Talk:Ludwig van Beethoven/Archive 3

message: The current Moonlight_sonata.ogg is inferior to another file on Wikipedia: Moonlight.ogg.  I'm learning the piece myself (beginning pianist) and I wanted to hear a good example.  In my opinion, the current one is void of any emotion whatsoever.
Propose to replace
with
--Puddyglum 20:24, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree - the existing one seems to be produced by a midi sequencer, with no tempo variation at all. The other is an actual performance, and quite a nice one. --Stephen Burnett 21:09, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Made the change.  This is my first edit!  yeah!... Puddyglum 21:35, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moonlight Sonata media file 

message: I'm not sure if the statement "was one of the first composers to work freelance" is a good idea.  It is mostly true, but Mozart was probably the very first freelance composer.  Rewrite maybe? Pianoguy 16:17, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Freelance 

message: In the "His Music" section under item #1, the word "sonatas" is misspelled as "sonats." Can someone more experienced with editing correct this?  Ddunkman 18:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I went to do this, but couldn't find that misspelling anywhere - has it already been corrected? TMaster 18:23, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Typo to correct

message: Beethoven's work should not be reffered to as 'songs' as they so often are in the analysis of the Piano Sonatas...which are obviously not songs.Piano sonatas are clearly not songs.
:Can you point out where you see this happening?  I do not see it in the article.  Antandrus  (talk) 21:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Songs?

message: I'd like to make a case for deleting the recently installed infobox.  
*It makes the portrait of Beethoven small and difficult to see.
*It doesn't contain any information that isn't already in the first two lines of the article.
User:EldKatt has, in various talk pages, wisely pointed out that a reader of an article should be expected to read the article.  If we put straightforward information like life dates in the first line of the text, that's sufficient to make it prominent.  Cheers, Opus33 23:27, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the infobox should be removed. I believe it detracts from the article, rather than enhancing it. Mak (talk) 23:41, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I also agree with Opus33.  I have just removed it again.  The template was worryingly given the background colour corresponding to "non_performing_personel", and equally disconcertingly has blank places for "label" and "associated acts".  Even the clearest bits of Beethoven's biography (such as his occupation and date of birth) require somewhat nuanced presentation, and no template can provide for that.  --RobertG ♬ talk 12:37, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I have modified the infobox to display some of the nuances described by RobertG.  If anyone has further suggestions as to something that needs clarification in the infobox, please say so here or in the other discussion below on dates and places of birth and death. - cgilbert(talk|contribs) 06:38, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you change the infobox, you'll have to do the same with all the other composers! --pizza1512 Talk Autograph 04:57, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The new infobox

message: There is heavy speculation on what killed LvB, but  suggests he had cirrhosis. JFW | T@lk 15:20, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: More specifically, I've heard that he had cirrhosis of the liver. Ittan 14:52, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Kidney stones aren't generally fatal though. bibliomaniac15 01:52, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Depends. Kidney stones lists several famous people who did, mostly when surgery was still in a fairly primitive state. --Stephen Burnett 22:20, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cause of death 

message: He died a very sad death, and whenever i think about it, i want to cry.
After he came back from his brothers, he had caught pneumonia, because he hitched a ride on the back of a cart
(His brother was a REAL cheepskate) He caught pneumonia, because it was soking rain outside, and back then,
Pneumonia was more serious (they didn't have medicines, so no doctor could cure him(also, he hated doctors(He hated doctors,
because when he was smaller, they couldn't help his hearing))) So when he got back, he was so cold, and his clothes were so
soaked, he got even worse. He had to lay in bed for weeks!
Here is the part, that for some reason, isn't on the internet. The night he died. I mean, its on the net, but not THESE details.
Listen:
He was laying in a bed one stormy night, with all of his dearest friends around him(Kristoff, Kristoff's mom, etc.)
And he was starting to close his eyes, when he did something that sent a Chill down everybody's spine.
There was a crack of thunder, and he shook his fist at it, like he was mad at it,And Quoted:
"I shall hear again!!"
He then took a long, deep breath, and closed his eyes.
Sad, but Creepy (in a sad way)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.177.164.242 (talk) 20:44, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: How he died=

