Talk:List of 21st-century classical composers

Red and blue: criteria for inclusion?

This list has both blue and red links, posing the question of selection criteria. Of course if the list is limited to blue links it can then be open to all WP articles on 21st-century classical composers neatly solving the problem. Thoughts? --Kleinzach 12:02, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings about this. Allowing redlinks means the list can include composers who don't have articles but really ought to have, but it also encourages the addition of obscure non-notables. If we disallow redlinks, this article might as well be replaced by a category, with the advantage that categories are self-maintaining. As things stand, if I create a new article on a composer I have to consider adding it to:

• List of 21st-century classical composers by name
• List of 21st-century classical composers by birth date
• List of 21st century classical composers by death date
• List of 20th-century classical composers by name
• List of 20th-century classical composers by birth date
• List of 20th-century classical composers by death date

(note the inconsistency of hyphens). And then there's all the other lists such as:

• List of female composers by name
• List of female composers by birth year
• List of female composers in the United States during the 20th century
• List of Irish composers
• List of Dutch composers

...and so on.

Many composers are on some of these lists but not on others where they would be equally relevant. It occurs to me that using sortable tables would allow the "by name", "by birth date" and "by death date" lists to be combined. But really, what is the purpose of all these lists? For my satisfaction in seeing my favourite composers listed? For the vanity of the composers seeing themselves listed? To increase the link count to individual composers' pages so they don't show up as orphans? Perhaps we should have all the lists deleted and use categories instead.

Having said that, I looked through all the redlinks on this page, and I was able to convert a few of them into blue links by respelling. Of the others, most I have never heard of, and a few are names I know I have heard but I couldn't vouch for their notability. A few, however, do strike me as worthy of articles in their own right:

• Javier Alvarez
• Jörg Birkenkötter
• Rob du Bois (NL)
• Attila Bozay (HU, DE)
• Jacques Charpentier (FR)
• Frank Corcoran (DE)
• Martin Dalby
• Paul-Heinz Dittrich (DE)
• Reinhard Febel (DE)
• Jennifer Fowler
• Clemens Gadenstätter
• Ge Gan-Ru
• John Maxwell Geddes
• Detlev Glanert (DE)
• Denis Gougeon
• Ragnar Grippe (SV)
• Ketil Hvoslef (NN, NO, SV)
• Johannes Kalitzke (DE, NL)
• Huub Kerstens
• Otto Ketting (NL)
• Geert van Keulen (NL)
• István Láng (HU, DE)
• Aleksander Lasoń (PL, UK)
• Reinbert de Leeuw (NL, FR)
• Otmar Mácha (CS, NL)
• Georgs Pelēcis
• Gérard Pesson (FR, ES)
• Niels Rosing-Schow
• Jan van Vlijmen (DE, NL)

All of the above have, I think, had significant exposure through festivals, radio broadcasts and commercial recordings. Where I have indicated language codes in brackets, they already have articles in other-language Wikipedias, so these articles could potentially be translated.

Now, if we had banned redlinks, I wouldn't have been able to compile the above list, so perhaps redlinks can serve a purpose. What does anyone else think? --Deskford (talk) 14:53, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

In general I think redlinks are good, but less good on lists of living people with a high probability of attracting vanity/non-notable entries. So I don't think it's entirely cut-and-dried. For example, it may be a different issue for living composers than for dead ones, or composers born before, say, 1960. For an example of a list with useful redlinks, I have been using the List of Renaissance composers as a convenient list of articles that need to be written for more than five years now. But no one is going to be adding their friends, their piano teacher, themselves to that list. Ideally these list pages would be more than just a list -- for example, each composer could have a line of text after their name, giving their general significance -- which is the beauty of lists versus categories.

Most of these list pages need a haircut and trim, but if you wanted to remove redlinked names it might not be a bad idea to maintain a list of them elsewhere (like on the talk page). Antandrus (talk) 15:18, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Hm... Wiki can be somewhat over the top in its lists. One good thing, though: now that Deskford has collated those lists, we can see certain deficiencies. The hyphenation problem was easy: I have moved the only non-hyphenated one, List of 21st century classical composers by death date -> List of 21st-century classical composers by death date. Doubt there'll be much complaint about that (though there are a few links in the articles with out the hyphens that need dealing with).

However, the question remains: do we actually need all those lists? That depends how important all the data is individually. In fact, each of the lists has value in different contexts, but each list can be misleading. Where is Handel placed in the equivalent lists for Baroque? Germany? Italy? England? Europe? Actually, personally I don't care but others do and it may even be critical for certain research. Handel is a famous cosmopolitan of course, but what about less well-known cosmopolitans? Worse still (in our day) what about a composer who has a sex change? This is not a question to laugh off: Dr. Josephine Bartland (invented for this example) was born female in Hong Kong in 1960 then had a sex change in the US in 2000 before settling down in Russia as a man, she and he being notable before and after the sex change... About the only fixed things in this example are DoB and (legal) name assuming they are still alive... But then even a name can be changed legally and some people are given Wiki articles by their stage name or nom-de-plume.` Worse still, is this person technically a woman before the op? I ask because the question as to whether to include the entry in List of female composers by name etc would need very, very careful consideration.

This is an exceptionally unusual example, granted (but one that will arise one day) but it highlights the problem in the obvious answer: list are only useful if they are maintained. But, who maintains them? The field we are considering is actually quite specialist (late C20th and early C21st). The sum total of editors actively involved in major edits in this field is about 12, as far as I am aware, a third of whom are present in this discussion. If anyone is willing to oversee these lists regularly, fantastic; if not, we have a problem.

