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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mathsci (talk | contribs) at 09:47, 11 May 2018 (→‎Further comments on sources). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Reincken/Bach stories involving "An Wasserflüssen Babylon"

Afaik there are two "stories" connecting Johann Adam Reincken, Johann Sebastian Bach and the "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" chorale:

1700
Source:
  • Adler, Margit (31 August 2006). "Earliest Music Manuscripts by Johann Sebastian Bach Discovered". www.klassik-stiftung.de. Klassik Stiftung Weimar.
Bach's copy of Reincken's "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" chorale fantasia for organ is dated 1700. Beside the date, Bach also wrote in the manuscript that at the time he was a student of Georg Böhm.
Currently the Wikipedia article has "When the young Johann Sebastian Bach visited Reincken in 1701 to study with him, he copied the work", which should read, more correctly according to the above source, "The young Johann Sebastian Bach copied Reincken's work when he studied with Georg Böhm in 1700".
(The same source also says something about a "hitherto unknown" fantasia on "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" by Johann Pachelbel – compare the four chorale preludes, three extant and one lost, mentioned in the catalogue of Perreault (2001) as Nos. 17–20, if Wikipedia's List of compositions by Johann Pachelbel is correct)
1722
Sources:
According to the Nekrolog (1754) Bach visited the then very old Reincken in 1722, and improvised for half an hour on "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", in the style of the Hamburg organists like Reincken, and got a compliment from the old composer. Near the end of the account of the anecdote it is mentioned that Bach knew Reincken's setting of the chorale.
(The webpage of the Scroll Ensemble also mentions many other settings of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" by various composers)
* This is a source currently used in the article: it is however probably far from the best source for the 1722 anecdote, the veracity of which is not universally acknowledged in Bach-scholarship. At least one "error" by the authors of the Nekrolog is that in 1722 Reincken was not exactly "nearly 100 years old" as they contend: Reincken died in 1722, less than 79 years of age at time of death. Another, quite butchered version of the anecdote, referenced to a completely inadequate source (Sojourn: Jan Adams Reincken, by Timothy A. Smith) is in the third paragraph of Johann Adam Reincken#Life.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 04:52, 12 March 2018 (UTC); updated 08:02, 12 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Schütz's Op. 2

Schütz's Op. 2, Psalmen Davids (1619), is unrelated to the "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" article. In his Op. 2 Schütz uses a different German paraphrase of Psalm 137 ("An den Wassern zu Babel"), unrelated to Dachstein's text, and a setting, SWV 37, unrelated to Dachstein's hymn tune. I propose to remove inclusions and links to Psalmen Davids from this article (they rather confuse the matter). Also the author of the "An den Wassern zu Babel" hymn does not need to be mentioned in the context of Schütz's setting of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", also rather confusing than clarifying: in the current text it almost seems as if Gerhardt composed the Cantus of Dachstein's 1525 "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" hymn – SWV 242, the setting in Schütz's Op. 5 uses both Dachstein's text of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" and Dachstein's melody for that hymn, afaik. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:07, 12 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Luther-Holbein-Pepys image

The pen is mightier than the sword: depiction of Martin Luther in combat with Pope Leo X. 1524 woodcut of Hans Holbein, with Protestant Tudor verse, 1539, possibly by Miles Coverdale. Pepys Library.[1]

Do we want to keep this image (→) and its sources (↓)? IMHO this seems too far-fetched for the topic of this article. It is not even sure it is related to *any* of it (there's only a "possible" relationship to one of the persons mentioned in the article). Nor the image, nor the text in and under the image establish any relationship to Dachstein's "An Wasserflüssen Babylon". Further, there's already quite enough illustrative material in the article that more closely relates to the article topic. Further, there's a MOS:SANDWICHING-like issue (collision between the image and the tabulated verse in the next section), requiring a {{clear}} template, which, at least on the screen of my desktop computer, produces a large white gap.

With all due respect for who digitised the image and uploaded it, but it is not that if it isn't the most suitable image here that it couldn't be used elsewhere in Wikipedia. --Francis Schonken (talk) 04:35, 14 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

notes, references, sources

References

  1. ^ Paisey & Bartrum 2009

Lead image

I prefer:

above:

as WP:LEADIMAGE in the infobox, primarily for legibility: the first image has a clearly readable version of the hymn tune, by modern standards, while the second is less legible for a modern readership: smaller (hymn text unreadable without magnification), less legible font, uses old terminology (cantus instead of soprano), uses soprano clef which is surely less readable to most users compared to the standard G clef. Also the height of the second image may push the infobox into the title area of the first section, which is less likely to happen with the first image. German verses are given entirely in a section elsewhere on the page, so I don't see why they should be given in illegible format in the lead image. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:28, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There is no lede image. There is just an infobox, created by Gerda. The tiny image of the melody is unfortunately too small to read. It does not seem to be particularly helpful in this case. On the other hand, the image currently in the infobox is a high-resolution composite image. It displays the melody of the first line of the cantus along with the accompanying page of the following verses. The image serves an important educational that complements the text. (Nobody has so far attempted to make a section on the melody—it would be nice if Gerda could do that. I can certainly create the lilypond audio, which I have been told is quite well-known and popular amongst church-goers.) There are several ways in which the image can be rendered, some of which do not involve using an infobox. This particularly type of image has been created by me on many times on wikimedia commons: I could check to see how many images I have created/oploaded like that. Gerda has often asked me to upload high-resolution autogrpah manuscripts from the archive. Mathsci (talk) 12:22, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Again this is about an WP:INFOBOX. It's not the same as a WP:LEDE. The infobox of BWV 140 is of a similar kind and, as a favour for User:Gerda Arendt, I assisted Gerda in preparing that infobox. It was tricky. The lede in BWV 105 had a similar image, created by me. As it turns out, that image was used as the template for the Bach cantatas on fr.wikipedia. I have no way why those wikipedians chose mine, because I don't edit on fr.wikipedia ... Mathsci (talk) 14:52, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
WP:INFOBOX is of little relevance: its short paragraph on images, WP:INFOBOXIMAGE, is about technicalities and doesn't assume that the infobox is placed in the lead section (so doesn't have specific lead image guidance); WP:LEDE is about the text of the lead section, and not the page that contains WP:LEADIMAGE guidance: that guidance is, as I said above, the applicable guideline in this context. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:19, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
For clarity: whether or not the lead image is in an infobox, WP:LEADIMAGE applies. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:11, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

de.wikipedia translation

This English tarnsaltion was written initially by Gerda Arendt, copied from the article on de.wikipedia. That text was not properly sourced and I have meticulously added those sources. Gerda's truncated translation, however, did not contain a lot of extra content from the de.wikipedia. That material made it hard for readers to work out what was going on in the article. I am now in the process of amplifying the text to improve that. Other users can help there; at the moment the sources for Martin Bucer—a featured article on en.wikipedia–can be used for summarising and tweaking the content, again carefully checking on the secondary sources (which I have unearthed). Mathsci (talk) 10:09, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This source:
  • Greschat, Martin (2004), "A Preacher in Strasbourg", Martin Bucer: A Reformer and His Times, translated by Stephen E. Buckwalter, Westminster John Knox Press, pp. 47–86, ISBN 0-664-22690-6
does not mention "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" once, nor the hymn's author, Wolfgang Dachstein. There are enough reliable sources relating to "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", without needing to take recourse to WP:COATRACK-like content based on sources that make no link to the topic of this article. Re. "just history of the Reformation - standard featured content – "history of the Reformation" is not the topic of this article: please follow sources, that is sources on the topic of this article, and follow their lead on how much to summarize from the historical context. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:28, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It also doesn't matter whether Martin Bucer is a featured article: the article doesn't mention "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" nor Dachstein, and as a source for another Wikipedia article it fails WP:USERGENERATED. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:37, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
For clarity:
  • The Greschat 2004 source does not mention "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" in the context of Bucer
  • The Leahy 2011 source does not mention Bucer in the context of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon"
Content mixed from both sources to intimate a link between Bucer and "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" should be removed: only if a reliable (external!) source makes that link is it possible to talk about such connection in the Wikipedia article, subject to consensus on whether such possible or unproven connection carries enough weight to be mentioned in an article which has plenty of reliable sources that don't mention such connection. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:57, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The section here on "history and context" has been written in "summary style". It was intended as an "introductory passage" to provide context. It obviously concerns the Reformation. The content has been written to help readers: it has an educational purpose. The partial translation of the de.wikipedia article did not provide that context and made it very hard to read: it was unclearly explained. In this case, this kind of standard content is anodyne and neutral. It seems completely straightforward. Assuming WP:AGF, of course. Mathsci (talk) 11:14, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This does not address my objections. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:35, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This is a discussion about content of the first paragraph, an introductory passage aiming to provide context for a general readership. It describes in generality how Lutheran worship and services—including hymns and psalms—were conducted in Strasbourg, during the reforms that came about in 1524–1525. Those hymns or psalms refer to what became established Lutheran practice in services at the time. The relevant pages are contained in the masterly book of Martin Greschat (translated into English). In describing the reforms in Strasbourg, there is no reason why the particular hymn/psalm "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" has to be mentioned at the outset of the section. That method of writing fg articles follows a well-trodden path. It is simlar to that of "Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan". There the hymn is discussed in a discursive way, providing context. In that case pietism provided a general context. The same applies to "Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir", "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland", "Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele", "O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß", and so on. Mathsci (talk) 14:36, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Really, my concerns are different, and remain without reply. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:20, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There is no particular reason the first paragraph of the "history" section has from the outset to concern specifically one psalm or hymn ("An Wasserflüssen Babylon"). In this case a short introduction serves a useful educational purpose: it might still need some work (e.g. the source material from "The Singing of the Strasbourg Protestants, 1523-1541"), but it can be developed. Mathsci (talk) 16:05, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, this is not my concern. Please read what I wrote above: replying to something I didn't write nor suggest leaves me without an answer to my real concern in this matter. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:09, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • The reason why Bucer isn't mentioned in introductions to "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" in reliable sources seems simple: it can not be demonstrated he had anything to do with it. The hymn was published, melody and all, before any interaction between Bucer and Dachstein, leave alone influence, can be documented: I've read the relevant chapters in Greschat 2004, in Trocmé-Latter 2016 (see e.g. its pp. 82–83) and in Oliphant Old 2002 (see e.g. p. 43 of that last one): none of them implies that Bucer had anything to do with publications containing music until after "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" had been printed for the first time.
  • Also the text as currently in the article—e.g. "... Bucer ... aided by the pastor Matthias Zell ..." which seems to be a reversion of roles of what Greschat writes about the period when "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" was written (see p. 55: Bucer "unofficial chaplain" of Zell)—seems a too interpretive rendering of the sources. The fact that currently references of the Greschat and the Trocmé-Latter sources are to wide page ranges obfuscates that the content in the current version of that paragraph is not actually supported by these sources. Synthesis of sources that say different things & adding a layer of interpretation that kind of says the opposite of what the sources say... not OK. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:30, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I currently have the hard-book version of Daniel Trocmé-Latter's lengthy book on loan in the UL. Unless they were already familiar with the topic, I cannot see how any wikipedia user could absorb that content without some great effort, thought and private notes; to me, even for a brief summary, it would need a few days, not necessarily consecutive.