message: I've deleted the title "conductor" from both the infobox and the lede:
# To call him a "celebrated...conductor" is dubious at best.  A glance at the index of my copy of Maynard Solomon's bio yields 5 total mentions of him conducting, two of which are negative (one mention of his deafness leading to disaster while trying to lead Fidelio (p. 268); one comment that conducting was "...a role for which he had never been well suited." (p. 250)).  Certainly to imply that Beethoven's fame during his lifetime owed as much to conducting as to piano playing is really just flat wrong.
# I don't recall ever hearing evidence, in Solomon or elsewhere, of Beethoven "conducting" any music but his own.  I've seen other composers called "conductors" on WP, I think erroneously.  I think to avoid sowing confusion a distinction must be made between genuine composer-conductors like Mahler, Bernstein, or Boulez, and composers who occasionally conduct(ed) their own stuff, like Stravinsky or Copland.
# The title is also anachronistic:  All the scholarship I've seen on the issue indicates that the role of "conductor" as we understand it was, in Beethoven's time, in an embryonic stage, if it existed at all.  Indeed, Beethoven's music was in part responsible for its development as a specialty.  Conducting touches on this, if regrettably briefly.
In short I believe the term is, in Beethoven's case, an innacurate, misleading anachronism. —Turangalila talk 03:32, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Remove it, but for sure add that info somewhere (that he was an atrocious conductor)! ALTON .ıl 06:36, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conductor?! 

message: The scroll box in Ludwig_van_Beethoven#Media hides information in the Printable version.  As the information is part of the article it should be printable.  Should it be replaced with the usual list format?  (SEWilco 04:13, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Media box broken 

message: Meaning the "On IE the Birth name appear as John Winston Lennon".  It actually dated from January 15, 2007, by an anon user.  Agreed that it was probably vandalism.  Thanks, Turangalila, for just getting rid of it. --Lini 03:08, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Re obscure comment in To-Do List

message: This article seems to me to have suffered from having a lot of biographical material either originally placed or moved into the above article in preference to this one. As a result, this article is quite sparse, while the above Life_and_work_of_Ludwig_van_Beethoven is actually longer than this one. To my mind the article bearing the subject's name should be a respectable article in its own right, and in particular should have more in the biographical section. 
The problem will be that a straight merge will result in an article that is excessively long, but it would be a shame to lose any of the material in the other article.  It seems to me that some of the more specialised stuff in the other article, such as Beethoven's ancestry, or modern interpretations of his illnesses, could be split off into other small articles. The mainstream biographical material (which by the way is lacking in inline citations) could be used here to flesh out the current biography.  Opinions, anyone? --Stephen Burnett 10:54, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Both artcles seem to have complicated histories.  I've no real objection to making this article significantly longer; my main qualm about a merge is not so much length as the large Attribution and POV problems of the "Life" article; frankly this article doesn't need any more of that.  While the bio here desperately needs filling out, I think I'd prefer a separate, referenced completion, even if smaller and/or slower.  The breakup of "Life and Works" could be a another project--perhaps as part of a rationalization of the whole Beethoven namespace; currently the different articles are too often at cross-purposes...—Turangalila talk 17:05, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge [[Life_and_work_of_Ludwig_van_Beethoven]] ? 

message: I placed a  tag in the "Overview" section under "Music".  Currently I think this section is a big problem.  It's totally unsourced (unfortunately that doesn't make it stick out in this article); its tone is patronizing (very "Music Appreciation class"; I hear Karl Haas in my head); and overall it's a veritable cornucopia of POV.  Even ignoring the hagiographical bits it's highly interpretive in the least:  How "well-crystallized" was the rondo?  It wasn't "elastic" in Mozart?  Is the Allegretto of the 7th Symphony really an "ethereal slow movement of mystic glorification"?  (maybe on the Klemperer record...)  I'd prefer to try and fix the section rather than just kill it, since a cogent discussion of the music beyond just naming the periods and saying how famous it is is important.  —Turangalila talk 08:52, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Music: Overview" section 

message: Um, guys, I thought we weren't supposed to just cannibalize other reference material. Please cite from other sources besides (essentially) another encyclopedia. I also think that trying to create a free encyclopedia is best achieved by eschewing as much as possible (while highly regarded) the most ridiculously overpriced piece of *ahem* literature in existence, or at least consulting all of its references first and using its synthesis lastly.  I understand that the practice is to go to Grove first. But it ain't the Bible.  It's a tertiary source. Make sense? ClaudeReigns 17:21, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't get any of that, for I've written whole articles using Grove, but at any rate I'm trying to use it for fairly basic facts and/or very commonly held opinions, not its synthesis. It's very exhaustive and very high-quality, and the articles are written by good people. It's rather reductive to claim that it's "just another encyclopedia", and as for your personal opinion that it's "the most ridiculously overpriced piece of *ahem* literature in existence", that's neither here nor there. There's certainly no reason not to use it to cite basic stuff. Moreschi  Talk 17:34, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Grove is a reliable source.  Since we are not plagiarising from it, but rather using it as a reliable source of factual information, I don't see the problem.  Antandrus  (talk) 17:37, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kerman and Tyson from Grove 