As far a red-links are concerned, I feel they can be useful but they are not obligatory. If a composer is notable, someone will write their article sooner or later. Deskford pointed to a more subtle problem: mis-linking by misspellings. There is also an even more subtle one: John Adams instead of John Adams. Mis-links due to missing dabs is a hard one since primacy changes. After all, the modern composer might actually become far more famous that the American Founding Father and the undabbed link could then be made to point to him. We’ll then have to change all those lists...

Antandrus actually highlighted an even more serious problem: self-aggrandisement. It goes beyond that, though: composers (like all artists) are usually assessed after their death, or at least well into their career. Notability is not automatically established simply because a person has written a great piece of music that is played over and over again in concerts. Nor even just because another important composer says they are brilliant. (My own Emily Hall might not be notable, in fact, despite the reasons I stated there. Likewise Tansy Davies has been tagged...) They have to be recognised by many, many independent sources and that isn't easy. These red-links could just encourage people to write up articles on their favourite new composer of the month, thus creating even more work for the small handful of us.

For me, categories are a far simpler solution, since they don't need special attention. As soon as one of the regulars spots a misplaced cat in an article, it can be removed (with a good explanation in the edit summary). Missing cats are easily added, too. This beats wading through manually created list after manually created list to spot those people that don't belong and (harder still) those that are missed off...

My question then goes from do we actually need all those lists? to do we actually need any of those lists? I'm not convinced we do. --Jubilee♫clipman 23:31, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

(Addendum: dealt with all the unhyphenated in-article links for the top six in Deskford's list, but the see alsos need to be expanded to include by birth, death and/or name as the case may be). --Jubilee♫clipman 23:42, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I've compiled both 'all-blue' and 'mixed' lists in the past and while both have their place, I now prefer to put the 'mixed' lists indicating missing coverage under project pages rather than in article space. (An example is The Wagner Project List of article-worthy Wagner singers.) Another important point: there is no reason to have separate lists by name, birth, death dates etc. These can all be combined in a sortable (i.e. rearrangeable) table (see for example List of operas by Krenek.) --Kleinzach 23:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

That was a timely point: I've just added all the composers highlighted by Deskford to the Contemporary project. Perhaps they should be added to the Composer's project, too? --Jubilee♫clipman 23:57, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Merge

I am suggesting that the three lists be merged into one list table sortable by either name, birth date or death date at the convenience of the reader. (An example of a sortable table is at List of operas by Krenek.) --Kleinzach 03:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Works for me. It's simpler that way, and we don't lose anything -- right? Antandrus (talk) 03:32, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

No, except maybe some sleep . . .--Kleinzach 03:44, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

It sounds such a sensible suggestion I can't help thinking there must be something wrong with it! Sure, let's do it.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:41, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I've done a sortable version in userspace, see here. Please tell me if you can see any problems. --Kleinzach 10:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Good idea and the Krenek list works beautifully. However, this new list is very large so it takes ages to re-sort and, unfortunately, FireFox keeps giving me an Unresponsive Script error. It may just be my system though, so others will need to verify. --Jubilee♫clipman 23:29, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems to sort OK for me. I've tried it on IE8 and Firefox and each takes a couple of seconds. I am wondering about a hidden column with the name in surname-first format for sorting, but haven't yet worked out how best to do it. We could use a template for each entry to simplify things. There's also the complication of dates like "ca. 1945" and "195?", which sort unpredictably. I like Antandrus's idea of a one-line summary with each composer as in List of Renaissance composers, so the article becomes a bit more useful than just a plain list. Still thinking.... --Deskford (talk) 00:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The List of operas by Krenek and similar lists use hidden sorting tags. For example Oskar Kokoschka sorts to K because there is a {{Hs|Kokoschka}} tag. Obviously putting these tags into a list with 1,000+ entries would be hard work! However I've added tags for "ca. 1945" and "195?". --Kleinzach 00:59, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Aha — so that's how it's done! I felt sure there must be a solution already out there, but I was looking in the wrong places. I guess there's no easy way round the tagging of the 1000+ entries though. --Deskford (talk) 01:11, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, IE does work now I try it... must be something to do with my addons in FF. Anyway, it does indeed need a button to sort it by family name, but are you sure editors will know to add {{hs}} if they add a name? --Jubilee♫clipman 01:15, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure they won't, but then the complexity of these tables does deter some drive-by editing.

(Fair point --Jubilee♫clipman 15:45, 18 December 2009 (UTC))

If we are going to do more work on the list – BTW can I move it to article space now? – it may be better to check all the blue links (to see they real) and remove the red ones. --Kleinzach 02:26, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Update: Michael Bednarek has done the name sort tags. I'm moving the new version to this article. --Kleinzach 10:43, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Good work! I've changed Tan Dun to sort under T. There are probably other Chinese names that need changing by someone who knows how to identify the family names. --Deskford (talk) 13:11, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, this is certainly better than multiple articles! Good work Klein and Michael! How about the C20th articles too? Indeed, there are several others out there under our various banners that really need merging like this, eg female composers. I might have time over the weekend, if no one else does? --Jubilee♫clipman 15:44, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