Apparently the UL makes electronic resources available within the library and it might be a little easier for me to read those there (the typescript can be enlarged if needed; there are also search options for a PC that is physically in the library). I have started reading Daniel's fascinating book, which seems to be a Ph.D., perhaps submitted through the Department in Education at Homerton College. I would like to update my summary by carefully reading the introduction, first two chapters and copious appendices from Daniel's book. Mathsci (talk) 10:02, 17 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

re. "... I would like to update my summary ...": please propose your updates on this talk page. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:07, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
For small changes, like this brief paragraph, that is normally made cumulatively in the main space of the article. I feel that I need to think about some sources more carefully (yesterday I read about Oettinger's "Music as Propaganda in the German Reformation" which was well-reviewed on JSTOR; the review I read on JSTOR of Trocmé-Latter's dissertation/book made a number of criticisms). Gerda Arendt has been one of the the main contributors to the article. The shortened translation of the de.wikipedia article was more of a stub than an article. Gerda's first attempt was reasonable, but initially needed tweaking and copy-editing for English. In addition most of the de.wikipedia content did not match up with sources on en.wikipedia. On her user talk page, Gerda asked me yesterday to help out with BWV 56, mentioning a personal loss. I will do my best to help Gerda. Mathsci (talk) 08:43, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A statement in the article (History and context), initially created by Gerda, has been restored. It was originally unsourced and was created from a translation in de.wikipedia. It seems to be a disconnected sentence without context, which is why that section is now tagged. Mathsci (talk) 11:55, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Mathsci: what did you mean by "look at the diff"? Your removal of the {{failed verification}} tag did not solve the problem it indicated. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:23, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • The the source changed, hence the edit. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 12:35, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Doesn't change that {{failed verification}} still applies. After this series of edits the same now also applies to the preceding sentence. Please use this talk page for proposing alternatives that might be verifiable to reliable sources. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:46, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • I verified it without any difficulty with the source. It is what Tokmé-Latter states in a rather unambiguous way in his book on "Bucer", the "agenda" and the "use of psalms". It can even be read in Trocmé-Latter's intro. Are you worried about the page numbers? Mathsci (talk) 13:00, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • The wide page range currently indicated in the article (which is problematic, see above) doesn't cover it. Above I gave a narrower page range which contradicts it. So, please propose updated versions here, on this talk page, and use exact page numbers instead of unsatisfactory broad ranges. The tinkering in mainspace has made it worse (see diff above), so, as written currently it will have to be removed. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:14, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • Again, the tinkering in mainspace (like this series of edits) doesn't seem to solve anything, so please use this talk page to propose updates: as currently written in mainspace, the content is WP:OR, contradicted by the sources it quotes (see above), and will have to be removed. Pages 3 and 11, now indicated, don't mention Das dritt theil Straßburger kirchenampt so are completely unhelpful to support the contentions about the service now in the article. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:37, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The introduction (and elsewhere) in the book by Trocmé-Latte explains that Martin Bucer was the principal German preacher making reforms to the Strasbourg Church; those reforms to worship concerned the so-called "Agenda" and the congregational singing of psalms in German verse. This source seems to be standard undergraduate material on the Reformation and theology. This feels a little like the Argument Sketch. Mathsci (talk) 15:43, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Anyhow, the basic problem remains:
  • Despite there being plenty of elaborate reliable sources about "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", not one has been found that mentions Bucer
  • Despite there being plenty of elaborate reliable sources about Bucer, not one has been found that mentions "An Wasserflüssen Babylon"
Why should Wikipedia mention Bucer in an introduction to "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" when the mainstream in much more detailed introductions of much more reliable sources is to not do that? In essence this remains WP:SYNTH. Context of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" can be given without WP:COATRACKing Bucer in the article. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:54, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of refimprove tag from History section

@Gerda Arendt: here you removed the {{refimprove}} tag from the History section, while at that point the sentence "The book contained, as instructed by the reformer Martin Bucer, a liturgical agenda and metric psalms as hymns.", in that section, had no reference. Later, references were added to that sentence, but none of these references cover that sentence. As far as I know, basing myself on the sources mentioned above, it can not be referenced to a reliable source. Thus I removed it (i.e. some later version of the sentence, equally unverifiable to the indicated sources). I see no other possibility than to keep that sentence out. Let that not stop you or anyone else from proposing a viable & verifiable alternative. Please also never again remove a refimprove tag before the problems indicated by the tag are properly handled (it only causes bigger problems like the ones we are having now). --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:05, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That was 2 weeks ago, and I am sorry. I thought you (two) were already in the process of sourcing, and the tag would not attract sources from others. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:15, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It has been sourced. The original de.wikipedia version seems find but your English translation did need a little bot of tweaking/edit-copying. I don't see any problem at the moment. (If Gerda wants help on images of BWV 56, I am quite happy to help her.) Mathsci (talk) 13:22, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Whether or not anyone was in the process of sourcing at the time is irrelevant: the sentence is afaik impossible to verify to a reliable source and will have to be removed. Apology accepted, but indeed try to avoid such unwarranted removal of valid tags in the future, while it causes more problems than it solves. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:48, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bucer revisited

@Mathsci: re. the Straßburger Gesangbuch was only written in 1541 ([1]): no, it was a re-issue of the 1537 edition. That information can be found in one of the references you deleted. As far as the "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" hymn goes there's nothing specifically noteworthy about the 1541 edition: it contained the hymn like its predecessors and successors. --Francis Schonken (talk) 00:17, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please look at the links below (at the very bottom of the paragraph). Try to be more careful in the future. Even the University Library, Cambridge gives the facsimile for the Evangelischen Verlagswerk, 1953, Stüttgart with UL ref MR250.a.95.1 In this case Chapter 5 reads "The 1541 Gesangbuch and Strasbourg's External Influence". Mathsci (talk) 01:32, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The Genfer Psalter in "Wer ist wer im Gesangbuch?", page 108–109, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (2001) describes the Straßburger Gesangbuch in Andrea Marti's section. They give the later "improved" edition of 1545. Mathsci (talk) 01:49, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
File:Straßburger Gesangbuch 1541 Vom Himmel hoch (Isny).jpg is something you've already seen. Mathsci (talk) 01:55, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Here is a repetition of what I wrote below: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZFkJAQAAMAAJ&dq=gesangbuch+1541&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Mathsci (talk) 02:42, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox

This article had an infobox after the first expansion, - please restore it, for consistency with other hymns, and for not leaving the reader with the unexplained impression of a "song without words". ----Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:32, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I actually quite like Gerda's infobox (as a hymn with text and melody, it seems appropriate). I am not quite sure what image or caption we might want. Does Gerda like the one I chose? I think the tiny image that Francis Schonken produced as a lede image was presumably some kind of joke. Mathsci (talk) 08:57, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm indifferent w.r.t. the presence or not of an infobox (so keeping an infobox would have consensus afaics). The lead image is discussed above in #Lead image. Keep that discussion in one place please, thanks. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:39, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Francis Schonken's initial proposal for the lede was of very poor quality, hard to read and of no educational purpose. The talk page was far to long to read, cf tl;dr. I very much like Gerda's Infobox. It seems like a good idea to discuss this in a communal way, per WP:consensus. I would also like to hear about Gerda's images. She seem to like many of these I create or download. Mathsci (talk) 10:15, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Gerda's version of article

This was easy to read.[2] It was sourced later by me. The original German was slightly better written with a different order, which makes far more sense. Mathsci (talk) 12:21, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That was not "my version", just just a beginning. Thank you for sourcing and expanding. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:12, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that; it was just your tentative start on 24 February 2018. Mathsci (talk) 13:23, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

New version

Per WP:BRD, I have reverted Francis Schonken recent edits. These edits seems to involve WP:OR and do not match the sources at all. Some of the content edits seem our of kilter with part of the topic, i.e. the Reformation during reforms in Strasbourg Church, circa 1524–1525. Francis should describe his ideas and why he has written prose in that way. Mathsci (talk) 18:36, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • "The edition, containing a liturgical agenda and rhyming psalms, did not follow the directions of the then-time reformers in that city, as Köpphel admitted in his next kirchenampt edition."
This needs to be explained quite carefully above, because there seems to be no proper explanation at the moment. The edit itself seems WP:POINTY. When edits are added cumulative, it is confusing to put all the references in one paragraph; that sort of editing is not particularly helpful for the reader or other editors. Which specific page and which source is supposed to refer to this sentence? Mathsci (talk) 18:45, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • The original prose was written in de.wikipedia here:
"Der Choral ist eine textnahe Paraphrase von Psalm 137. Er erschien zuerst 1525 in Straßburg in der heute verlorenen Schrift Das dritt theil Straßburger kirchen ampt. Das Buch enthielt, nach den Vorgaben Martin Bucers, neben einer Agende lediglich metrische Psalmen als Kirchenlieder."
That version is clearly written and unambiguous. At the moment the phrase "did not follow directions of the then-time reformers in that city" is obviously contrived. Page numbers and explicit sources would presumably clarify this. Mathsci (talk) 18:57, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) The source is on pages 82–83 of the book I borrowed on Tocmé-Latter's "The Singing of the Strasbourg Protestants". It concerns the Strasburger Kirkenampt, which was not lost, but in the Regensberg State Library. The 1525 text was by Wolfgang Köpfel and had been corrected several times, with two prefaces, which were apparently still useful to worshippers in earlier editions. In the second preface, preachers are mentioned, in particular
"the servant Christ, Martin Bucer, [who] announced all innovations in Grund und Ursach which [Köpfel] printed."
Köpfel thus describes the Kirchenampt, with its three little books, which were corrected in later printings. Köpfel was just a printer; Bucer was one of the major reformers in Strasbourg. Mathsci (talk) 19:56, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

German Wikipedia (not a reliable source per WP:USERGENERATED):

  • "..., nach den Vorgaben Martin Bucers,..."

Reliable source (see above):

  • "... printed without the preachers' permission (...) and against their will."

I don't really think this needs a trip to WP:RSN, but if this attempt to place the reliability of German Wikipedia above that of modern scholarship continues we might have to. Anyhow, Gerda Arendt translated it from an unreliable source, without adding a reference: maybe ask Gerda to fix this?

Exact page numbers and explicit sources were given here, however currently deleted. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:21, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea about the sources for the German, - hoped to find some later. If it's unsourced, just drop it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:43, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. The source of Tocmé-Latter, despite the shortcomings mentioned in the JSTOR review, makes it quite clear that the German version was quite accurate. Francis' specific content edit does not seem accurate. In fact his edit seems to confuse a printer (Köpfel) with a major Reformation figure (Bucer). The book itself makes no confusion of that kind. Not mentioning Martin Bucer was unhelpful to all readers: the curious form of wording—"did not follow the directions of the then-time reformers in that city"—seems to have been made intentionally, i.e. to avoid any mention of Martin Bucer, a featured article after all.
In fact Wolfgang Capito is another important Reformation figure associated with Martin Bucer. He happens to have had the same name as Wolfgang Köpfel, which is confusing, but is clarified in the index of Tocmé-Latter. The significant Reformation figure is a relative of the printer Wolfgang Köpfel: the printer has no wikipedia page, despite the WP:REDIRECT. It was presumably WP:USERGENERATED. Mathsci (talk) 20:58, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
More WP:USERGENERATED wikipedia content, courtesy of an anonymous wikipedian. Congratulations for working out how the index works. Mathsci (talk) 21:24, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I am slightly worried that Wolfgang Köpfel, Francis' brand new article, might be not be notable. He's barely 30 minutes old. Mathsci (talk) 21:42, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unsourced, so I go with Gerda's "drop it".
Further, don't confuse
  • kirchenampt 152518, in three volumes, lost (and still lost), which contained "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" in its third volume (that third volume being called Das dritt theil Straßburger kirchenampt)
with
  • kirchenampt 152521, in one volume, available with one click, not containing "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", in the preface of which Köpfel states that his former three-volume kirchenampt (=152518) was not authorised by the Strasbourg preachers ("... printed without the preachers' permission (...) and against their will" in Trocmé-Latter's words).
Clue for distinguising the two publications: 152521 has "... nemlich von Jnsegu[n]g d[er] Eeleüt, vom Tauf vnd vo[n] des herre[n] nachtmal" in the title, while none of the three lost 152518 volumes has anything of the kind in its title. Trocmé-Latter also calls the three-volume one "Theütsch kirchenampt trilogy" (last two lines above footnotes on p. 82)
Also, Koepfel/Köphel confusion sorted (yeah, I know, Wikipedia is not reliable, I said it myself, shouldn't have trusted it). --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:47, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The article Wolfgang Köpfel of Francis Schinken was just copied from de.wikisource. There is no value in trying to avoid mentioning Martin Bucer. The JSTOR review of Rebecca Oettinger's "Music as Propaganda in the German Reformation" is more reliable. This kind of gamesmanship—a ploy to avoid mentioning Martin Bucer—is not at all helpful for readers on wikipedia. Mathsci (talk) 22:23, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Questions