message: I've put musical artist infobox on this page, but it has been reverted. I don't see why classical composers should be an exception for infoboxes. I want to put it back, unless there's some reason why I shouldn't do that. --Lošmi 12:15, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Composers#Lead_section, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Infoboxes, and WP:WPO#Infoboxes. Fireplace 13:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox Musical Artist 

message: A book on Beethoven's health seems to have appeared, . He had a lot of respiratory and digestive problems, and of course his deafness & mood. JFW | T@lk 20:45, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Health 

message: i suggest removing this until a source is provided.Bluebonics 23:00, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes the paragraph
"Beethoven frequently treated other people badly, and may have suffered from bipolar disorder, and/or irritability brought on by chronic abdominal pain beginning in his 20s, which has been attributed to his lead poisoning.[13]"
is nonsense. Reiter's article only refers to the last months of Beethoven's life. We know absolutely nothing about the lead poisoning in Beethoven's youth.--Suessmayr (talk) 15:57, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  bipolar disorder 

message: The German Wiki entry on Beethoven notes that modern research indicates he suffered from lead poisoning:
:Analysen, die das US-amerikanische Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago Anfang Dezember 2005 veröffentlicht hat, bestätigen, dass er von Jugend an unter einer schweren Bleivergiftung litt. Das Labor durchleuchtete einen der kürzlich von kalifornischen Wissenschaftlern identifizierten Schädelknochen Beethovens mit einem modernen Röntgengerät. Anschließend verglich es die Werte mit einem fremden Schädelfragment aus der damaligen Zeit. Demnach litt der große deutsche Komponist wahrscheinlich schon vor seinem 20. Lebensjahr massiv unter dem giftigen Einfluss von Blei.
As I recall, news reports at the time (2005) included informed speculation that the lead may have come from glaze on drinking vessels. Sca 03:40, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: yes, here's one on Yahoo! news:  Pathologist: Doctor killed Beethoven -- Mayuresh 11:36, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As long as detailed toxicological data have not been published, Prof. Reiter's hypothesis must be considered dubious. There is absolutely no proof that Dr. Ignaz Wawruch treated Beethoven's wound with lead poultices.--Suessmayr (talk) 16:00, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Lead poisoning?

message: If he was German, why is his name always listed van Beethoven?  Shouldn't it be von Beethoven.  Van is Dutch where von is German.  Emperor001 16:33, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Beethoven's father's ancestors were Flemish, this is where van is from. Von, in german, is usually a nobiliary particle ; Beethoven was not noble. Furthermore, van is the way he always signed his letters... I don't think we can contradict the composer himself. Cordially, Kokin 19:50, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Von isn't always for nobility, but thanks.  Didn't know he had Flemish ancestory.  All I knew was that he was German.  Emperor001 19:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: van Beethoven

message: I know this issue has already been discussed in some form or another elsewhere in the archives, but does anyone know if the middle (e.g. Op.31 and Op.53) and late piano sonatas (e.g. Op.81 and Op.106) are generally considered Classical or Romantic? What about the late string quartets? In my estimation, sonatas such as the Pastoral and the Tempest sound more Romantic than Classical (which is inconsistent with the "Eroica's" common consideration as Beethoven's first "Romantic" work), but the Hammerklavier and his other highly fugal works (e.g. the late string quartets) sound perhaps more Classical or post-Romantic than Romantic. I realize that these categories are neither cut nor dried, but is anyone familiar enough with the relevant literature to know how most scholars categorize these works (if they do at all)? W.M. O'Quinlan 23:38, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Late String Quartets and/or Piano Sonatas 

message: To which persons does the following passage refer?
"Towards the end of his life, Beethoven's friends competed in their efforts to help him cope with his incapacities,[14] and after his death destroyed many of the conversation books to protect his reputation."
Who else beside Anton Schindler destroyed conversation books? Which friends of Beethoven collaborated with Schindler? The whole absurd sentence should be deleted.--Suessmayr (talk) 16:05, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Destroying of conversation books

message: It's well established that Beethoven was extremely erratic and unreasonable on the matter of his nephew. I'm not going to provide a source because it's such common knowledge across so many sources that it is superfluous to offer one.
The right of challenge is being abused; Wikipedia is becoming a laughing stock. Wikipedia, stand up to the extremists. Tcaudilllg (talk) 22:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It isn't "superfluous"; it only means you have lots of choices. Choose one you think particularly appropriate or choose one randomly. TheScotch (talk) 10:28, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Orignal research and Beethoven's character. 

