier to visualize little Chopin reaching to the keyboard.  Nihil novi (talk) 20:00, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This isn't an essay, is my point -- it's an encyclopedia article, and in the same sentence Chopin's already described as just having barely reached piano keys.  As I pointed out, above, we don't need to embellish what doesn't need embellishment.  Sugarbat (talk) 20:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

text: P.S. If we're using exact wording from a source, it's best to put the quote in quotes ("") (and, of course, cite it somehow).  If Jachimecki said something that you particularly like about Chopin's hands (or anything else), and you want to include it in the article, by all means do so -- just format it correctly, and make sure the context is appropriate, etc.  If it's an opinion and *not* surrounded by quotes, then it will likely either be edited or deleted.  That's just how WP works.  :) Sugarbat (talk) 21:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Go easy on style - watch for POV

message: I've taken out one paragraph in this small section, and I want to take out another, but that would leave only one paragraph and I don't want people thinking I'm just a jerk.
Here's what's left:
:Zdzisław Jachimecki notes that Chopin at every step demonstrated a "Polish spirit" in the hundreds of letters written in Polish, and in his relations with Paris's other Polish emigrés. Likewise Chopin improvised music to accompany Polish texts[citation needed]; but never musically illustrated a French or German text, even though numbered among his friends were several great French and German poets.[51]
I'm totally interested in reading about how Chopin's Polish heritage (changed from "Polishness," which means nothing to me/readers [not even Polish ones], especially since it's not defined in the section) inspired him in his music.  I'd love to see this section expanded; sadly, though, "X said that Chopin was inspired by his Polishness" is also without meaningful content -- it's an introduction that just leaves me wanting more.  Too, pointing out what Chopin did *not* do (write music for French/German texts) tells me nothing about what he *did* do (write for Polish texts).  Here are some other things Chopin didn't do:
1. Write music for fingerpainting (even though, presumably, he knew some babies)
2.  Write music for pigeons
See hidden comment in the first paragraph of that section for at least one thing I'd like to see there -- names (or descriptions, cited appropriately) of musical pieces Chopin composed, and for what/who (and not just that they were Polish; I want titles and author names) he composed them.  I'd also love to know exactly why he was moved to do this -- not just "because he was so proud to be Polish," but an actual reason, or set of reasons.  Like, "According to his letters to X, Chopin dearly loved kasha, and when Y wrote a poem about Galician buckwheat, Chopin expressed his enthusiasm in his "Minuet to Kasza in F Minor, With Bacon, Op. IV., for Y."
Ergo, without any related details I consider this paragraph superfluous at best, and, at worst, mildly (and irrelevantly) jingoistic.  
:In asserting his own Polishness, Chopin, according to Jachimecki, exerted "a prepotent influence [toward] the nationalization of the work of numerous later composers, who have often personally — like [the Czech] Smetana and [the Norwegian] Grieg — confirmed this opinion..."[52]
I didn't know what "prepotent" meant, either at large or in this context; I had to look it up. Unfortunately, though, the definition didn't help me much in the context of the sentence or the paragraph, because it's not clear to me what Jachimecki meant by "prepotent" in this quote.  I mean, literally:  I don't know what this means. In what way did Chopin's "assertion" strongly influence the evolution of...um...the "nationalism" of "works (whatever that means)" of "numerous" "later" "composers"?  Who, exactly?  And how? What about being Polish made Chopin proud/excited/inspired, etc.?  How, exactly, did he "assert" his own "Polishness"? (It's not enough for me that he wrote music for unnamed Polish texts.) Who are "Smetana" and "the Norwegian"?  (It drives me nuts when names are used in a main article, as sources, but no info is given in the narrative about who the sources are/why they're credible sources.  For all I know, Smetana's your grandma and "the Norwegian," Grieg," is the guy who works at your grocery store, and knows a lot about cheese.  Please don't forget that people reading this article may not know anything at all about Chopin, let alone about Chopin-experts/his peers/music in general, etc.)  This is the paragraph I would have deleted completely in addition to paragraph #2, and I will, but not before I give the person who started to build this section a chance to beef it up. Because I think it's a great section idea.  
[Punctuation note: In possessive-apostrophe use, always add an "s" to a singular noun (after the apostrophe) even if the noun itself ends in an "s" -- e.g., "Paris" = Paris's emigrés.  Adding just the apostrophe means the noun is plural -- e.g., Mr. and Mrs. Smith together are the Smiths, and I know the Smiths' dog, Rover.  Other examples:  
:Charles Dickens = Charles Dickens's London
:three bears = three bears' porridge
:Five houses = five houses' roofs
:One patch of moss = the moss's border
:Two patches of moss = the mosses' borders] 
That is all for now.  Sugarbat (talk) 22:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: "Polishness" section not so hot yet

message: Since this was the first time I've ever used it, I'm not sure what the protocol is for how long to leave it up/under what circumstances to remove it.  If one outside opinion is typically grounds for removing it, then I'll take it down myself, but if that's not the deciding factor, I'm inclined to leave it up for now, since the article itself is still in really bad shape (in my opinion), in terms of encyclopedic style and NPOV, mostly, and I'd really like to get a bigger consensus w/r/t a workable plan for editors to use in the process of making it better.  In other words, I want to see some work get done, instead of done/reverted/done/reverted, etc., but I don't have any wonderful ideas about how to best make that happen in this particular case.  I really believe this article's been up long enough to have reached featured status by now, and I think we should all be ashamed of ourselves until we can make that happen.  Sugarbat (talk) 00:50, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[WP:RFC]] tag