At present

  • the lead image is repeated in the gallery
  • a ref "Schütz 2013" is called but not defined
  • many refs with harvid are not used
  • the image of Bach's copy is not in the article (but in the DYK nom). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:43, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • The first image should be the 1628 title page. My slip.
  • There will probably be another page of the autograph manuscript, for the coda of BWV 653. I have already prepared it, but it has not been uploaded on commons yet.
  • I'm not sure what you mean about the DYK nomination, but will look it up. Mathsci (talk) 23:08, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Bach's copy is there, perhaps I just overlooked it, sorry. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:14, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Francis' views on images do not seem to be in agreement with WP:consensus at the moment. Since none of the users are aware yet what is going to be written (hence the tentative gallery), nobody can tell which images are appropriate. It is guess work at the moment. Mathsci (talk) 00:25, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nor do you know what others are going to write. So, when introducing a reference, or an image, please write the accompanying text that makes clear why it belongs in the article without delay. Others are as free to add, reposition, reformat or remove images, references and text, depending on how relevant these components may be to the article's topic and its over-all structure, balance and coherence. Currently it is all quite incoherent, e.g. the 1720 visit of Bach to Hamburg is told twice, the second time as if Geck is the only one to recount it: the article has a {{under construction}} aspect all over it, so I'll be re-adding that tag to explain the incomplete state of the article to the unsuspecting reader, showing that people are working on it to sort it out. --Francis Schonken (talk) 01:08, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"So, when introducing a reference, or an image, please write the accompanying text that makes clear why it belongs in the article without delay." In Gerda's case, it seems she decides her own timetable. If Gerda suggests I create an image—e.g. an autograph manuscript by Bach—then I do it when I feel like it, sometimes perhaps not at all. Have you ever created a high-resolution image from the Bach digital archive on commons? Mathsci (talk) 02:18, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As for the title page of the 1628 Becker Psalter: no, we already have an image from the same publication that is much more relevant to the "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" topic, and too little text in the body of the article (as in: no text at all) that explains why this title page would have any relevance to that topic. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:44, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Schütz

Current article text:

Heinrich Schütz published a four-part setting of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", SWV 242, in his Becker Psalter, Op. 5, 1628.[1][2][citation needed]

Two images, six references (four unused), one external link
Images:

References

  1. ^ a b Schütz 1628
  2. ^ Schütz 2013
  3. ^ Schütz 2013, pp. 55–65

External link:

Seems disproportionate if you ask me. @Gerda Arendt: could you perhaps help out here, especially as the images were apparently created on your request? Either the body of the article is failing in transmitting the significance of Schütz's setting of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" (in that case: please expand the text in the body of the article, using available and/or additional references), or the amount of images, references (most of them unused) and the external link create an overrating impression of importance for this setting, disproportionate to the relative weight this setting gets in reliable sources on Dachstein's hymn. I'm impartial as to what might be the case, but the "[citation needed]" tag added in the body of the article to the single sentence about this setting rather suggests the latter may be the case: if that is so, I'd remove unused references, and retain only the most relevant of the two images (see also above). --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:31, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think the title page of the Becker Psalter is not good for here, where the focus should be on the hymn. Unused references should not have a harv id, could be commented out until used, or go to Further reading. (I have my not yet used references in my sandbox.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:06, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

These were marked with a copyright for 1974 in the edition of Breifkopf & Härtel. No prior edition seems to exist as far as I am aware. At the moment this seems to be a WP:COPYVIO. Stinson quotes the coda of the same version of the 1974 edition: the identical ornamentation was made by the arranger in 1974 so seems not to be within the public domain. I was interested in using a musical quote from Reincken's coda, but that does not seem to be possible given the WP:COPYVIO. I would like to ask User:Moonriddengirl for clarification, as she os one of the ex[erts. It is an unusual problem and slightly hard to deal with. Most editions of Breifkopf & Härtel from the 19th century are easily found. At the moment I don't even know how to produce a lilypond version of excerpts: I would have to create a normal score of the tablature version and then invent my own ornamentation in lilypond. Mathsci (talk) 12:10, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • commons:File:An Wasser Flussen Babylon.gif is in the public domain. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:27, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is impossible to verify on commons without a proper source. User:Moonriddengirl is the expert on this kind of problem and she can explain that more carefully. I have seen a source "Hochschule der Künste Berlin, Hochschulbibliothek", but I don't know what that means. Any ornamentation or transcription from tablature notation is not clearly described. I should point out that I have thought about this for a few days in the context of Stinson's summary. Mathsci (talk) 12:36, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • For clarity,
        • Reincken's music is not under copyright, it is to all extents and purposes in the public domain;
        • There is definitely no copyright infringement w.r.t. the 1974 Breifkopf & Härtel edition (the GIF is not a "facsimile" of that edition: the editorial choices made by whoever made the GIF and placed it in the public domain are completely different from those in the 1974 Breifkopf & Härtel edition).
      --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:02, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Beckmann's edition is under copyright and is marked 1974. Another edition was produced by C. F. Peters in 2002. There is also Willi Apel's edition from A-R editions marked with a copyright notice of 1967 (Armen Carapetyan). I also saw that a 2013 dissertation gives quotes from Reincken's fantasia from Oregon. If there is ambiguity here, the best approach is to ask User:Moonriddengirl. She can help out. Mathsci (talk) 13:56, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • The GIF is not a photocopy or facsimile of the Peters edition. There is no ambiguity: the GIF poses no copyright problem w.r.t. any printed edition of the work (it is an image generated by a computer application). Commons published the GIF as being in the Public Domain and there is no reason to suspect that that publication as PD would be questionable, so the image can be used without reservations in en:Wikipedia. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:43, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]


Brief discussion of 2016 Beißwenger's chapter

I am preparing a short summary that hopefully will be available tomorrow. Mathsci (talk) 23:26, 24 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion is still ongoing. My view is that for such a long chapter, it cannot be discussed in a hasty way. The omission of Johann Christoph Bach has been reinstated. I am not quite sure why it was removed, Tomorrow I will check out the 2006 Bärenreiter Facsimile (it is in the reference section and cannot be borrowed). Mathsci (talk) 08:02, 25 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wolfgang Dachstein and de.wikipedia article

This article was originally a translation of the de.wikipedia article (see the attribution). There seems to be useful content there:

"Dachstein used his poetical and musical ability in the service of the Reformation. He was involved in the formulation of the Agenda and provided German Psalms, such as the melodies for the "Teutschen Kirchenampt 1525", an early hymnbook. His paraphrase of Psalm 137, "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" (By the Rivers of Babylon), which appeared both in the "Teutschen Kirchenampt 1525" and in Luther's "Babstschem Gesangbuch" of 1545, is well known".

Of course "wikipedia is not a source", but there are huge amounts of reliable secondary sources. It seems like valuable content which can easily be sourced. I am quite happy to expand on the theme of The Reformation in Strasbourg—it's quite topical!—which provides context not yet provided in the article. As a caveat, some late nineteenth sources are out of date and often in Gothic font: given the wealth of material on "The Reformation", I would prefer something written in English. Any comments are welcome, particular for those knowledgeable on the 1525 reforms in Strasbourg. Mathsci (talk) 09:09, 26 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

See above,
Why would we need yet another talk page section about the same? Can we keep the discussion together? Thanks. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:23, 26 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This reads like some kind of bureaucracy run amok. Please see WP:IDONTHEARTHAT and WP:IAR. Mathsci (talk) 09:35, 26 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Not impressed. Repeating a question every few days is not likely to yield a different result this time. Yeah, like you said, that's what's called WP:IDONTHEARTHAT: you've been given plenty of answers to variants of the same question, so please stop acting as if you didn't hear these answers. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:16, 26 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Gerda quite liked how I wrote on pietism, another aspect of The Reformation related to a Lutheran hymn. She has encouraged me to help edit this article. À chacun son goût. Mathsci (talk) 11:00, 26 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Anyway, there is no apparent context problem for the history section, at least none has been demonstrated that would warrant a banner tag about this in mainspace. The history section gives way more context than most introductions on the "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" hymn in secondary sources. --Francis Schonken (talk) 22:57, 27 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Lead section (text)

Some issues with the current lead section were signalled here. Not sure what we're talking about: could someone please explain? Thanks. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:40, 26 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That part is very poorly written. It was written hastily without due care. It was also inaccurate, with no attempt to gain WP:consensus. Several edits by Gerda Arendt, Thoughtfortheday and me were just bulldozed. Mathsci (talk) 10:01, 26 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It is tagged for original research (WP:OR): which WP:OR? --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Mostly the misleading chronology, which made it very hard to read. In one of my edit summaries I explained that four different strands needed to be explained that would help the general reader. I'll try to dig it up. Mathsci (talk) 10:33, 26 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Re. "... made ..." – past tense seems to indicate the problem (if any) is no longer present. I see no chronology issues, and certainly not misleading ones, so please be more precise. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:49, 26 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have had the opportunity to read the 2007 Bärenreiter Facsimile in the Anderson Room, MR472.a.200.51, in the University Library, Cambridge. It requires authorisation and the librarians have to be supervised (those are the regulations). Photocopying is not permitted. The format is a box containing one softcover score and four folders for facsimiles. There is a German commentary by Maul & Wollny followed by an English translation. The commentary indicates that the text is provisional, i.e. more research is expected, and gives biographical details of Bach that are relevant to the tablature and its context. I have seen four facsimiles of the tablatures: the detail is less than could be seen on digitised manuscripts on the Bach archive in Leipzig. I have seen the five pieces of Buxtehude, Reincken and Pachelbel. Although not in the documents offered as "extras" in Bärenreiter's catalogue, I can see the colophon of Reincken, which is dated 1700. However, there is also the fragment of Buxtehude which experts believe probably dates from 1698. The commentary discusses various possibilities and interpretations, which are left as open-ended and often conjectural.
  • Kirsten Beißwenger was the late wife of Kobayashi, who collaborated with both of them on Alfred Dürr. All three are (or were) experienced Bach scholars with an international reputation. The commentaries of Beißwenger complement those of Maul & Wollny. The pattern of writing and methodology is described in detail by Robin Leaver and Christoph Wolff in the 2017 monumental and encyclopaedic tome "The Routledge Reseach Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach". It seems to be an authoritative work, similar to the same scholarship available on Grove Music Online. The same pattern of discussion can be found in Peter Williams' "Bach: A Musical Biography". In David Yearsley's chapter on "Keyboard Music" in the "Research Companion", Williams uses the same methodology which often involves raising inconvenient questions about the life and work of Bach.
  • The book of Peter Williams is a very good source for summarising the whole period of Bach from his early years, to his maturity and old age, starting with the "moonlight episode" and ending with the meditative and melancholic chorale prelude BWV 653. I do not see any particular reason to mention the 1700 colophon, without providing sufficient context. Mail & Wollny, Beißwenger and Williams give nuanced and open-ended discussions, almost all involving conjecture.
  • The second half of Francis Schonken's lead is poorly written, makes misleading statements (about the 1700 colophon) and distorts the chronology. Bach scholars agree that the autograph manuscript of BWV 653 was written between 1740–1750, in his late maturity. There were earlier versions, one of which was probably composed in Weimar. But the events involve (a) Reincken's freely composed chorale prelude, composed in Hamburg in the late seventeenth century (b) the anecdotal moonlight compositions of Bach while only ten years old (c) the rediscovery of the tablatures of Buxtehude, Pachelbel and Reincken dating from 1698–1700 (d) the performance of 1720 when Bach extemporised for about half an hour on the chorale prelude "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" and (e) the later chorale prelude of Bach written after 1740, possibly intended as a tribute to Reincken. The other description about Schein and Schütz's four-part harmonisations seem undue in the lede.
  • Gerda's DYK hook, possibly in a somewhat more elaborate version, seems fine. Francis Schonken's has ignored the works of Pachelbel (in the same tablature!) and Bach's older cousin. I think it is reasonable for Gerda, Thoughfortheday and me to rework Gerda's first version of the second paragraph so that the general reader of wikipedia has an informative, colourful and informal account of Bach's history of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon," from his infancy to his old age, from the cradle to the grave. Mathsci (talk) 09:39, 27 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Re. 4th bullet, chronology (a) to (e): the two involved sentences in the current version of the intro read:

Johann Adam Reincken wrote an extensive organ piece based on the hymn. Johann Sebastian Bach, who owned a copy of Reincken's composition in 1700, and twenty years later was commended by Reincken for improvising on the organ on "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", composed a chorale prelude on the hymn as part of his Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes.

Compared to the scheme you propose:
Proposal above Current lead
(a) Reincken's freely composed chorale prelude, composed in Hamburg in the late seventeenth century Johann Adam Reincken wrote an extensive organ piece based on the hymn.
(b) the anecdotal moonlight compositions of Bach while only ten years old Johann Sebastian Bach, ...
(c) the rediscovery of the tablatures of Buxtehude, Pachelbel and Reincken dating from 1698–1700 ... who owned a copy of Reincken's composition in 1700, ...
(d) the performance of 1720 when Bach extemporised for about half an hour on the chorale prelude "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" and ... and twenty years later was commended by Reincken for improvising on the organ on "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", ...
(e) the later chorale prelude of Bach written after 1740, possibly intended as a tribute to Reincken. composed a chorale prelude on the hymn as part of his Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes.
So chronology-wise there's no difference between what is listed above and what is currently in the lead section. There's a difference in amount of detail, and what is proposed above has imho too much detail for a lead section, compared to these two sentences in the current lead. Also, this is not an article about Bach, it is about a hymn by Dachstein: so if we speak about Pachelbel in the lead, it should be about Pachelbel in his own right, i.e. composing several organ pieces on "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", not only about the single one Bach likely knew (and which has comparatively little literature covering it). For comparison: this one was recorded a few times, and there's scholarly literature available about this one and the other ones composed by Pachelbel and known long before the 21st-century discovery of the until then unknown one.
Imho Beißwenger, edited by Leaver, is a better source than Williams's last book: scholarship written by one scholar and edited by another seems preferable over a book for which we seem to have only an author's name. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:40, 27 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Re. "Reincken's ... chorale prelude, composed ... in the late seventeenth century" (my emphasis) – not really: likely composed in 1663 according to Pieter Dirksen [nl] ([3]). --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:34, 27 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed new second paragraph of lead

Given the WP:consensus, I will be thinking about this for a day or two, using the sources mentioned above and previous suggestions from other users: I will try to produce a new version. Probably it will be best to use citations in the lead. Mathsci (talk) 13:22, 27 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose you mean this consensus. I'd be looking forward to a variant proposal for the lead, which would, however, not have acquired "consensus" before it is written. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:44, 27 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It is not what I meant. Mathsci (talk) 14:10, 27 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
OK, however, that leaves the "which consensus?" question unanswered. At least, don't insert subsection titles claiming a consensus that doesn't exist. See WP:TPG: don't reformat someone else's talk page contribution to something it didn't say by inserting a spurious subsection title. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:16, 27 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Mathsci: please discontinue your efforts to claim consensus where there is none. It is disruptive, and against the WP:CONSENSUS policy. It does not make it easier to come to a consensus, on the contrary, it hampers making that possible. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:51, 27 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Mathsci: please don't remove comments already replied to: don't modify any of it unless when following the WP:REDACT rules. I restored them. To the one above I replied in #Comments above. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:18, 27 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Peter Williams' Bach: A Musical Biography

I will be thinking about the second paragraph of the lead for a few days, using the sources of Maul & Wollny, Beisswenger and Williams as well as previous suggestions from other users: I will try to produce a new version. Probably it will be best to use citations in the lead. I intend to start using Peter Williams' "Bach: A Musical Biography". I have the online version from the Cambridge University Press core, which has a lot of information. Mathsci (talk) 16:42, 27 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I partially reverted the rewrite, for including too much detail without much connection to the topic of the article E.g., "... "Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g’mein," BuxWV 210 by Dietrich Buxtehude ..." – what does that have to do with Dachstein's hymn? --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:12, 30 March 2018 (UTC) comment moved to #Proposed new second paragraph of lead above, while a continuation of that earlier discussion --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:22, 30 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You did far more than that. You have not given any reasonable rationale, beyond WP:OWN. See below. Mathsci (talk) 14:48, 30 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You have not given a rational reason. There was one parenthetical comment about Buxtehude. It was phrased in that way because of a fragment of the tablature which probably dates back to 1698. The content was carefully written. Please read the last paragraph about the new lead below, instead of just edit-warring. The last section explains about the new lead; please can you read it more carefully? TOne of the problems is with your DYK hook—you have still made it into a "train wreck". Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 15:16, 30 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please also stop playing around with archiving. It is quite confusing. I am trying to write substantial and useful content (very little of which is related to your edits). Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 14:52, 30 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

WP:FORK : An Wasserflüssen Babylon (Reincken)

The fork by User:Francis Schonken seems to have been deliberately created by the content in this article. That kind of editing is WP:disruptive and a way of "gaming the system". Counting the reverts, it seems that Francis Schonken is trying to edit-war content into a fork without WP:consensus. Mathsci (talk) 22:54, 28 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion opened at 22:51, at Talk:An Wasserflüssen Babylon (Reincken)#Split from article on Dachstein's "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" hymn. Please discuss there, not here, in order to avoid fragmentation of the discussion. --Francis Schonken (talk) 22:58, 28 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The article, much of it created by me, seems to be in a stable state. The lead was slightly amplified as explained above. As far I as can tell, the content on BWV 653 and Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes has no relation whatsoever with An Wasserflüssen Babylon (Reincken). Beyond a marginal comment, there seems to be no relation at all. Francis Schonken should explain directly why he has copy-pasted one cherry-picked extract about BWV 653, taken out of context and modified by him, into irrelevant content (the forked content of Francis Schonken). In the present article on the Lutheran hymn, it makes complete sense; but moving it around like this makes no sense at all. At the moment Francis Schonken's proposed fork article appears to be almost empty with very few sentences at all, sometimes just empty sections with only images. Mathsci (talk) 06:42, 29 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Although I could imagine creating a reasonable version of An Wasserflüssen Babylon (Reincken) with almost no overlap—no serious attempt to write substantial content about the chorale fantasia has so far been made—I cannot see any prospect of that happening soon. My feeling is that the appropriate response is to propose an AfD with a recommendation of userfication. There is no assurannce of what would happen; I certainly don't have a clue. That will give some time for users to produce something substantial. As far as I'm concerned, one sentence describing the chorale fantasia is adequate: the current attempt has not been successful. Mathsci (talk) 23:46, 30 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Completely new lead (two days ago)

The new lead has been written. These involve five carefully written sentences, compatible with other edits and other users. They are compatible with the current DYK hook: Gerda checked the new lead and thanked me for my help. Per WP:consensus, other users can discuss the new lead. Francis Schonken's sentences did not summarise the content well, so his edits have been replaced by far more carefully written content. There have also been other improvements:

  1. the new image for the infobox from the 1541 Straßburger Gesandbuch: that took a lot of work.
  2. the title page of the 1541 Straßburger Gesandbuch.
  3. a new significant and substantial amount of content concerning Dachstein and Greiter was added to solve the problem of "context". It was carefully edited from impeccable reliable secondary sources.

Per WP:consensus, User:Softlavender recommended that, given my own known experience as an editor, I should just improve the previous effort at producing a lead. That is what I have done. Francis Schonken should now discuss per WP:consensus. Mathsci (talk) 13:33, 30 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Request. Could I please ask that user:Francis Schonken avoids making any self-referential links to other parts of this talk page. Every time he does that, it causes confusion. In the DYK hook, he produced a "train wreck": that was not helpful for readers and served no educational purpose for this encyclopedia. Mathsci (talk) 13:54, 30 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here is the new paragraph for reference. It has five sentences which relate to different periods and different working places during the life and work of Bach. Each of them is informative and informal for general wikipedia readers: it recounts a number of colourful stories starting with early youth and ending with old age. There is a parenthetic comment on Buxtehude which could be modified (the usual pattern).

Several vocal and organ settings of the hymn "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" have been composed in the 17th and 18th century, including 4-part harmonisations by Johann Schein, Heinrich Schütz and Johann Sebastian Bach. In the second half of the 17th century, Johann Pachelbel, Johann Adam Reincken and Bach's cousin, Johann Christoph, arranged settings for chorale preludes.

The arrangements of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" by Reincken and Pachelbel form the earliest extant transcriptions of Bach, copied on a 1700 organ tablature in Lüneberg when he has still a youth; remarkably, they were only unearthed in Weimar in 2005.

In 1720, in a celebrated organ concert at Hamburg, Bach extemporised a chorale setting of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" in the presence of Reincken, two years before his death. Bach also composed three versions of the chorale prelude "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" as part of the Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes, the last dating from 1740–1750 in Leipzig, possibly as a tribute to Reincken's well-known chorale fantasia.

Mathsci (talk) 15:27, 30 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Straßburger Gesangbuch

I believe these were first published in 1541. I don't know what the problem is. Mathsci (talk) 00:13, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Straßburger Gesangbuch is available on google books. Not in a facsimile but in a digitised image of the actual document. The google "id" is ZFkJAQAAMAAJ, unless I've made some error. All very straightforward. Mathsci (talk) 00:32, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The code is
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZFkJAQAAMAAJ&dq=gesangbuch+1541&source=gbs_navlinks_s
It works for me using my laptop. Mathsci (talk) 01:00, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Edit-warring

Per WP:BRD, Francis Schonken should discuss these matters carefully. He should also follow WP:consensus. The sources are carefully and clearly sourced. It appears, however, that Francis Schonken is just objecting to some matters concerning the Reformation. On many cases he has been edit-warring on en.wikipedia and de.wikipedia. His edits do not reasonable or circumspect. Mathsci (talk) 12:06, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

At the moment, Francis Schonken has just insisted on his version of matters. All I can see is that he used the Zahn numbes and didn't actually bothering checking anything about Tocmé-Latter's references, which list all occurrences in an Appendix A. That was not helpful and dies not match up with what the Zahn entries. Likewise he has not explained in any way anything about inline citations. He should explain that more carefully, without using some kind of cryptic code or semaphore to relay his comments to remote parts of the the talk page. Mathsci (talk) 12:16, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I do not agree with his reversion [4] per WP:BRD. Francis Schonken has just made some blanket statements about Zahn numbers which seem not to have much detail at all. In contrast I have checked checking Appendix A of Tocmé-Latter, with go into huge great detail about particular instances of hymns in Appendix A. The tagging of in-line citations makes no sense. It could be that as on occasion, Francis Schonken is just irritated by any mention of Martin Bucer and the Reformation. He has not explained. I shall make a procedural revert and then amend the content. Mathsci (talk) 12:26, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) So the main changes involve a reversion of one sentence by Francis Schonken. As I have written, the edits of Appendix A of Tocmé-Latter were ignored; Zahn's comments (1526 on title and brief mention of 16th century) have no detail (except for listing psalms); by contrast there was considerable detail in Appendix A, which involved carefully studying each on ten pages. The summary of the early career was mostly sourced on Herbst (the entries of Weber and Brusniak) with other details concerning other German theologians. It is standard material and actually istreated without any references on wikipedia. Apart from trying to revert one sentence, Francis Schonken has given no further details. Could he please explain that more carefully. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 13:00, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