message: right|thumb|200px|Two of Beethoven's pianos in the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn.  Stieler's famous portrait hangs on the wall.
I've uploaded a photo which may be valuble to the article.
Hbar.cc (talk) 00:14, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Photo

message: User:Danaullman has added a section to "illness and health" that strongly implies that the subject took homeopathic medicines, and that they were effective for him. I have no doubt that he may have seen a dr who in addition to his practice was a proponent of homeopathy, but is there any evidence that Beethoven took homeopathic remedies? I also strongly doubt the claim/implication that any homeopathic treatment helped him, unless there is a reliable source that he believed it did. Even then we should only claim that it, in his opinion, helped him, as there is no scientific evidence for the efficacy of homeopathy. Any comments, or shall I just remove these changes? I also note that this user has been asked to avoid editing articles on homeopathy, and this is probably developing into a plug for his book so WP:COI applies. --88.172.132.94 (talk) 17:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: *Quackery was of course rampant in those days when Medical Science was in its infancy. And whether or not the homeopathic medications "worked" (or perhaps even brought about Beethoven's death more rapidly) cannot be said with any certainty based on the experiences of one single subject (any beneficial effects could have been due to the placebo effect or may have been spontaneous - after all, many people do often get better without any treatment). Whether or not Beethoven believed in homeopathy and whether or not they worked for him does not seem to be very relevant for this article and I agree that this addition is probably more like a plug for this editor. I would not object to a deletion at all. --Crusio (talk) 18:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's obviously undue weight in an article this size. Delete. --Folantin (talk) 18:08, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'd remove it but for some reason I can't, I can only view source. As soon as that's gone I'll revert the changes --88.172.132.94 (talk) 18:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed it myself per WP:UNDUE. The article has been semi-protected - so IPs can't edit. --Folantin (talk) 18:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Strongly agree with you guys.  The article should be about Beethoven the composer, and his music, and the addition seems to be more about how homeopathic medicines allegedly helped Beethoven than anything else.  This is a pretty clear case of undue weight.  Thanks, Antandrus  (talk) 00:06, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There are several reasons that I think that the information about Braunhofer is important here.  It is known that Beethoven had certain health problems, not just hearing problems, that influenced his music.  He was even known to have put his irregular heart beat to music.  I referenced a book by Hayden, which, by the way, was very favorably reviewed by the New England Journal of Medicine and in Nature Medicine, that highlighted the fact that he considered almost all of his doctors to be "asses."  However, he had a special and good relationship in Braunhofer, so much so that he dedicated two of his canons to him.  I do not want to debate the validity of homeopathy here, but the bottomline is that, according to his famous "Conversation Books" (some of which have only recently been translated into English), Beethoven had a real appreciation for this doctor (Beethoven refers to him as "My esteemed friend" in his letters).  I also reference a new book by F. Mai which was published by McGill-Queen's University Press.  It would seem that this body of information is just the type that is NPOV and of special interest to wiki-readers.DanaUllman 02:14, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Maybe stuff about his views about doctors, and his special relationship with this one, should be included. This should be debated here first. However, any claims that he took homeopathic medicine need to be backed up, and any claims that he attributed any recovery to homeopathy also needs to be backed up, with specificity. The doctor might never have given him homeopathic treatments for all we know. Be aware of WP:SYN. Also, the section added was far too long for such a trivial fact: famous person in history took homeopathic pills, maybe. Since you are heavily involved in researching the history of famous people and homeopathy, perhaps you shouldn't edit the article space directly when editing pages such as these with homeopathic content. --RDOlivaw (talk) 12:07, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: First, I am sorry that several of the people making comments here have little or no knowledge of the life of Beethoven, and instead, they simply seek to UNDO what scholarly writing that I do in various articles.  RDOLivaw seems to be one such person.  S/he is also 147.171.255.159 and 147.171.255.140, and s/he has a strong POV, rarely provides NPOV references, and primarily seeks to UNDO the NPOV references I provide. My writing at this site is FULL of direct references to NPOV source material, and they link to the specific pages in Beethoven's "Conversations Books" (RDOLivaw seems to be not familiar with these documents). Unless you read the source material that I have cited and found that it is incorrect, please acknowledge that you are working in ignorance. Please note that I do not simply "claim" that Beethoven took homeopathic medicines, I show it to be true. Please also note that I purposefully choose not to reference my new book on famous people who used homeopathy due to COI.  