PS, I doubt there'll be any objections to making the lists by birth and death redirects to this article now. Unless there are names in those that are not here, of course. --Jubilee♫clipman 15:53, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I've just added another 50+ names from the List of 21st-century classical composers by birth date. In the process I've made one or two changes to existing entries, mostly sort keys (e.g. according to his article David Del Tredici should be sorted as Del). For composers with diacritics in their names, I've omitted the diacritics from the sort key (e.g. François-Bernard Mâche sorts as Mache, Francois-Bernard). I believe this is normal practice in most languages, though not all. (Swedish, I think, lists letters with diacritics after Z). Also, composers with names beginning Mc should sort as Mac. --Deskford (talk) 15:59, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Correct. Mc and Mac are identical, except that Mc is simply the short form and is mixed with Mac in all listings. I can legally call my self MacIntyre or McIntyre (my real name) and it makes no odds. --Jubilee♫clipman 23:38, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Now I've added the composers from List of 21st-century classical composers by death date. Before we redirect the now obsolete list pages, we should move the current page to a more appropriate name, but should it be List of 21st-century classical composers or just List of 21st-century composers? I note that most of the other lists (female composers, Irish composers, Dutch composers, Renaissance composers &c.) don't include the word "classical" in their title. When the article has been moved, Template:Composers by era should be updated to point to the new name. --Deskford (talk) 21:06, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I've just discovered yet another list: List of composers by name, an undifferentiated list of mostly 20th-century names. We don't need all these lists and they're impossible to maintain! There's also List of modernist composers, and List of acousmatic-music composers, as well as the more specialised List of 20th century Mexican composers and the List of female composers in the United States during the 20th century that I've mentioned before. But my favourite bizarre specialised list must be List of composers who employed pipe music. --Deskford (talk) 21:39, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Several points here to deal with. First (and foremost), move to List of 21st-century classical composers; the reason being that this defines the article using the commonly accepted term and helps avoid bizarre discussions like this... Second, all those list need to be pruned back to the bare essentials, mainly by merger. Lists by nationality can be justified (and have those nations' editors to help maintain them) as can lists of women (since they are a small but growing number, but most of the lists should be merged). Lists by "genre" or "style" or "-ism" are less easy to defend: how does one define the "-ism", what about composers crossing many "-isms" etc... I suspect we're stuck with them, however. List of composers who employed pipe music should be kept for its humourous value! In fact, it needs more information: how did Haydn, Schubert, Beethoven et al employ bagpipe music? --Jubilee♫clipman 00:01, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

After reading that discussion on the Composers project I'm now totally confused as to what "classical" means, but if leaving it in the title of this list keeps people happy I'm not going to object. Some of the -ism lists could usefully be replaced by categories. As for the pipers — I know there are "bagpipe" effects in some of Haydn's symphonies and quartets, as well as many baroque composers. There are real bagpipes in some pieces by Leopold Mozart, Nicolas Chédeville, Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, Johann David Heinichen and (I think) Telemann. --Deskford (talk) 00:15, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

You might try this and this to confuse yourself even more... I know I am totally confused after all that! Haydn probably actually wrote for the bagpipes (or maybe the Northumbrian smallpipes): he wrote for muscial clocks and set a huge number of Scottish folk songs... Not sure when Beethoven or Schubert took up the pipes though! --Jubilee♫clipman 01:02, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

When the other two lists have been merged we can make them into redirects to the present article. Perhaps the 'death date' one has already been done? --Kleinzach 13:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I had a merged list from List of 21st-century classical composers by birth date prepared with the intention of also merging from List of 21st-century classical composers by death date, but Deskford beat me to it. I can't comment on the completeness of these merges. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:28, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Page move

I've now moved this to List of 21st-century classical composers as per discussions. --Kleinzach 12:25, 19 December 2009 (UTC) BTW I'm not a huge fan of this name, but one problem at a time . . .--Kleinzach 14:50, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Now working on changing links to point to the new page. Death list now redirects. I'm still working on the birth list — a few composers remain to be copied over, but I'm trying to verify them as I go, so that we don't end up with too many footballers and politicians in the list. --Deskford (talk) 19:16, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Death now redirects? Hopefully either to Heaven or reincarnation rather than Hell! --Jubilee♫clipman 21:04, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Merge completed

I've now added the remaining 50 composers from List of 21st-century classical composers by birth date. These were the ones I had never heard of, or knew nothing about:

• István Anhalt (1919– )
• Denis ApIvor (1916–2004)
• Chaya Arbel (1921– )
• Claude Baker (1948- )
• Luca Belcastro (1964- )
• Cacilda Borges Barbosa (1914– )
• Keith Burstein (1957- )
• Daniel Catan (1949- )
• Evan Chambers (1963- )
• Juan J. Colomer (1966- )
• Alexandre Danilevsky (1957- )
• Robert Davidson (1965- )
• Patrick Doyle (1953- )
• Dimitris Dragatakis (1914–2001)
• Joe Duddell (1973- )
• Robert Farnon (1917–2005)
• George Flynn (1937- )
• Don Freund (1947- )
• Grigory Frid (1915– )
• Mehdi Hosseini (1979- )
• Dan Locklair (1949- )
• Bill McGlaughlin (1943- )
• Tauno Marttinen (1912–2008)
• Kenneth G. Mills (1923–2004)
• John Mitchell (1941- )
• Xavier Montsalvatge (1912–2002)
• Roberto García Morillo (1911–2003)
• Louis Moyse (1912–2007)
• Nico Muhly (1981- )
• Pawel Mykietyn (1971- )
• Juan Orrego-Salas (1919– )
• Jiří Pauer (1919–2007)
• Alla Pavlova (1952- )
• H. Owen Reed (1910– )
• Alexei Rybnikov (1945- )
• Gustavo Santaolalla (1952- )
• Meinrad Schütter (1910–2006)
• Robert Scott Thompson (1959- )
• Harold Shapero (1920– )
• Howard Shore (1946- )
• Alan Shulman (1915–2002)
• Robert Suderburg (1936- )
• Edward Top (1972- )
• René Touzet (1916–2003)
• Dan Welcher (1948- )
• Yanni (1954- )
• Ye Xiaogang (1955- )
• Christopher Yavelow (1950- )
• Davide Zannoni (1958- )

All but Joe Duddell have articles, and I have left him in because I think he is reasonably notable. Of the rest, I am not so sure. Many of the articles are unreferenced stubs or apparent vanity articles with little evidence of notability. Some appear to be popular or film music composers, so it is debatable whether or not they belong in this list — the old "what is classical?" debate again.

Where there is ambiguity over sort key for the names (Cacilda Borges Barbosa, Roberto García Morillo, Robert Scott Thompson, Ye Xiaogang), I have referred to the DEFAULTSORT clause in the individual articles.

--Deskford (talk) 00:02, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

If you are undertaking to spend some time on this. I would suggest first checking all the names are genuine. There were some footballers etc. mixed in with the composers! After that we need to make a decision on the blue vs. mixed links issue. (You may decide to recommend dropping the word 'classical' but I suggest leaving that problem for later.) As ever on WP, it's necessary to separate out the problems and work through them logically. Good luck! --Kleinzach 02:15, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Just to fill you in on some of those names: many are film composers massively over-exposed on Classic FM (UK) eg Patrick Doyle (Sense and Sensibility and Harry Potter after Williams quit) and Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings); Yanni is a composer of instrumental albums that cross over light classical and pop-rock; Kenneth G. Mills appears to have been a philosopher who also happened to compose. Also, Daniel Catan should be Daniel Catán (and is a noted opera composer); Pawel Mykietyn should be Paweł Mykietyn; Alexei Rybnikov should be Alexey Rybnikov; Robert Davidson leads to the important C19th inventor so this entry needs to be dabbed as Robert Davidson (composer); and John Mitchell needs to be dabbed as John Mitchell (composer). Finally, Alla Pavlova is one of the most original composers of our time (IMHO) who also happens to be female. All of the others appear to be composers (at least in the widest possible sense) unless I've missed something. It is also quite possible that some of the "footballers" were undabbed. Hope this helps! --Jubilee♫clipman 20:44, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I confess I had heard of those two massively over-exposed film composers, even though I haven't listened to Classic FM for years. I had actually got Robert Davidson and John Mitchell properly disambiguated in the article, though not in the above list. I've now respelt Daniel Catán, Paweł Mykietyn and Alexey Rybnikov — the latter two articles are seriously lacking in substance and evidence of notability. The footballers and politicians are among those who were already in the article before we did the merge. As Kleinzach points out, it would have been more sensible to weed them out before importing the other lists, but hey, you live and learn.... --Deskford (talk) 21:48, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

With regards Mr Rybnikov, I notice the article has only recently been moved from Alexei Rybnikov to Alexey Rybnikov. The usual transliteration of the Russian Алексей is Alexei, though it would seem Mr Rybnikov prefers Alexey. The German Wikipedia calls him Alexei Lwowitsch Rybnikow, whilst the Polish Wikipedia calls him Aleksiej Rybnikow. Ah, the harmony of nations! --Deskford (talk) 22:10, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

seriously lacking in substance and evidence of notability... How long have you got?!? Seriously, there appear to be a huge number in the article itself that that applies to...! Regarding spellings: most people will specify for some major languages but not others. At least with Mr. Alexey Rybnikov we have his own preference for English. Others are not quite so forthcoming... (see here and here) Anyway, thank you for taking on this unforgiving task! --Jubilee♫clipman 22:40, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, after making that comment I re-read the Rybnikov article and removed the notability tag. It makes great claims of notability — just doesn't back them up with references. I still think Mykietyn could be potential deletion material though. As for Pavel Chesnokov, the latter is the usual and standard transliteration into English, and he is dead enough not to have a preference of his own. In German he would probably be Tschesnokow; in French perhaps Tschesnokoff. --Deskford (talk) 23:33, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

French usage now seems to prefer Tchesnokov. Neither German nor French Wikipedia covers him. I note that Kleinzach has standardised the spelling in the English Wikipedia to the usual English spelling Pavel Chesnokov. --Deskford (talk) 00:05, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Selection criteria

Good progress here. Next we need to explain the selection criteria in the lead. Any suggestions, now we are more familiar with the list? --Kleinzach 22:33, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

It appears to be a catch-all list ie every name an editor spots in WP will go here... Not sure how to stop that (if we need to) or how to explain it (if necessary). --Jubilee♫clipman 22:40, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure it should aim to be a catch-all. When earlier today I added a few Canadian, Dutch, Scottish, Australian and Hungarian composers, I only added a small fraction of those who have articles in Wikipedia. I guess my selection criteria were to choose composers who have had some degree of exposure through (a) major contemporary music promoters and festivals, (b) broadcast media, or (c) commercial recordings on widely distributed labels. If we allow everyone in just because they have an article on Wikipedia (a notoriously unreliable source), then this article will multiply to way beyond its current 1300 or so composers. As it is, we probably all agree that of those 1300 composers probably only about 300 are really significant — we just wouldn't agree which 300!

Now here's a radical suggestion. Thinking back to a comment by Antandrus, we could add an extra column to the table for a one-line mini-biography, invite all the editors to contribute one-line summaries for the composers they believe to be notable, then remove all those who haven't got summaries after a suitable interval, say, three months. --Deskford (talk) 23:21, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

OK. Two suggestions (1) take your suggestion (which is a good one) over to Contemporary music (but please link, don't copy everything!). It's a ideal way of revitalizing the project, (2) write a lead for this list, even if it's a temporary one. Each list must explain what it is. If you don't have an explanatory lead you have no basis for excluding anything. --Kleinzach 23:46, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions. I've invited comment from the Contemporary Music folk, and expanded the lead. I haven't said anything in the lead to indicate that criteria for inclusion are currently subject to debate — perhaps I should have...? --Deskford (talk) 01:01, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Good, we don't say on the article that it's 'subject to debate' because that would be 'self-referential' (to the internal processes of WP) which is against policy. --Kleinzach 01:49, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Discussion continues at the contemporary Music Project. --Deskford (talk) 02:35, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Red link removal

No new work has been done on this list since 21 December. If there are no further comments etc. I will begin removing the red-linked names in a couple of days. --Kleinzach 03:36, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

 Done All red links removed. --Kleinzach 01:02, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Adding nationality table

In addition to the sortable tables for the names, births, and deaths of each composer, I am in the process of creating a sortable table for each composer's nationality, to be placed between the "name" and the "birth" category. I should be able to complete this by myself, but I just wanted to make sure no one is fundamentally opposed to my idea. I don't want all my work to be for nothing, but if no one threatens to undo my undoubtedly massive edit (which will be done within the next week) I will assume that everyone's fine with it. --Lord Bromblemore (talk) 19:25, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

List of 20th-century classical composers by birth date mentions nationalities, so your edits are unlikely to get a lot of flak. Toccata quarta (talk) 19:34, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Concerning 'Notable Works'

About a month ago, I added a few works from the 20th century that were later removed. After thinking about it, I decided their removal was fair because this article is intended to provide coverage for the 21st century. However, I was looking over List of 20th-century classical composers by birth date today and I discovered that the 'Notable works' column for some composers listed 19th-century compositions. Since the 20th-century list has become the model for this list, shouldn't there be consistency between the two? Which one should we fix? Lord Bromblemore (talk) 15:08, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

A while ago, I added the "works" column but had no time to watch or maintain. To my understanding it should contain only works written or first performed in the 21st century, whereas the same composers can appear in 20th century list with works composed then. 19th century compositions have been removed from 20th, but perhaps not consistently so yet, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:54, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

There was in fact a quite aggressive campaign not long ago to weed out 19th-century compositions from the "20th-century classical composers by birth date" list. I know this, because I was one of the editors who went through the earlier part of that list to replace 19th-century with 20th-century titles. It would be helpful if you would point out titles that have been overlooked.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:15, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Hans Zimmer

Hans Zimmer is a classical musician. Esp if John Williams is here. --Inayity (talk) 01:01, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

The reason John Williams is listed is not because of his film scores, but rather because he has actually composed many "classical" concert works, which Zimmer has not. --Danmuz (talk) 05:45, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Nevertheless, Zimmer fits the qualifications at the top of the article, as he has influenced classical music through his widely-released recordings of film scores in classical tradition. He is one of the most important post-modern classical composers in modern times. MXVN (talk) 05:11, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Inclusion of questionable composers

I assume this list is intended to be accurate and include 21st century composers who are actually of note. There are several names that are questionable, but most embarrassing is the inclusion of Richard Zarou and Sarah Horick. They are boyfriend and girlfriend and perhaps had a hand in setting up this page. This kind of self-serving self-promotion does a disservice to people who would actually like to use Wikipedia for accurate research. Have some shame and remove your names from this list. Composerwatcher (talk) 19:50, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Notability, in Wikipedia terms, is established by somewhat broad and sometimes even vague criteria, but so far as this list is concerned, if a composer has an article on Wikipedia, they meet the minimum standard. If you believe these or any other composers on this list do not satisfy the Wikipedia notability guidelines, the place to raise the question is on their individual article pages, not here.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:00, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

This is more reason to confirm the eligibility of Hans Zimmer. There shouldn't even be a question on that one, really. MXVN (talk) 05:14, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

POV?

I see that Composerwatcher has flagged this list for possible violation of WP:NPOV. Perhaps he/she would care to explain how a list that is effectively an alphabetical index of articles on Wikipedia can violate this policy? Selection criteria were discussed at some length four years ago (see the section of that title further up this talk page). What was overlooked at that time?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:20, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Inclusion of questionable composers to this list

In answer to your post: The page defines the composers included on this list as qualifying for inclusion by these guide lines:

“The list includes composers who have made a significant impact on the world of classical music since 2001, whether through major festivals and promoters of contemporary music, broadcast media or commercial recording on widely distributed labels”

That hardly sounds like this list is comprised of “a list that is effectively an alphabetical index of articles on Wikipedia” as stated in the post above.

Just because someone has created (or had a friend create) a page about them on Wikipedia does not constitute “significant impact on the world of classical music”. Semantics aside, it is clear that several of the names on this list are included as self-promotion. Their inclusion is misleading and dilutes the value of this list. Mr Jerome Kohl, (or whatever your real name is) I can’t understand why this issue is not crystal clear to you.

The qualifications as stated should be followed, deleting those names who do not meet the criteria. Alternatively, change the qualification of the page to include both composers who have in fact made a significant impact, and those who are adept at promoting themselves using the Internet.

I’m not trying to be pugnacious here, but this kind of thing is rampant and needs to be stopped. Wikipedia is a great idea, and I feel that in this case it is being abused and used as a promotional device by some very selfish people.

Thank you.

Composerwatcher (talk) 16:51, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

You are perfectly correct that "because someone has created (or had a friend create) a page about them on Wikipedia does not constitute 'significant impact on the world of classical music'”. It is for this reason that reliable, third-party courses are required to support biographical articles on Wikipedia, and when those are lacking the article can be challenged and deleted (or even deleted summarily in flagrant cases). See WP:Articles for deletion and Wikipedia:Proposed deletion. Since these criteria are required for the articles indexed here, in what way are the qualifications as stated not being followed? If vigilance is lax on the biographical articles themselves, how do you propose this be dealt with on that level (in which case this list will be taken care of in the process)? May I also suggest that, if you are not trying to be pugnacious, you not make a point of questioning the identity of other editors ("or whatever your real name is"), and please feel free to use my proper title, which is Dr. Kohl—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:02, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I apologize for questioning your identity Dr. Kohl. Perhaps it would help if you explained how the list of names was arrived at. Some of the composers names are obvious choices, but others, as I have pointed out, do not seem to belong on this list. Perhaps someday these unknown folks will have earned a place on the list, but in the meantime its difficult to understand how they ended up on here. Composerwatcher (talk) 15:46, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Since I was not the original compiler of this list, I can only suppose it was assembled by searching the English Wikipedia for names of composers active after 2000. This is the minimum threshold which was discussed at some length (above on this talk page) when the list was pared down by removing all redlinks a few years ago. This is at least an objective means of selection/exclusion, and by this criterion it can safely be said that all the composers on this list do indeed belong here (you may care to compare the List of 20th-century classical composers, which uses the same criterion). If you have got a better idea, then by all means put it forward, but if it is going to be along the lines of "The 100 most important 21st-century composers" I can almost guarantee that you will find nothing but disagreement about who belongs on the list and, even in the unlikely event that you can obtain consensus, then I predict a new list of "All the other notable 21st-century composers" will immediately be created. Keep in mind that whatever means of selection you propose, it will have to be objective—not based on the opinion of whichever editor happens along.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:01, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Marjan Mozetich

Is Marjan Mozetich someone who belongs on this list? Michael Kinyon (talk) 20:38, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Oh never mind. I see he's on the List of 20th-century classical composers. I guess that makes sense. Michael Kinyon (talk) 20:42, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Bratislava IP editor(s)

I've not been around much for the last year or so, but I notice that there have been prolific additions to this list from IP addresses based in Bratislava, most recently 195.91.112.1 (talk · contribs) but previously also 188.167.62.125 (talk · contribs). 188...125 was blocked at one point for adding fictitious future death dates amongst other things, and some of 195...1's recent additions seem suspicious. Some have been valid additions though; I've just rescued Anders Eliasson and Judith Bingham from the latest batch. I didn't re-add Tyzen Hsiao, Wang Xilin, Richard Kearns or Mark Alburger because, although they do have articles, I'm not sure of their notability. I see that these Bratislava IP editors have been unresponsive to talk page approaches, but this may be because they are not conversant in English. Do we have anyone who might be able to try approaching them in Slovak? --Deskford (talk) 07:27, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Split apart

Congratulations, this article contains more lines than any other article on Wikipedia, 14,683 lines. It is also the largest list on Wikipedia. It isn't the largest article in terms of file size, but start adding some "notable works" and it will be. It took almost two minutes to save the article after I added the split template. Article also crashes my tablet's browser. This desperately needs to be split up into pieces. Bgwhite (talk) 06:12, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Good luck. I suggest deleting people who died as early as 1894, who are still included in this list. They can only have been decomposing since the beginning of the 21st century. Somebody obviously has pulled a stroke here, and this list needs to be reverted to its condition prior to this prank.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:41, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

• This requires massive, massive, massive pruning. I would not expect a list of 21st-century classical composers to include people who died in the 1800s, or even the 1900s. 21st century classical composers says, to me at least, people who were active in the 21st century. Also, WP:CSC suggests having entries only on individuals deemed notable (by having an article) for lists such as this. If we go by that, we can cut a whole lot of fluff. At least 30k. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:09, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

• I've restored revision 595184288 by Jerome Kohl. No redlinks, no people who died in the 1800s. No references, but at least it's more in touch with policy. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:17, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

• Still needs to be pruned - I doubt composers who lived from, say, 1893 to 2001 had much impact on the 21st century. Per the lead, this isn't a list of composers who happened to be living at any point in the 21st century; they should "have made a significant impact on the world of classical music since 2001, whether through major festivals and promoters of contemporary music, broadcast media or commercial recording on widely distributed labels." ₆an⁶sh₆ 20:48, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I think I recognise that "significant impact" wording as mine. The problem is deciding how we can objectively assess the impact of any individual composer. I agree that this list is now too big to serve any purpose beyond the vanity of the many minor composers included. Any suggestions as to measurable pruning criteria? --Deskford (talk) 21:03, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