First paragraph of "History and context" section

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Currently:

"An Wasserflüssen Babylon" is a Lutheran hymn written in 1525 and attributed to Wolfgang Dachstein, organist at St Thomas' Church, Strasbourg.[1][2][3] The hymn is a closely paraphrased versification of Psalm 137, "By the rivers of Babylon", a lamentation for Jerusalem, exiled in Babylon. Its text and melody, Zahn number 7663, first appeared in Strasbourg in 1525 in Wolf Köpphel's Das dritt theil Straßburger kirchenampt. This Strasbourg tract, which comprised the third part of the Lutheran service, is now lost. Despite the lost tract from 1525, the Strasbourg hymn appeared in print in 1526 in Psalmen, Gebett und Kirchenordnung wie sie zu Straßburg gehalten werden and later.[4][1][5][6]

Proposed rewrite:

"An Wasserflüssen Babylon" is a Lutheran hymn by Wolfgang Dachstein who was an organist at St Thomas' Church, Strasbourg.[1][7][3] The hymn is a closely paraphrased versification of Psalm 137, "By the rivers of Babylon", a lamentation for Jerusalem, exiled in Babylon.[1][8] Its text and melody, Zahn number 7663, first appeared in Strasbourg in 1525 in Wolf Köpphel's Das dritt theil Straßburger kirchenampt, that is, the last volume of a lost German church order trilogy.[1][9][5] All Straßburger Gesangbuch (Strasbourg hymnal) editions of the 16th century, starting from a 1526 version titled Psalmen, Gebett und Kirchenordnung wie sie zu Straßburg gehalten werden, contained the "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" hymn.[9][5][10]

notes, references, sources

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Leahy 2011, pp. 37–38, 53 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLeahy2011 (help)
  2. ^ Terry 1921, pp. 101–103
  3. ^ a b Julian 1907
  4. ^ Zahn 1893, p. 7
  5. ^ a b c Zahn 1891
  6. ^ Trocmé-Latter 2015, pp. 255–265
  7. ^ Terry 1921, pp. 101–103
  8. ^ Stinson 2001, p. 78
  9. ^ a b Trocmé-Latter 2015, pp. 255–265
  10. ^ Zahn 1893, p. 7

Better phrasing (e.g. "now", "despite", as in the current version, are avoided per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch), and makes it clearer which content derives from which source. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:50, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

For clarity, precision in the references is a tool to not deviate from what they say: e.g. "tract" seems a Wikipedia editor's invention: none of the sources seem to refer to Das dritt theil Straßburger kirchenampt (or the three-volume publication as a whole) as a "tract", which seems an incorrect denomination of that volume. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:00, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Commment Please read WP:IAR, WP:BRD and WP:consensus. Repeating myself—as demanded by Francis Schonken—the main changes involve a reversion of one sentence by Francis Schonken. As I have written, the edits of Appendix A of Tocmé-Latter have been ignored; Zahn's comments (1526 on title and brief mention of 16th century) are not detailed. One can verify the psalms numbers for 1526, including 137, but nowhere else. By contrast there was considerable detail in Tocmé-Latter's Appendix A. It involved carefully studying each of the 10 pages in my hardback copy in the University Library. Francis Schonken has attempted to use edit-warring[5] to put pressure on his preferred content. It is not very different from wthe current account, except that it takes no account of the detailed comments on Appendix A of Tocmé-Latter. That is all this is all that is involved, despite Francis Sconnken's tl;dr comments. The edits here
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZFkJAQAAMAAJ&dq=gesangbuch+1541&source=gbs_navlinks_s
should have involved some kind of thanks to me. It was ungracious not to have done so. Mathsci (talk) 13:42, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
? of course I checked Trocmé-Latter (not "Tocmé-Latter", which is just a misspelling), it even led to a slight rephrasing in the proposal above. So, on content, there's no problem with the proposed rewrite, and it has the advantages as indicated above.
I already linked to "Appendix A" pages of Trocmé-Latter 21:47, 18 March. So, please cut the self-aggrandising. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:30, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Returning to Appendix A:
  1. 1524: there are 8 items if I'm counting properly
  2. 1525: 8 items
  3. 1526: 4 items
  4. 1527: 3 items
  5. 1529: 1 item
  6. 1530: 2 items
  7. 1533: 1 item
  8. 1534: 2 items
  9. 1535: 3 items
  10. 1536: 2 items
  11. 1537: 4 items
  12. 1538: 2 items
  13. 1539: 2 items
  14. 1541: 2 items, including the Straßburger Gesangbuch

It's hard to tell how many of these things involve the particular hymn. In one case that I checked, it didn't. Daniel T-L seems to have been fairly careful at looking at sources (including digital records). Mathsci (talk) 16:38, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes this 1538 item drew a blank. Right printer[6] but the register did not contain the psalm.[7] Mathsci (talk) 17:01, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Similarly here for 5-part voicebooks, no joy.[8] Mathsci (talk) 17:43, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Second & third paragraph of "History and context" section

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

These paragraphs currently both present a problem described as "list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations", hence should be tagged {{more footnotes}} until the problem is resolved. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:50, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

For clarity, both paragraphs use exactly the same list of references (currently footnote 8):
See:
So, the unresolved issue applies to both paragraphs. It might additionally be a Wikipedia:Citation overkill issue in one case, but for both paragraphs it is a "list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations" problem. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:47, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Please reply in the lower subsections. The second paragraph is self-explanatory and you should follow what I wrote there. If you dont do so, please explain why. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 15:23, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Re. "Please reply in the lower subsections" – Why? The problem is the same for both paragraphs, so this is where this problem, shared by both paragraphs, can be explained, if further clarifications are necessary, until the problem is resolved. Also, please stop to hide my contributions below: I might address talk page disruptions with further detail, so that topic is not necessarily closed, and should also not be closed by someone potentially exposed as causing the disruption. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:43, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The citations lists have changed. Mathsci (talk) 16:01, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Francis Schonken: The current citation lists have been changed. The article itself is fine (modulo the major changes needed for the first paragraph) but the diverts, re-diverts, pre-diverts, post-diverts and post-pre-re-diverts in the article talk page have become incomprehensible. Mathsci (talk) 07:07, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have decided to change the format in the article. I have decided to make two different lists for citations. If you read the subsections I have written, you should be able to work out what I wrote. For example, if you want to follow wrote look here.

The main references were those of Weber and Brusniak in a standard theological German encyclopedia with some cross-checks for other theological references mentioned elsewhere (e.g. dates). The most references have been in "Wer ist wer im Gesangbuch?" (ed in Wolfgang Herbst). I have also used the items of Müller and Fornaçon, as well as Andrea Marti (also from Herbst).

Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 15:56, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Second paragraph of "History and context" section:

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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

These paragraphs currently both present a problem described as "list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations", hence should be tagged {{more footnotes}} until the problem is resolved. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:50, 31 March 2018 (UTC) Withdrawing disruptively WP:REFACTORed comment, while misrepresenting OP's original intentions. 14:27, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This kind of description of early careers is routine. The main references were those of Weber and Brusniak in a standard theological German encyclopedia with some cross-checks for other theological references mentioned elsewhere (e.g. dates). The most references have been in "Wer ist wer im Gesangbuch?" (ed in Wolfgang Herbst). I have also used the items of Müller and Fornaçon, as well as Andrea Marti (also from Herbst). These are all standard material. Mathsci (talk) 13:56, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Francis Schonken, please see WP:IAR. Good anodyne and neutral content has been created by my edits. So again, please read WP:AIR. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 14:35, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Third paragraph of "History and context" section

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

These paragraphs currently both present a problem described as "list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations", hence should be tagged {{more footnotes}} until the problem is resolved. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:50, 31 March 2018 (UTC) Withdrawing disruptively WP:REFACTORed comment, while misrepresenting OP's original intentions. 14:27, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The content here is more involved but the same sourcing has been used. I understand that Francis Schonken dislikes all content concerning Martin Bucer. He has deleted content in this article where that name appears; and he has similarly tried to delete content in the corresponding article of de.wikipedia. The content in the "context" section was created to explain to general wikipedia readers about the important period in Strasbourg concerning the Protestantism and Catholicism.
The content here is also from the same theological sources, with some contributions from Grove Music Online (on Dachstein and Greiter). All of the content is sourced. I intend to add a relevant image between the conflicts of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation to make the content feel more like "living history", not the numbers of dusty hymn boards! That has an important educational purpose and helps understanding the important and topical theme of the Reformation in an article like this. Almost images have been carefully chosen, almost exclusively by me. I am not aware of any other users who have made that kind of effort. It blends history, theology, music and the visual arts. Mathsci (talk) 14:18, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I am now going to continue with the topic of the Reformation. Mathsci (talk) 14:41, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Images

I would like to make some comments on images here—why were some of these were created and which new ones could be used. I will think about this for a while. Mathsci (talk) 14:48, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The images in the history and context have so far involved two "break throughs". The first was finding high resolution images of Argentina, i.e. early modern Strasbourg. There I was helped by the University Library who showed images (unfortunately unusable) from the Nuremberg Chronicles. These are amazing and breathtaking images. And it was clear that the purpose was educational, the furtherance of scholarship and knowledge. The UL mentioned how the librarians had accessed the images. That involved high-resolution digital photography at the Morse Library in Belvoir College. By some care I could glue two sheets together to create a high quality image, with the same tiny charming accompanying images (like puppets from the Canterbury Tales). I liked the almost three-dimensional image which made it easy to see the difference between the Cathedral (Münster) and St Thomas (the second most important church in Strasbourg). That set the clock ticking for peopling the images: Greiter and Dachstein just fell into place, looking at the standard German theological encyclopedias. Mathsci (talk) 15:14, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Major changes to history section

Martin Bucer, "Icones quinquaginta vivorum": engraving by Jean-Jacques Boissard

I have noticed that the whole first paragraph of the section of "History and context" seems to have major problems. The main statement about the kirchenampt (i.e. that it is lost) is incorrect: that is explained in one of the main 2015 references. The whole of the kirchenampt is readable. Another basic problem is that the kirchenampt and the only comprehensive version of the Straßburger Gesangbuch (1541) are all intimately related to the writing of Martin Bucer: images of documents by Bucer, Greiter and the printer are easy to find and instructive. In addition the references of Zahn are out of date. They have been superseded by these new versions, "Das Deutsche Kirchenlied. Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Melodien III/1,1" (1993) edited by Joachim Stalmann, Karl-Günther Hartmann and Hans-Otto Korth. The University Library, Cambridge has copies available at M259.b.6.1 in the Anderson Room. I am going to use several new images to modify the page using reliable secondary sources.

The other in-line citations seem fine at the moment: it is probably worth archiving that now. If any user has any reasonable questions about later paragraphs, they should explain it in a short and concise way. The source of Tocmé-Latter has been invaluable: it has unearthed documents—sometimes cryptic electronic links—that have been hard to find. It seems I am the only person to have used those on wikipedia. Mathsci (talk) 06:39, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • List of 22 psalms from 1525/1526 in Das Deutsche Kirchenlied, Bärenreiter, BA 8357 (1999), pages 92–93, Eb17.
  1. O Gott lob
  2. JCh harret ds Herren
  3. JVchtzet dem Herrer alle land
  4. GOtt warumm
  5. MEin seel nun lob
  6. SJch wie fein und
  7. HErr Gott
  8. EJn kindelin
  9. O Herr ein schöpfer
  10. DEr Herr is mein liecht
  11. HErr icht erheb mein seel
  12. DEr torrecht spricht
  13. JN meinem Hertzen
  14. DJe thoren im hertzen sprechen
  15. GOt in der gemain Gottes stat
  16. GOt schweig doch nit
  17. HErr Gott vnser züflicht du bist
  18. WEr vndterm schirm sitzt
  19. KVmpt her laßt vns dem Herrn all
  20. DEr Herr ist Künig
  21. BEdenck Herr an Dauid mir fleyß
  22. AN Wasserflüssen Babylon
Mathsci (talk) 21:20, 3 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Discussion"?

Sources for Vocal settings

I am going to handle these one at a time to resolve sourcing problems. Two of the main problems will be discussed later. The first concerns how to identify the key of a hymn, printed in text, such as Schemmeli's 1736 "Musikalisches Gesang-Buch." The second concerns a cantata-type movement omitted in the section. I will start with the first problematic source. Mathsci (talk) 12:00, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  1. Lupus Hellinck, SATB (1544), Newe deudsche geistliche Gesenge (Grove Music Online, Bonnie J. Blackburn)
  2. Georg Rhau, SATB (1544), Wittembergisch deudsch geistlich Gesangbüchlein (GMO, Victor H. Mattfield)
  3. Benedictus Ducis, several in 3 and 4 parts (1541–1544) (GMO, Klaus Thomayer)
  4. Sigmund Hemmel, SATB (1569), Der gantz Psalter Davids, wie derselbig in teutsche Gesang verfasse (GMO, Wilfried Brennecke)
  5. Hans Leo Hassler, SATB (1608) (GMO, Walter Blankenburg and Vincent J. Panetta)
  6. Johann Hermann Schein, SS with bc (1618) and SATB [with bc] (1627) (GMO, Kerala J. Snyder and Gregory J. Johnston)
  7. Heinrich Schütz, SWV 242, SATB with bc (1628), Psalmen Davids, hiebevorn in teutzsche Reimen gebracht, durch D. Cornelium Beckern, und an jetzo mit ein hundert und drey eigenen Melodeyen … gestellet, op.5 (GMO, Joshua Rifkin, Eva Linfield, Derek McCulloch and Stephen Baron)
  8. Samuel Scheidt, SSWV 505 and SSWV 570, soprano and organ (GMO, Kerala J. Snyder and Douglas Bush)
  9. Franz Tunder, soprano and strings [with bc] (GMO, Kerala J. Snyder)
  10. Johann Sebastian Bach, BWV 267, SATB, Chorales from "Joh. Seb. Bachs vierstimmige Choral-gesänge," ed. J.P. Kirnberger and C.P.E. Bach, (Leipzig, 1784–7) (GMO, Christoph Wolff and Walter Emery)
  11. Otto Nicolai, 4 Songs, op.17, c. 1832 (GMO, Ulrich Konrad)

Mathsci (talk) 15:49, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • The first problem is that users have so far only written about 5 composers involved in the "Vocal settings". In fact there are 11 composers. These have been mentioned in a well-known informal Bach cantata website; they have also been mentioned in the first source that will be discussed below. That kind of informal content is useful for finding hints on how to create sourced content, but the actual sources need to be verified using reliable secondary sources. In this case, Grove Music Online seems to cover almost everything (although it's impossible to be certain!). Mathsci (talk) 18:59, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • The second problem involves WP:original research on the key of hymn texts. As Robin Leaver explains in his 2014 JSTOR secondary source, "This paper examines some of the ways in which musical matters are addressed in text-only German hymnals, especially the phenomenon of indicating pitch and key by letter codes, and Bach's knowledge and use of such coding in the Schemelli Gesangbuch (1736)." (Leaver, Robin A. (2014), "Letter Codes Relating to Pitch and Key for Chorale Melodies and Bach's Contributions to the Schemelli "Gesangbuch"", Bach, 45: 15–33) Mathsci (talk) 20:47, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Extended content

Robin Leaver is one of the foremost scholars on Bach: he is editor-in-chief of the Routledge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach. Specialising in musicology and theology at Princeton University, he is also an Anglican minister and organist. In the 1990s, Anne Leahy met Leaver in Princeton, when she was studying at University College, Dublin. Leahy shared the same interests and passions as Leaver, and he became one of her mentors; in 2002 he served as part of the jury for her Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Utrecht. His Netherlandish supervisor in Utrecht predeceased her in 2006; Leahy herself died in 2007, leaving her project for a book on the Leipzig chorales incomplete, particularly the unwritten concluding chapter. Leaver assisted in preparing a 2011 edition, including a long obituary and a newly written introduction. As explained by Leaver (and in David Yearsley's 2008 review of Leaver's Festschrift), the book was not in a wholly satisfactory state vis-a-vis the balance between music and theology.

Leahy's interest in the particular article was an off-shoot of Leaver's specialty. Basing himself on Lutheran hymnbooks centred mostly around Erfurt, Leaver explains how hymn sheets or hymn books could be used as codes for keys and pitch in Thuringian congregations, allowing the most popular hymn tunes, melodia suavissima, to be easily recognised. The left hand side allows the key to be found from the hymn text (or an incipit); on the right hand side, if needed the organist can check the pitch (this involves the standard baroque method of transposition). Leaver explains these is a number of examples, most notably in the 1736 Schemelli "Gesangbuch", printed and published with Bach's aid. In this example, page 401, No. 587, of the "Gesangbuch" is used for the key of D in "An Wasserflüssen Babylon"[10]; in page 60, No. 56, the incipit is used for the same melody but a different text in the key of G.[11] Mathsci (talk) 08:51, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Brief summary. Robin Leaver explains how to determine the key from the hymn text of the incipit. An example of Leaver's method is given from the 1736 Schemelli "Gesangbuch," taking "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" as the incipit. The keys in this case (and others) are G and D. Mathsci (talk) 09:06, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Source 1. "An Wasserflüssen Babylons". The Scroll Ensemble. Retrieved 3 March 2018. Referred to as "Scroll". This is a self-published source which links directly to en.wikipedia (as well as de.wikipedia). It uses for example Wolfgang Dachstein as a source: but unfortunately wikipedia is not a source. It is also links to all sorts of external links, such as BachonBach (another Peter Bach) and possibly the Bach cantata website. All of these are fine as external links, but not for any WP:RS. Gerda Arendt used these as a first step in creating the article, but Grove Music Online is probably the only reliable secondary source for this kind. (Other subsidiary English translations can also be helpful in the body of article.) Mathsci (talk) 10:11, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Source 2. BWV 267 on www.bach-chorales.com, a self-published website run by the musician and academic Luke Dahn. Cutting to the chase, Dahn credits the hymn melody to Matthias Greiter, which contradicts all reliable secondary sources: accordingly in this case, because of this error or oversight, that particular page is not reliable, i.e. it fails WP:RS. It is obviously a very useful educational external link. Analysing 4-part harmony, like realising a figured bass, is what music academics spend their time teaching. On the other hand, it's easy to get a Riemenschneider paperback of the chorale harmonisations or one from the 19th century. Mathsci (talk) 11:39, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Source 3. Carus Verlag full score, for purchase at €3,3. The pdf document is a perusal score. It looks like a continuo realisation for positive organ, transposed in the usual baroque way (i.e. down a tone). It is under copyright, given the continuo realisation, and the copyright notice is visible. Mathsci (talk) 12:22, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Source 4. This appears to be a primary source digitised in an early seventeenth century hymnal. It is not a reliable secondary source. Mathsci (talk) 13:04, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Source 5. A "hidden" wikilink: p. 706 of Vopelius's Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch. This was first Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch#p. 706. That became a redirect to another wikipedia page, part of a list concerning Gottfried Vopelius, not properly sourced. Here again, wikipedia is not a source. Mathsci (talk) 14:23, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Source 6. Leahy, Anne (2011), "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", J. S. Bach's "Leipzig" Chorale Preludes: Music, Text, Theology, Contextual Bach Studies, vol. 3, Scarecrow Press, ISBN 0810881810: this source is a reliable secondary source (see, however, the previous caveats in the hidden section). In page 38 of Leahy's text, she writes,
"An Wasserflüssen Babylon was normally transmitted in F or G. In BWV 653, the setting is in G. Several seventeenth-century hymnbooks (such as Schein 1617 and Vopelius 1682) present a chromatic inflection in the chorale's second phrase and its repetition. Bach uses this version in BWV 653, thereby increasing the resemblance between this hymn and the opening phrases of Komm heiliger Geist, Herre Gott [BWV 652]."
There seems to be no relation between Leahy's sentences and what has been written in the section of the article. Mathsci (talk) 14:23, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
  • Comment – @Mathsci: you put a lot of work in this, which deserves respect. I didn't give a comment yet, as I wanted to see where this was going, and didn't want to disturb while you were compiling. The practical use for this in mainspace seems limited, as this is based on several misapprehensions. I offered you, multiple times, help on how Wikipedia deals with sources, per its policies etc. I extend that offer, again. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:10, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Conclusions. Firstly, the Grove Music Online with its large number of specialist scholars is the first recourse for creating the content of this section. That is still ongoing. Secondly the discussion of keys has been solved. Indeed in Robin Leaver's chapter on Chorales in the Routledge Research Companion, page 371, he already gave the examples for "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" and the 1736 Schemelli Gesangbuch. Items on Tomita and Leaver cover almost all that is needed here for Bach's Chorales, including details of the principal copyists; Tomita refers to Dürr Chr and Dürr Chr 2, which are the standard references for chronology. Hans-Joachim Schulze also covers this in Bach Perspectives 2 (1996)—see page 40. Lastly the large number of missing entries in the section has to be corrected. I will give more details of this, but I certainly will not be rushed into things. Mathsci (talk) 18:28, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
These conclusions seem still misguided. For clarity: no consensus. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:14, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As far as reliable secondary sources on Bach's four-part chorales are concerned, there are a vast amount of such sources. These have been added to the references, starting with Alfred Dürr, Hans-Joachim Schulze, etc. The 2006 book of Melamed and Marrissen is another good source. In those circumstances, a raw list from the Bach archive cannot be justified. Mathsci (talk) 06:13, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Partially disagree, will explain in detail when I find the time for it. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:14, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
For clarity, Gerda Arendt thanked me for this edit. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:34, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Extended content
Inappropriate refactoring of my comment, changing its meaning by moving it to a separate section, as explained here (breach of WP:TPO). --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:47, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
==Comments by users ==

@Francis Schonken: It is impossible for there to be an edit war with only one editor. That is, if Mathsci is edit warring, then so are you. There is a simple solution for any edit war on this article and its talk page—find something else to do until Mathsci has finished his current work. Johnuniq (talk) 07:45, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • No major edits are going on at the moment (that seems to be the case). Please discuss any problems here on the talk page. A lot of edits have been made by me with a lot of effort. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 14:00, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Reliable secondary sources