Dana Ullman Talk 15:10, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hi, yes I have previously been those two IPs - as I told Dana this morning on his talk page. I registered an account today after realising that my IP address was not static. My edits speak for themselves, however that is highly irrelevant here. I agree with the content of the two posts below, and stand by my comment above. --RDOlivaw (talk) 16:10, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Agreed.You need to read Wikipedia policy on undue weight to understand the objections to the inclusion of this information. The point is not whether this material is true or reliably sourced, it's about whether its inclusion is appropriate in a basic article of this length. It might be worth a paragraph in a book-length biography of Beethoven, for instance, but certainly not in a short, general encyclopaedic article like this. Beethoven is famous as a composer, not as a consumer of medicines. I hope this makes things a bit clearer. --Folantin (talk) 15:21, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Everyone above (except Fonantin) is not a regular contributor to this article on Beethoven.  Instead, these other people follow me around to undo any reference to homeopathic medicine that I provide. I would like to ask people who have contributed to this article on Beethoven in the past to provide comment on whether the information I previously provided is of use (or not).  I welcome whatever comments you have.  I certainly recognize that Beethoven was a musician and not a consumer of medicines, but his health and his deafness influenced his music and his life.  I inserted the information about Beethoven's health under the sub-category "Illness and Death" because this section commanded more information about his health in the years just prior to his passing.  I am not saying (or implying) that any treatment helped his deafness (nothing did), but Beethoven's experiences with Braunhofer has recently been uncovered by Professor Mai of the University of Ottawa, and this information did seemingly benefit Beethoven greatly (he was suffering from internal bleeding at the time).  The fact that Beethoven dedicated two canons to this doctor seems to carry some weight. Dana Ullman Talk 22:49, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: How sure are you about that? Antandrus  (talk) 23:38, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I stand corrected...and thank you, Antrandrus, for correcting me...and thanks for introducing me to wikidashboard.  You have provided many edits to this site, as Moreschi has also done some good work. That said, do any other contributors to this article have an opinion on whether the information on Braunhofer carries weight or not? Dana Ullman Talk 01:11, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Dana. I think Moreschi makes a good suggestion above; the kind of information you wish to include merits a mention in a detailed article about Beethoven's health and illnesses.  If you study the history of the Beethoven article -- I've been following it for about four years -- you will see that we tend to spin off "satellite" articles when sections begin to contain too much detail, i.e. overbalance the article.  I don't know myself whether or not homeopathic medicines played a role in Beethoven's treatment, and I'll take your word for it, especially since I'm aware of the importance of Hahnemann around this time -- but you may wish to write a detailed account of Beethoven's health, using all available sources (and being careful not to give undue weight to homeopathy, since I see it is your interest).  Please also look at the Life and work of Ludwig van Beethoven, which was a previous spinoff.  Best, Antandrus  (talk) 01:25, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Homeopathy 

message: A  biographical infobox has been added to this article by CenturionZ 1 without prior discussion here. (It describes Beethoven as a 'freelance'.) --Kleinzach (talk) 03:12, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm removing it for discussion, as done in April 2007. Thank you. --Kleinzach (talk) 03:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: My apologies for removing the picture - that was unintentional. --Kleinzach (talk) 04:34, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Biographical infobox added to this article without discussion here first

message: The beginning of the article reads "(English ; German , (December 16, 1770 – March 26 1827)". The programmer in me finds this very disturbing, as the brackets are unbalanced! I've looked far back in the edit history and it isn't a recent change. Is this really the way it is supposed to be written? Foolip (talk) 15:02, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed it!  Feel free to make changes like this on your own.  If someone disagrees we can discuss it here, but seemed like obviously in need of some solution.  -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 20:08, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unbalanced parenthesis! 

message: It seems that all the Beethoven articles should be listed in the See Also section, not just the two that are there.  I am not sure how exactly See Also policy works, though, because the other articles are linked at the top of other section headings, e.g. Beethoven and C Minor.  Asmeurer (talk  ♬ contribs) 23:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  See Also 

message: Substituted at 19:59, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment