Talk:Pedro Vilarroig

Autobiography?

It looks like this page is primarily edited by the person whom it is about. Autobiographies in Wikipedia are "strongly discouraged". -Frank.tobia 15:07, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, autobiography keeping the rules of NPOV

I think that, maybe, you didn't read the Autobiographies text completely. That way you don't know the reason why autobiographies are strongly discouraged, as you quoted. Neutral point of view is needed, and this is precisely what happens in my article. In my articles I limited myself to aseptically quote my work without arrogant, proud or phrases. Not even oppinions are given. But there is no problem: if you discover something which can result offensive, rude or such, please feel free to delete it yourself (but I doubt you'll find such a thing in my article). Well, I added some references which are written by third persons in order to improve the text. -Pedro Vilarroig 13:00, 15 July 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pvilar (talk • contribs)

Since I'm the editor that tagged the article, allow me to comment. In the absence of reliable third-party sources it is impossible to assess whether or not an article actually is neutral or verifiable. I have no particular reason to dispute the factual accuracy or neutrality of this article, but it it is lacking in any sort of objective third-party commentary, or biographical information beyond that found on a typical resume or CV (and the article is indeed formatted and written much like a resume). If you want to see what a higher-quality living-composer biography looks like, try Elliot Goldenthal or Philip Glass; for an article that is somewhat similar to yours (i.e. probably written by the subject or his supporters), but includes meaningful third-party references, see for example Matthias Dahms.

I sampled a number of the links you've added. They appear to be essentially promotional in nature: listings of works, performances, recordings, events, and similar, with nothing of note that was actually meaningfully written about your life, music, or its performances by someone else. (If there are such, please point them out to me specifically; I'm not going to go through the entire set of links.) Magic♪piano 12:42, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I’d like to know what does the word reliable mean for you exactly. I was browsing the page about Matthias Dahms but I couldn’t see these third-party references you quoted. Maybe I didn’t read it carefully enough, or it is too hidden. You say that there is nothing meaningfully written about my music. Please let me now again what does meaningful mean for you. For instance, Diego Requena, from the official Spanish Radio and Television and newscaster of Radio Clasica (the only one that broadcasts classical music in Spain) is not enough for you. Andres Ruiz Tarazona, one of the most prestigious music critics of Spain is nothing for you, either. Neither having a CD by the Prague Symphony Orchestra, nor Maria Rosa Calvo Manzano, the best Spanish harpist, who performed a work of mine, nor the Moscow State Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra. Please, tell me what would you like me to do because if all of this is neither important nor meaningful for you, I’m afraid that you will never be happy with anything. Pvilar (talk)11:00, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

It isn't the reliability of the sources I question, it is the type of content in them. This Radio Clasica link appears to be little more than a program listing; please translate it here if my poor Spanish has missed something important. The name "Tarazona" does not appear in the article; please provide the link here so I know which one you're talking about. Recordings are evidence of notability; they say nothing else, unless their liner notes were written by a suitable third party, and commentary from them included and referenced here.

In re the Dahms article: it has five references. Three are to newspapers, and are probably reviews, one is to a journal. The last is to a "Who's Who" listing, but it is only used to mention that he has a Who's-Who (which may or may not be evidence of notability or reliability, since the listing may be paid). All but the last are presumably (since I do not have the resources to actually verify them) written by reviewers or columnists writing for those publications, and not necessarily supporters of his. In some cases, text is quoted from those reviews. There may in fact be bias in the Dahms article if the opinions of these writers are not properly reflected there; someone checking articles for bias or accuracy could actually look those references up to determine this.

This article, in contrast, has no such commentary, which is one reason why it looks like a resume. The fact that Requena has played your music is interesting, but did he like it? What did he (or Tarazona) say or write about it? (So far the answer appears to be "Vilarroig's music is neotonal".) Are there reviews of the recordings? What did the reviewers say? Have you ever been interviewed by a print journalist? Put this material in the article, it will make it richer.

Since you are concerned that nothing you do may satisfy me, here is something that I would find a useful contribution to this article (and thus I challenge you to provide it). One long paragraph (maybe five or six lines in a typical browser window), describing your music or reviewing performances (including recordings) of it, cited to third-party sources (newspapers, magazines, radio and television interviews, or their online equivalents). Magic♪piano 13:20, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I have translated Tarazona's article for you. I must apologize because I have no time and it's a long text. I had to translate it too quickly so, please forgive me if my English is poor:

Verso record label continues to bring a valuable supporting to Spanish music by means of contemporary composers’ recordings, most of them still alive and on active service. Now it has issued a CD devoted to the composer Pedro Vilarroig (1954) from Madrid. Normally I connected him with orchestra conducting and choral world rather than composition. Nevertheless, I was not unaware about the creative aspect of his personality and as membership to the Spanish Neotonal Composers Association, founded by himself with the idea, I thought, of giving the go-ahead, with no complex, to large number of authors that have never felt the avant-garde, let’s we say twelve-tone system, serialism or minimalism. Atonal world is not felt by a lot of composers who still believe that wonderful music can be done inside tonality, without servile imitations to the great classical masters. On the other hand, they are of the opinion that making “modern music” without feeling it really, means falling in the slavery of works forced by the school of thought in that period, and not spouted from a mind in full creative liberty. These are points of view of seeing art as respectable as those others that think or behave in a different way.

Pedro Vilarroig is mining engineer and teaches physics and cosmology at the Mining School (UPM), but music is his passion, viewing it in eclectic way. This leads him to develop variegated aesthetics, most of them inside the tonal field that has prevailed along centuries in the occidental music. He has written a lot of works (he is author of nine symphonies and three concertos for soloist and orchestra) and he is not worried about being regardless of actual schools of thought, though this does not mean that his compositions are fully traditional.

The present monograph gathers his Concerto for piano and orchestra (1990), in an excellent version of the Prague Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mario Klemens. As a soloist, there is the young Luis Fernando Pérez, whose recent recording of the Iberia suite by Albeniz has aroused favourable comments among the critics. I join them enthusiastically.

Together with the romantic piano concerto, there are two more works by Vilarroig; the, not less romantic, String Quartet nº 1, composed in 1998, and the saxophone and piano sonata (2004).

The quartet, in four concise movements and provided with varied nature, has a fair performance with the Alexeeva Quartet, formed by instrumentalists from the Madrid Community Orchestra, except for the cellist, María Casado, teacher at the Toledo Music School. The most interesting subject is the "allegro con brio" that concludes it, powerful and expressive.

As for the saxophone and piano Sonata, there are two performers from the Valencia Community, the saxophonist Joaquín Franco and the pianist Jesús María Gómez. When this work was composed it has only three movements, but by request of Joaquín Franco, the composer added a fourth one remaining, that way, more balanced with a slow introduction, an allegretto grazioso, one more calm movement and a final "allegro" that put to the test the saxophonist’s skill, apart from his excellent sound. The Sonata was first performed at the Cervantes Institute of New York, where it found a warm welcome due, among other things, to its connections with jazz. Here, Vilarroig deploys his fluent writing and, in this case, extremely virtuoso.

Link:[1]

(Now it's me again.)

I accept the challenge. I have been reviewed in radios and newspapers but none of them are in the Internet (some of them are only temporary). The problem is that I don’t know the way I can put them in a web page at Wikipedia (maybe an mp3 file and bmp of scanned pages). The other problem is that you should understand that a majority of them are in Spanish language, even an interview I had in Moscow Radio.

As I have accepted your challenge, here you are: a challenge from me. Why don’t you have a look (or an ear) to my music and you write yourself your own opinion about it? You seem to be an extremely serious and severe person (as I can see in your rigorous comments). Well, we are not friends, we have never been met anywhere. Who will be a neutral person better than you? So, as you write in Wikipedia, you can became this reliable source we are looking for. How do you like it?

By the way: another person, not me, has accepted to write a short biography. That way it won't be an autobiography.(Pedro Vilarroig talk)13:10, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for translating Tarazona's article, it has material that could clearly be used here. (Understand please that in some ways I feel that I am on your side -- the tags are a reflection of deficiencies in the article, but I am actually willing to work with you to change the article in ways that will result in them being removed, as long as there is good source material to do so. This will hopefully result in a better article, something I think you would appreciate.)

On sources: it is not required to provide online sources for everything (or even anything). I work on articles in American history where the best scholarship is rarely online; this is not a problem. What you need to provide, for print publications, is the name and date of the publication (and ISBN if it is a book), the author and page number of the article. For media (radio or TV) sources, the name and a broadcast date of the program, and the channel that broadcast it. If there are online sources that are only temporarily availabe, there may be ways to cache the content (there are free services that cache some kinds of web content so they can be durably cited). Do not upload broadcast mp3's or similar -- this would probably be a copyright violation.

In order to cite your work, you might read Help:Citing sources for some guidance on the use of {{reflist}} and <ref> markup, and look at the source (by opening an edit window) of other articles that have citations (for example the Dahms article). There are templates for references similar to those on Spanish Wikipedia: {{cite web}}, {{cite book}}, and {{cite episode}} may be useful. You can also use the Wikipedia:Sandbox to experiment before making changes to the article.

I listened to the piano concerto; it reminded me a little of Rachmaninoff and Grieg, very neo-romantic. I'm afraid I must decline your challenge. I've never written music reviews myself, and I would have to publish my impressions elsewhere (in a reliable publication) before they could be used here. This is because of Wikipedia's rule against original research: work must be published elsewhere before it can be cited here. (This is why, for example, you should not put details about your childhood here unless you have also told them to an interviewer or journalist.) Magic♪piano 19:39, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok. I think I understand a little better what you want to tell me and more clear than before. Thank you very much for pointing the method to make a reflist. I was looking for it but I was not able to find it. I didn’t put some information in the article since I considered that it was going to became too long. Sorry, I put the foot on it because it seems to be the most important things. I added some books with their ISBN reference as you are telling me. I added some radio programs too. I must look for the exact date of broadcast and I will add them to the article. I have the mp3 corresponding to them but you say that there could be a copyright violation, so I won’t upload them. I have some articles in newspapers but I don’t know if scanning them would violate copyright, either.