In the Routledge Research Companion to JSB (2017), Yo Tomita and others have explained in great detail how Alfred Dürr determined the chronology of Bach's vocal works. The references are to Dürr Chr and Dürr Chr 2. These are very famous references which have stood up to all later checks. In the Routledge Research Companion, those iconic references are the first to appear. Mathsci (talk) 14:19, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User:Francis Schonken, please explain the problem concerning Alfred Dürr. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 14:35, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The second reference is a book on how to establish the chronology of Bach Cantatas. It is quite surprising that Francis Schonken is making these kinds of edit. Mathsci (talk) 15:15, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
  • Mathsci, re. Which page do you want to look at? – why, the one that confirms in whole or in part "Although considered to have been lost by Philipp Spitta, Dietel's manuscript (R.18), containing one hundred and fifty chorales, was discovered recently in the Musikbibliothek der Stadt, Leipzig" of course, that's the sentence to which these references are appended. If it's just WP:OVERREF (two of six (!) references appended to that sentence), I don't see why these two refs should be kept: there are enough other refs remaining.
Of course, that's still only one of many problematic aspects of this sentence and its refs... trying to take this step by step. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:26, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Seems very straightforward to me. Mathsci (talk) 15:51, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have looked at the account by Francis Schonken. It is unsourced. Four experts describe the 4-part chorales. Hans-Joachim Schulze was in charge of the Bach archive before Christoph Wolff: he describes the contents of the chorales. Tomita and Dirst explain who the principal copyist was (sometimes referred to as Hauptkopist F). Leaver explains where the manuscript was found. Mathsci (talk) 16:18, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Which one is a reference for "... —containing one hundred and fifty chorales— ..."?
Re. "I have looked at the account by Francis Schonken" – I don't understand what you mean. Which account? Unsourced? Don't understand what you mean, could you explain? Everything is sourced to reliable sources. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:02, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It is in the source including the page number. Mathsci (talk) 19:16, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Which source? What page number? Most of them include a page number. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:26, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Which one is a reference for "... discovered recently ..." (emphasis added)? Note that "recently" is against WP:RELTIME and should better be avoided anyhow. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:30, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Which one is a reference for "... considered to have been lost by Philipp Spitta ..."? --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:33, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Which one is a source for "R.18" (I mean: why the point between "R" and "18"? --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:37, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Francis Schonken seems not to have found the page or the footnotes. Mathsci (talk) 20:03, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, can't make anything of what you're trying to say. Can you explain? --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:54, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Why has Francis Schonken been posting this on wikipedia?

"Leipzig, Stadtbibliothek Leipzig, Musikbibliothek: D-LEb Peters Ms. R 18 = Choralsammlung Dietel (Depositum im Bach-Archiv)". Bach Digital. 2017. Retrieved 4 June 2017. (description of Dietel's collection of four-part chorales by Johann Sebastian Bach){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)

Mathsci (talk) 20:20, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Unrelated, it is a reference I used on another page. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:54, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please see Leaver, Page 359, one of the 3 references cited by me in the wikipedia article. Mathsci (talk) 22:30, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Interesting, but not relevant for this article. Leaver p. 359 does not mention BWV 276, nor any other setting of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" or its tune (which is still the topic of An Wasserflüssen Babylon#Musical settings section, and nothing else). As an identification of the Dietel manuscript it is rather inadequate (doesn't even mention the name Dietel). Also, Leaver uses a 1966 article as oldest reference (the same article is BTW also used as a reference on the Bach Digital source page), which completely disqualifies the "recently". The entire sentence should go: Spitta making a wrong assumption (an assumption that did not even involve the hymn) about a manuscript he had never seen... is quite irrelevant for an article on Dachstein's "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" hymn. --Francis Schonken (talk) 23:27, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • This is part of the collection of 4-part chorales which includes BWV 276. Robin Leaver, who is an eminent musicologist and theologian, writes quite clearly, "The manuscript of 150 four-part chorales, which Spitta thought lost, has been identified as Ms. R.18 in the Musikbibliothek der Stadt Leipzig, but the manuscript Vollständiges Choralbuch containing 240 melodies with figured bass has not been located." This is all standard. Similarly the footnotes describe this well. Are you sure you have been reading the same book? Mathsci (talk) 23:49, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • Standard, yes; interesting, yes; shedding a light on Dachstein's "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", no. Bach's four-part chorale on the hymn tune of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" (BWV 276) had been published already three times (in two different keys) a century before Spitta was making his speculations about the "150 chorales in 4 parts" manuscript. Spitta didn't speculate about the time of origin of a manuscript he only knew from a catalogue published after Bach's death. He didn't speculate on whether or not it contained the setting we now know as BWV 276. The only reason for mentioning the Dietel manuscript is because it is the oldest source for that setting. 19th-century misguided speculations, so-called "recent" discoveries from half a century ago, and whatnot, is just clutter diverting from the topic of this article. --Francis Schonken (talk) 00:14, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any speculation. I have written about 11 different composers in detail. For Bach, the content involves (a) how the manuscript was unearthed in Leipzig and (b) how keys can be determined using incipits written in the region and period of Bach. Both are interesting but not riveting. A diversion. The attempt to use raw Bach archive material to create wikipedia content is just misleading and confusing for general readers of wikipedia. In all these cases, proper scholarship is easy to identify from reliable secondary sources: that is the way to write content. Why mislead and confuse the reader? Mathsci (talk) 01:41, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

WP:OR

Moving to the first sentence of the paragraph: it contains "... composed a number of four-part chorale harmonisations around 1735, including one setting of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", BWV 276 ...", which is WP:OR. For most of the chorale harmonisations in the Dietel collection it is not known when Bach composed them: it contains a few from cantatas and other larger works that have a precise date, but for most of them, including BWV 276, it is not known when they were composed – c. 1735 is no more than a terminus ante quem for these settings, because that's the date of Dietel's copy. Bach may well have composed it ten or more years earlier. That's what the reliable sources say, so the WP:OR should go. --Francis Schonken (talk) 00:34, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Seems to be unrelated to the article or the sources. No cantatas are mentioned.
  1. Bach also composed a number of four-part chorale harmonisations around 1735, including one setting of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", BWV 276. Standard summary of Schulze, etc
  2. The main copyist was Johann Ludwig Dietel, one of Bach's pupils from the Thomasschule zu Leipzig. Standard summary of Dirst, Tomita.
  3. Although considered to have been lost by Philipp Spitta, Dietel's manuscript (R.18)—containing one hundred and fifty chorales—was discovered recently in the Musikbibliothek der Stadt, Leipzig. Standard summary of Leaver.
This is routine content, andyne and neutral. There seems to be no relation to the content and Francis Schonken's extraordinary comments. Odd conduct. Mathsci (talk) 02:03, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
#1 in your list is WP:OR: it is not in Schulze. Schulze does mention the Dietel manuscript (p. 40), and on p. 37 that it (and its later copy Am.B 48) contains works in the range from BWV 2 to 436. Nowhere does the Schulze source say that Bach "composed a number of four-part chorale harmonisations around 1735, including one setting of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", BWV 276" – the BWV 276 setting is not mentioned anywhere in the Schulze reference, not by its "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" name, nor by its BWV number, nor is it mentioned, not even in the vaguest terms, when Bach would have composed chorales (the article is about the transmission of works, in a period starting 11 years after the composer's death). --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:47, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
#2 also contains OR: no source says Dietel was the "main" copyist: he was the only copyist (Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf wrote the title page, but was as such not a copyist).
The OR in #3, i.e. "recently", is detailed above, but also "containing one hundred and fifty chorales" is OR: the used sources refer to its catalogue entry and title page (...150...), the Dietel manuscript does however not "contain" 150 chorales, but one less. See reliable sources. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:13, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The text you wrote for the Bach segment was like this two days ago:

Bach also composed a four-part setting, BWV 267, which appeared around 1735 in the Dietel manuscript. That harmonisation is found as well in G major and in A-flat major in 18th-century chorale collections, both as "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" and as "Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld". For instance, its publication in the Breitkopf edition of the 1780s has it as No. 5 in G major under the former title and as No. 308 in A-flat major under the latter title.

It involved the manipulation of the primary source from the entry in the Bach archive.[19] The way of using the raw list as a source for the article is just original research and synthesis. The fact that Luke Dahn's self-published document erroneously lists Matthias Greiter as the originator of the hymn tune has been ignored by Francis Schonken: it shows that Dahn is not a reliable secondary source. The best idea is to modify the first sentence to remove everything written by Francis Schonken. The creation of the link/article Dietel manuscript seems to have been created by Francis Schonken as some kind of trophy war. No normal wikipedian would have created that type of misleading link or article. Is this not just grudge or revenge editing? The pattern has been repeated many times: standard editing of the article continues for a period until Francis Schonken decides to put a spanner in the works, as some new ploy.

But I don't know how this is going to be handled by the arbitration committee. It's a bit similar to the "Echigo mole" problem, which involved five years of trolling 2009–2013. There has also been harassment off-wiki, which has been mentioned by a former administrator (again it concerns the arbitration committee). It's all the same kind of thing. Mathsci (talk) 07:26, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Mathsci: re. "It's a bit similar to the "Echigo mole" problem, which involved five years of trolling 2009–2013. There has also been harassment off-wiki, which has been mentioned by a former administrator" – if its unrelated to the OP, and if it involves WP:ARBR&I (as you assert in this edit summary), then what does this do on this talk page? It doesn't seem helpful in any dimension... Just changing topic without replying to the comment to which it poses as a reply afaics. Please reply to what I wrote above: afaik you didn't do that yet. Thanks. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:49, 17 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Updated proposal

I propose to replace:

moved below, see "entire paragraph, current (with references)"

currently the first half of the fifth paragraph of An Wasserflüssen Babylon#Vocal settings, containing original research as detailed above, and veering off-topic w.r.t. the topic of this article (Dachstein's "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" hymn), also as explained above, by:

moved below, see "entire paragraph, proposed (with references)"

For clarity:

  • There is no original research (WP:NOR) in the proposed replacement.
  • I added a few references compared to what was there before; these references complement, and are added for enhanced accessibility, which eases verifiability (WP:V).
  • avoided overreferencing (WP:OVERREF), to vaguely related works.

The above sums up the most apparent advantages enough, I suppose, to proceed with such replacement. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:44, 11 April 2018 (UTC); updated, see full paragraph proposal below 10:35, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A non-starter. What is under discussion is the full paragraph.

Bach also composed a number of four-part chorale harmonisations around 1735, including one setting of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", BWV 276. The main copyist was Johann Ludwig Dietel, one of Bach's pupils from the Thomasschule zu Leipzig. Although considered to have been lost by Philipp Spitta, Dietel's manuscript (R.18)—containing one hundred and fifty chorales—was discovered recently in the Musikbibliothek der Stadt, Leipzig. Robin Leaver, the musicologist and theologian, has explained how to determine the key of a hymn tune from the text of an incipit: these apply to Bach's period and region. An example of Leaver's method is given from the 1736 Schemelli "Gesangbuch," taking "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" as the incipit: the key of G occurs 7 times and D once.

I would modify the first sentence to match more closely with the source. All the rest is fine, reliable secondary sourcing. Mathsci (talk) 09:24, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Entire paragraph, current (with references):

Bach also composed a number of four-part chorale harmonisations around 1735, including one setting of "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", BWV 276. The main copyist was Johann Ludwig Dietel, one of Bach's pupils from the Thomasschule zu Leipzig. Although considered to have been lost by Philipp Spitta, Dietel's manuscript (R.18)—containing one hundred and fifty chorales—was discovered recently in the Musikbibliothek der Stadt, Leipzig.[1][2][3] Robin Leaver, the musicologist and theologian, has explained how to determine the key of a hymn tune from the text of an incipit: these apply to Bach's period and region. An example of Leaver's method is given from the 1736 Schemelli "Gesangbuch," taking "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" as the incipit: the key of G occurs 7 times and D once.[4][5]

Entire paragraph, proposed (with references):

Bach also composed a chorale harmonisation, BWV 267, which appeared around 1735 in the Dietel manuscript.[6][7][8] That harmonisation is found as well in G major and in A-flat major in 18th-century chorale collections, both as "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" and as "Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld".[7] For instance, its publication in the Breitkopf edition of the 1780s has it as No. 5 in G major under the former title and as No. 308 in A-flat major under the latter title.[7][9] In Schemelli's 1736 hymnal, to which Bach collaborated, the key of the "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" hymn, No. 587, is given as "D", and that of seven other hymns sung to the same melody, including "Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld", No. 259, as "G".[10][11]

notes, references, sources

References

  1. ^ Melamed & Marissen 2006, pp. 124–126
  2. ^ See:
  3. ^ For the chronology of Bach's vocal works, see also:
  4. ^ Leaver 2014, pp. 15–33
  5. ^ Leaver 2017, p. 371
  6. ^ D-LEb Peters Ms. R 18 (chorale collection Dietel) at Bach Digital website. 6 August 2017.
  7. ^ a b c Luke Dahn. BWV 267 at www.bach-chorales.com. 2017.
  8. ^ 149 Chorales, D-LEb Peters Ms. R 18 (Bach, Johann Sebastian): Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
  9. ^ 371 Vierstimmige Choralgesänge (Bach, Johann Sebastian): Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
  10. ^ Leaver 2017, p. 371.
  11. ^ Schemelli 1736, pp. 401 (No. 587), 171 (No. 259).