This is a very difficult question. In effect, we are asking "how significant is significant?" First, concerning User:Ansh666's perfectly good point about composers who died in 2001: OK, so let's remove all of those. Now, what about the ones who died in 2002? Maybe 2003? At this point we hit Luciano Berio, and there are two 21st-century works mentioned, the Piano Sonata and Sequenza XIV for cello. Even assuming that the sonata is not really a significant work (and I hasten to add this is scarcely a supportable position), the Sequenza is the last in a long series of works that, as a series, is without a doubt of the highest significance for music from 1958 to the present. I think this illustrates the problem of the artificiality of drawing a line at a particular date when trying to determine the impact a composer might have on "the world of classical music". The attractiveness of using this arbitrary date as an objective criterion becomes even greater as soon as we consider the possibility of adding another sort category to this list: "in order of notability". If we could do this objectively, then it would be easy to restrict the list to, say, the "one hundred most notable composers". We have struggled with much the same issue with the 20th-century list, and lost, and the 19th-century list, once more tightly controlled, is rapidly sliding down the same slope. One way of dealing with the present list would be to insist that any composer on it have proved his or her worth (by the usual criteria: recordings, reviews in major newspapers, being the subject of articles in peer-reviewed journals) for at least twenty-five years within the 21st century. Unfortunately, this would only be postponing the problem for eleven years, not solving it. It seems to me that the best criterion still has got to be the litmus test of whether the links turn blue or red. We can still go after the blue-linked articles, if we feel they do not pass WP:Notability. This is a laborious outlook, but I fear is the only good test that we have for inclusion on this list.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:01, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

• How about if they composed/debuted/something of that sort a work in the 21st century? Would be a bit more research/work to do, but that would sound reasonable, no? ₆an⁶sh₆ 23:39, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

It sounds reasonable, but I can't see anyone going through 2500 composers checking them all. A pragmatic approach might be to implement a stricter inclusion criterion: we could say we will include a composer on this list only if the composer is bluelinked and there is at least one bluelinked composition in the "notable works" column that dates from 2001 or later. This means we would radically reduce the size of the article to begin with, and composers could be added back when they are shown to have produced notable compositions in the 21st century. --Deskford (talk) 00:03, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Although I get the feeling that would trim off too much (but maybe I'm just being a pessimist). Jerome, what do you think? ₆an⁶sh₆ 00:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I had considered suggesting this myself, though in jest rather than seriously. It would certainly result in a drastic reduction in size of the list—there are currently just fifteen bluelinked compositions here! (If we were to do this, could we do the same thing to the "List of 20th-century classical composers"? Please?!) I would certainly have to scramble to write articles about compositions by all of my composer friends! Seriously, though, the real question has to do with the purpose of this list. Should it be a "guide to the best of…", or simply an "index to composer articles on Wikipedia"? I think both are viable options. (I notice that WikiProject Indexes is linked on this talk page. Perhaps some members of that project might have opinions to share?)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, for those who just want an index, there's Category:21st-century classical composers, although curiously this only has about half as many entries as there are on this list. --Deskford (talk) 01:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, seems my previous reply didn't get through, so here's the gist of it: Personally I'd prefer something tending towards an index, but even for that there are some on this list that really shouldn't be there. For example, Leo Ornstein is on this list, despite living only 2 years into the 21st century and not writing anything since ~1991 (according to the article, at least). ₆an⁶sh₆ 01:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I certainly agree that such composers shouldn't be here. I've removed Iannis Xenakis more than once – he lived one month into the 21st century but didn't compose anything significant after the mid-1990s – but I see he's back on the list again. --Deskford (talk) 01:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

We can of course remove such names on a case-by-case basis. The problem is that without a clearly formulated, simple rule for inclusion/exclusion, somebody is going to come along in ten minutes' time and replace them. In a sortable-table format like this, it is a little difficult to place a warning message in hidden text. Perhaps the current explanation at the head of the list could be expanded in some way to require that at least one work actually composed in the 21st century needs to be specified in the "compositions" column—at least, for any composer who died before, say 2005?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:38, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Protect?

In the mean time, whilst we debate the best way to manage this article, would it be possible to get it protected so that our Bratislava IP editor doesn't keep adding huge tranches of 19th- and 20th-century composers, redlinks, duplicates of existing entries and spurious future death dates for living composers? --Deskford (talk) 17:08, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Would be a good idea. I don't know how backlogged WP:RFPP is; alternatively, you could try pinging Crisco. 206.117.89.7 (talk) 09:22, 24 February 2014 (UTC) (User:Ansh666 logged out)

• He's out for a month, so I don't think it's necessary just yet. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:30, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

• Alright, protected for a month. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:00, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

@Crisco 1492: Thanks. They were actually using 2-3 IPs. 206.117.89.8 (talk) 20:09, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! Another of this anonymous editor's habits was adding new entries out of sequence so the order is now pretty jumbled – I may have a go at re-sorting it now the IP editor is silenced. --Deskford (talk) 01:26, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Sort

The list is sortable, but should it show some sort of sorting at the beginning? It's not obvious to me. Some is by alphabet, but only at times. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:35, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