Of course I appreciate your comments on my article (positives and negatives) because it is said that it is not worth speaking about something that is too bad to deserve not even a word.

The last subject is about this proposal of yours. This is because I don’t know exactly what do you mean by typical browser window. Are those which are on the right part and you can click on them?.(Pedro Vilarroig talk)12:40, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

You don't have to scan newspaper articles -- citation is sufficient, with links to the newspaper's site if they are available. My suggestion on the length of the paragraph is one roughly as long as the first one in the Biography section. Magic♪piano 14:49, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, now I'm working and trying to gather all the information.(Pedro Vilarroig talk)22:20, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I currently have limited internet access -- I'll look at your changes in about a week. Magic♪piano 00:51, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

OK. (talk)00:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for reminding me of this; it had completely slipped my mind. I think that the biographic section is much improved, and definitely less resume-like than it used to be. It should still have citations added, to document which sources were used. I'd still like to see the article have some critical commentary (balanced according to what they said) from reviewers and musicologists on musical style and performances of some of the works. (This sort of content will go a long way toward removing the "autobiography" tag.) Magic♪piano 16:47, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Hello. I don't know what kind of apparaisal you want, because in Spain you have to pay (just 300 euros) for this kind of comments from musicologists and performances. They never write an article without previous payment so, I'm not sure what is the good of having this kind of comments. I have seen articles from music critics about aweful contemporary works, saying that they are the most impressing and wonderful music they have heard in their lives (this is because they have previously received 300 euros). Critics don't use to going to "normal" concert halls, but only elitist ones, and out of Spain (because they can have a free trip), so don't intend to see them in your concerts. Many journalists have interviewed me but they limit theirselves to write in a descriptive way, avoiding personal tastes. Do you think it is so important to see if one person, two or three people like my work? Maybe there are a lot of people that don't like, maybe they do...what does it care? At least, I put some links for people to have their own personal oppinion, just listening to the music, which I think is much better than collecting personal oppinions. Moreover, the two first references are by critics (by the way, I didn't pay for this) talking about my works. Maybe you may want me to quote some paragraphs from them. (talk)13:00, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I would like something that, on the whole, represents published opinion of your music. Considering that you have a long list of published commentary, you could (translate and) quote a representative sample of it here. It's perfectly fine to use journalistic sources for this, such as those you list. I understand that academic musicologists and even high-profile critics may want something resembling payola to say anything at all about your music, but you should be able to summarize what correspondents are saying in the long list of things in the Appraisal section. (For example, there is this reference: Scherzo review. April 2008, nº 229. Page 99. Article, Introduction of new CDs section. What does this say about your music or recordings of it?) If any of the press mentions listed do not say anything substantive (for example, they list that a concert occurred, without reviewing it, or are just a pointer to a recording), I would not put them in that section at all -- I would put them in an "External links" section, or use them to reference text indicating when and where performances took place. Magic♪piano 13:28, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok, understood. As you know, payola is a blot in our music world. (talk)13:00, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion

I've taken the liberty of taking two of the quoted comments and integrating them into the style section. I have recommendations for how to do this with the other two: the first (stylistic influences of Mahler and Shostakovich) can also have an excerpt worked into the style section. The second, commenting on the 2nd symphony premiere, should be mentioned in the biography (where you should add a little more on your early compositions -- In 1976 he completed his second symphony. When it was premiered in 2009, so-and-so wrote that "..."). See for example the article on Beethoven, specifically where there is excerpted commentary on the premiere of his first symphony.

I also tagged for possible quotation (assuming you have one) of someone commenting on the "impersonal" composition style. If the comparison to Spielberg was made by someone else, that should also be cited, possibly with a quote.

-- Magic♪piano 17:23, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I wrote the modifications you suggested, but I don't understand what you mean about the excerpt of the stylistic influences. Do you want me to summarize the paragraph in a few words and erase the big part? Please have a look at the early compositions and the premiere of my 2nd symphony.

As for the comparison to Spilberg this is a comment of mine because I considered him as a good explanatory example of a person who, dealing with different subjects (not just a science-fiction but also daily life, for example) shows a common factor that can typify his personality.

(talk)18:45, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I think what I was trying to get at was that the quote from Scherzo (or at least its content) could be used elsewhere. In fact, it already was being used, so I have moved references to it into the places where there is already mention of the material (influence of Mahler and Shostakovich, for example). Magic♪piano 17:09, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and there is one more reference to Scherzo (Style section), but I was not using a proper syntax, so a new reference to the same souce was added. I have changed it and now you can see that there are 3 mentions. What will be the next step? (talk)12:13, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I know I've left this for a time; thanks for prodding me to look at it again. On reflection, I think the article is in good enough shape that I will strike my issues. Magic♪piano 02:47, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Variations about the glose?

... Variations about the glose by Alonso de Mudarra ...

What is a "glose"? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 11:09, 5 January 2011 (UTC)