This would be the entire paragraph, as suggested. Same reasoning as above; plus, phrasing somewhat clearer for the second half. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:35, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This doesn't seem to be tenable at the moment. The "Dietel manuscript" is just a way of disguising primary content. The misleading use of "vanity" wikilinks is not a proper way of creating content: wikipedia articles are not sources. The first sentence needs to be more carefully written using the ideas of the Bach scholar Hans-Joachim Schulze. Mathsci (talk) 16:02, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Translation/paraphrase/summary of 1983 article by Hans-Joachim Schulze (Bach-Jahrbuch 69)

These are ongoing edits which will be updated as more content is created. Much of the content will be compressed. While that is happening, I would be grateful if that process could proceed without interruption.

The Lutheran Alte Peterskirche, Leipzig in 1880
The Nikolaikirche, Leipzig in 1850

"Between 26–27 July 1783, Johann Philipp Kirnberger, one of the closest students of J.S. Bach, died in Berlin, where he had worked since leaving Leipzig. Until his last weeks, he had attempted to realise a project for the complete edition of Bach's four-part chorales with the Leipzig publisher Breitkopf. For 6 years Kirnberger had discussed his project with Breitkopf in frequent letters, even offering the manuscript copy gratis and providing his own fees, but with no success."

"Kirnberger is known to have been the third to collaborate on publishing a complete edition of the Bach chorales, following Marpurg and then Emanuel Bach. Marpurg employed the Berlin publisher Birnstiel, which involved BWV 377 and copies from 1758. The project was aborted in 1773, after Marpurg assumed responsibility at the royal lottery. The Birnstiel edition was published in 1765 up to No. 31. Through the two eldest Bach sons, Marpurg had access to manuscript sources even after 1750."

"It is hard to say how Emanuel's plans matched Marpurg's. At any rate, Marpurg's negotiations with Birnstiel broke off, while Emanuel, even if suspicious of Kirnberger's intentions, yielded all the manuscript rights to him in 1771. Following a respectful pause after Kirnberger's death in 1783, Emanuel resumed discussion on the chorales with Breitkopf, with a positive outcome for the first instalment in July 1784. A month later, however, Emanuel decided he no longer wished to be associated with Breitkopf's Leipzig edition and modified his preface to the 1765 Berlin edition."

"With no further reasons to delay printing, the first instalment began at the end of the year, followed by further annual instalments until the whole collection was completed in 1787. After two false starts in 1765 and 1769, a new chapter thus commenced in the history of Bach's impact, as his vocal repertoire became more available."

"The publishers Breitkopf took no risks, with guaranteed subscribers and copies sold out fairly shortly. The new 1831 score was revised directly by Breitkopf, only afterwards approaching an expert to supply the preface and title. The choice of the Leipzig music collector Carl Ferdinand Becker followed a traditional route: a former chorister from the Thomanerschule, who was later appointed organist at the Alte Peterskirche in Leipzig."

"Becker subsequently seems to have regretted his decision. A new edition for the four-part choral harmonisations was published in Leipzig by Robert Freise in three instalments, 1841–1843, without omitting Becker's own participation in the 1831 edition. At that stage organist at the Leipzig Nikolaikirche, Becker's critical commentary was the first to discuss the manuscript sources prepared by Kirnberger and C. P. E. Bach, even if only in a general way."

"The task of preparing a detailed critical edition was first undertaken by Ludwig Erk, in his painstaking two-volume Peters edition of 1850 and 1865. His comparison of the original manuscripts and reliable copies with the 1831 Breitkopf edition was devastating, with many examples of errors. Franz Wüllner, however, the editor of the Bach-Gesellschaft responsible for the chorales, judged that Erk had gone too far in his criticism and had himself made mistakes. No serious faults were found in the 1784–1787 edition."

"Erk's Peters edition was still available with a revised version in 1932 by Friedrich Smend, with which he was not entirely happy. It still competed for quality with the complete and practical Breitkopf edition with 389 pieces (Bernhard Friedrich Richter). Nevertheless, at that stage the most exact and scientifically useful edition was that of Charles Sanford Terry, Oxford University Press, in 1929."

"Based on decades of familiarity with the sources of the four-part chorales, Friedrich Smend, in his 1966 Bach-Jahrbuch, significantly advanced the scientific investigation of sources, which previously had been left in a precarious state following Spitta's reported loss of manuscripts. Above all, in 1964 Peter Krause unearthed manuscript R 18 in the Musikbibliothek des Stadt Leipzig, the missing source for volumes III–IV of the 1784–1787 edition. "

"Despite the merits of Smend's commentary, however, it has been criticised because it does not quite tally with known evidence. The assumptions of Smend are evaluated in the technical editorial report [not discussed here]. Staying within the limited scope of this account, the complicated picture underlying Bach's Chorales can be outlined in a few strokes."

"According to recent findings, neither Marpurg, C. P. E. Bach Emanuel or Kirnberger had priority to the principal collector of Bach's four-part chorales. Instead the honour fell to an alumnus of the Thomasschule zu Leipzig, unknown until the early 1960s, one of the choristers aimed at Bach's famous 1730 "Draft for a Well-Appointed Church Music" ("Entwurf einer wohlbestallten Kirchenmusik"). It was already known to have been "Hauptkopist F" (Dürr 1957), Bach's principal copyist in the first half of the 1730s, who for example performed in the Christmas Oratorio. In 1981 Andreas Glöckner identified the copyist as Johann Ludwig Dietel (1713-1777), who attended the Thomasschule from 1727–1735, matriculated at the University of Leipzig in 1736 and later became cantor in his home town of Falkenhain, north east of Leipzig."

"The fact that manuscript "R 18" originated in this way is entirely conclusive: the special musical notation, the watermarks, the repertoire from the Christmas Oratorio and the exact dating of one of the last chorales to be copied—the final movement of cantata "Was Gott micht mit die Zeit" (BWV 14), composed for 30 January, 1735, that appeared as entry CXXIX in the manuscript."

Schulze's manuscript source "R 18" is tabulated on pages 94–100 of the 149 entries, with a concordance. These correspond to the roman numerals in the manuscript labelled by I–CXXXV and CXXXVII–CL: the number CXXXVI was omitted by the principal copyist, Dietel.

In the preceding article of the Bach-Jahrbuch 69 (1983), pages 51–80, Gerd Waschowski gives a summary of the main published editions of the four-part chorales up to 1932. These are:

  1. The Birnstiel edition of 1765/1769.
  2. The Breitkopf edition of 1784–1787.
  3. The Breitkopf edition of 1832.
  4. The Friese edition of 1843.
  5. The Peters edition of 1850/1865.
  6. The Bach-Gesellschaft edition of 1892.
  7. The Breitkopf edition of 1898.
  8. The Oxford edition of 1929.
  9. The Peters edition of 1932.

Mathsci (talk) 14:34, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]


Comments by other users

Afaics completely unrelated to the topic of Dachstein's "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" hymn. Please take such topics elsewhere where they might have some relevance. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:09, 17 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
User:Francis Schonken has no idea what my intention is: it is completely relevant. Mathsci (talk) 17:40, 17 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Modulo some tweaking of the uploads from the Library of Congress (which will take some time given the script I'm using for concatenating zooming tiles—two laptops are needed), I think I now have all the images needed to create the brief self-contained paragraph on Bach 4-part chorales. It is slightly complicated, but the general narrative is quite interesting, educational and even entertaining for the general wikipedia readership. As franglophone's might say, the comments so far have been "à côté de la plaque." Mathsci (talk) 09:02, 28 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments on sources

  • Letters from Kirnberger to Forkel: J.G.H. Bellermann, ‘Briefe von Kirnberger an Forkel’, Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, new ser., vi (1871), 529–34, 550–54, 565–72, 614–18, 628–30, 645–8, 661–4, 677–8 [20]; vii (1872), 441, 457 (DOK3 and later). The letter from 4 Sept 1779 is not contained in Bellermann's transcription. Mathsci (talk) 07:44, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • The re-evaluations of Kirnberger's contributions have been explained in detail by Beverley Jerold in 3 articles from 2012, 2013 and 2014. Because of war damage, only fragmentary documents survive, the main source being from Arnold Schering's 1918 Bach-Jahrbuch. Although letters from Kirnberger to Forkel have survived (with transliterations by Bellermann and translations by Serwer/Jerold, the original laters from Forkel have been lost.
  • Letters from C.P.E. Bach to Breitkopf jr. and Forkel are contained in Ernst Suchalla's edition: some are translated into English in "The Letters of C.P.E. Bach," translated and edited by Stephen L. Clarke. Other English-language extracts can be found in the New Book Reader of David, Mandel & Wolff (NBR).
  • There are also accounts of Marpurg, Kirnberger and C.P.E. Bach on Grove Music Online; however, the re-evaluation of Kirnberger (and Marpurg) needs to be taken into account (particularly for Serwer's 1970's account, taken from his Yale dissertation).
  • The evaluation of Marpurg follows his writings, particular his tracts on the Art of the Fugue and his satirical monthly journal Kritische Briefe (1759-1763). Accounts of Marpurg are contained in Matthew Dirst's two first chapters on J.S. Bach's reception: although interspersed between the two chapters, these discuss Marpurg's his writings on (1) fugue (BWV 144/i, WTC) and the chorales. The brief biographical sketch of Marburg is contained in Grove (and Jerold) revounting his literary encounters France and at the court of Frederick the Great. In particular these compare the difference between Marpurg's aristocratic upbringing and Kirnberger's lowly origins as the son of a cobbler.
  • Biographical details, particularly on the genealogy of the Bach family, were already traced during J.S. Bach's lifetime. The 1754 Nekrolog of C.P.E. Bach and Johann Friedrich Agricola, the first biography/obituary of J.S. Bach, was the first to recount details of J.S. Bach's life and work. (Agricola was a law student in Leipzig (1739–1741), where he studied music with J.S. Bach where he became an organist and was engaged as one of Bach's copyist; from 1741 he worked in Berlin, starting as a student of Joachim Quantz; he became an accomplished organist at the court of Frederick the Great, rising to the rank of conductor of the royal orchestra.)
  • Although all Forkel's letters to Kirnberger have been lost, details from Forkel's 1801 biography of Bach survive. Again details om Forkel and his professorial chair as music theory at the University of Göttingen are summarise in Grove Music Online.
  • DB3 (with the method of numbering adopted there) is often the easiest way of tracing through documents and their English translations.
  • The format for the paragraph or paragraphs on four-part chorales will start with the 1983 summary from the director of the Bach Archive, Hans-Joachim Schulze, and his successors Christoph Wolff and Peter Wollny. Because of the complex history of the chorales, the narrative will need to be unpeeled like the layers of an onion.

Mathsci (talk) 09:42, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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