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Outdated template

The template for "Lists of classical music composers by eras" that appears at the upper right of this article/list is partly out of date. Lists now exist for composers of the Modernist and Postmodern eras, and these need to be added to the template. The 20th and 21st centuries don't really belong on this list as currently titled, but can be retained along with Modernist and Postmodern if the title is modified to read "Lists of classical music composers by eras and centuries". I would update the template myself if the customary V.T.E. buttons were at the bottom, but they are missing and I know of no other way to do the edit. Maybe some editor or administrator is trying to protect the template from being updated even by registered users like myself. ~ChrisCarss Former24.108.99.31 (talk) 09:03, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Table

I know the table is sortable anyway but the other page the composers are put in order of birth, here it seems it's in a random order are we just adding to the bottom. DanTheMusicMan2 (talk) 13:30, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Except for the last eleven names in the list, the default order appears to be alphabetical by last name. It would be a lot easier to fix the alphabetical position of those eleven names than to rework the entire list into chronological order. If you want to take on this task, however, I will not stand in your way.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:58, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Quality Issues - Too many composers

I started a project to go through the composers listed in this table. In my opinion this table should be 5-10% of it's current size. Jazz, electronic rock/pop, composers with "stubs" for their wiki pages, non-notable composers, film composers, video game composers, arrangers, composition professors (unless they have notable works), composers whose YouTube videos never hit 1000 views on any single video, musicians who composed a couple pieces on the side--these should be removed from this list. This list has no integrity and buries notable composers. Is anyone open to this, or should I just create a new wiki page? - January 18th, 2021 -- 18:27 (UTC)

I'd say create a new one, perhaps in draft space, and then ask what people think. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:47, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I will. Is anyone interested in working on this together and coming up with strict criteria? I can dump the composer list into a google doc. Here is the far from complete draft: Draft:List of notable 20th/21st century composers#List — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eezurr (talk • contribs) 20:22, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

A term like "Neo-Impressionism" is dubious, especially if not cited to a reliable source. I would strongly recommend taking out the genre section entirely, we're past the days of being able to put every composer into some classification (and even those were, eh). Aza24 (talk) 02:22, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Removing unsourced genres is fair (although I did pull the term from a composers wiki page). However, there are many composers who strictly fall into genres (either because they invented it or added a significant contribution to it). Considering there are wikipedia articles on music genres, would it be fair to only use genres that link to other wikipedia pages? --Eezurr (talk) 13:01, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I have removed:

• Richard Zarou - Pop artist
• Mike Block - Pop artist
• Lars Winther - Jazz artist
• Sasha Siem - Pop artist
• Seann Branchfield - Pop/Rock artist
• Walt Ribeiro - Youtube personality who arranges music over video

--Eezurr (talk) 21:13, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

• Mark L. Smith (dead link)

--Eezurr (talk) 15:42, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

• Adrian Knight - Actor --Eezurr (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 17:29, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
• Rob Simonsen - Not classical
• Paul Cristo - Not classical
• Logan Richardson - Rock/Jazz
• Jacob Cooper - Electronic
• Corey Dargel - Pop/Electronic --Eezurr (talk) 18:45, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

I have made a second update and removed another group of non-classical composers. I looked each person up on youtube before removing (in case anyone is scared by the big edits) --Eezurr (talk) 20:11, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Intro paragraph

I removed everything related to notability, festivals, etc, since this list has clearly expanded beyond the scope of its original intent. Eezurr (talk) 18:16, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Proposed Solution to "Dilution" Issue

Historically, this article has had a lot of discussion around what makes a composer relevant enough to be listed. I think it's good that the article currently does not aim to distinguish relevance of composers beyond Wikipedia's Notability guidelines, but I do think the complaints highlight a more significant issue: readers coming to this article to find new composers or to monitor the state of classical music don't have a way to distinguish between the many names listed and find what they're looking for. I believe that is what the "remarks" column was meant to accomplish, but it is currently mostly just being used to denote composers who are members of marginalized groups.

Similarly, the "notable works" column provides no relevant information to readers who are not already familiar with said works. As such the only useful tools readers have to distinguish composers is the date of birth and nationality, which may have some bearing on composers stylistically. So we need better tools to categorize each composer.

To this end I propose we add at least 2 columns to the table:

1. Stylistic Notes

Though this column would be somewhat imprecise, the tradeoff is that it would allow us to very efficiently categorize composers in ways that are relevant to most readers. Genre denotations such as "postminimal," "microtonal," or "neoclassical" would be useful here, as well as any notable instrumentation -- "brass," "piano," or "electronics" might be helpful as well.

If we add this column, it should come with a disclaimer in the header that it should be taken as general perceived trends and not a complete summation.

2. Notable Acheivements

Notable achievements are the easiest way to indicate how impactful or well-regarded a composer is within the establishment. Though it is of course not perfect, I believe it would make it significantly easier to parse through composers without ever needing to be subjective. Achievements would include things such as employment in composition-related fields, composition prizes won, commissions by major ensembles, notable performances, and education.

The Remarks column can stay as is, to be used to highlight anything brief but worth noting that isn't found in other columns.

These additions would of course make this list much more tedious to bring up-to-date, but if managed well this list could be an invaluable resource to anyone looking to learn about contemporary classical music. As it stands the list is simultaneously too dense and not informative enough to be very useful to those looking to learn; better ways to categorize would completely change that.

If you all are interested or if I don't get any feedback on the idea, I'll start making these edits soon, but definitely by December. Petgabm (talk) 21:45, 4 November 2024 (UTC)