Talk:Songs of Emmanuel Chabrier

Comments

This is a fine new article. I take the liberty of making some suggestions à la Peer Review.

• Introduction
  • "All are strophic" – the term would benefit from a link to Strophic form, I think.
  • "Johnson comments" – this is the first mention of Johnson in the text, and it would be helpful to add a few words to explain who he is or where he said what you quote him as saying, e g, "the pianist and scholar Graham Johnson…" or "Graham Johnson, in his 2002 survey of Chabrier's songs…"
• Early songs
  • "Dean describes Bizet's version" – as with Johnson, a few words putting Dean in context would be helpful.
  • "Marquise de Ricard's Parnassian salon at 10 Boulevard des Batignolles" – does it add anything useful to give us the street number and name?
• The developing song writer
  • "Two points on the heading of this section. First, the Manual of Style discourages the use of definite articles in headings. Secondly, the Oxford English Dictionary favours "songwriter" as a single word (which moreover would have the minor advantage of making it clear that the participle relates to the writer, not the songs – not that anyone would in practice be in any doubt.)
  • The paragraph spacing in this section looks inconsistent with that elsewhere.
• The full-time composer
  • "Howat claims" – I'd be careful with "claims". It isn't an entirely neutral word, and used as here can seem to be an implied suggestion that what is claimed is not true. A plain "writes", "comments", "remarks" etc would be safer.
  • For the header, I'd again suggest dropping the definite article
  • "Mme Enoch, wife of his publishers" – wife of only one of his publishers, one hopes.
  • "Chanson pour Jeanne" – "Chabrier … vouched that its music « is certainly music of …" – you can probably get away with using the French quotation marks « and  » for the subtitles of the various songs, but anything translated into English, like this, really needs English quotation marks. Also in this para, "Although basically strophic, the composer creates modulation…" contains what is known to grammarians and pedants as a dangling modifier: grammatically it says that the composer – not the song – was basically strophic. Inserting "the song is" after "Although" will do the trick.
  • "Les plus jolies chansons du pays de France – "There is what looks like an unformatted citation to Delage 1999, p. 713, in the first para.
• Late songs
  • "Ballade des gros dindons" – "Bernac comments … (p86)"" – but the citation below says page 81. Similarly in the para on Villanelle des petits canards. In both cases I wonder why we need the page number in the text rather than just in the ref, but if we're getting both they should be consistent.
  • "Les Cigales" – I'm not sure about cicadas "grating", though I confess no better word leaps to mind. Also on this para, there are two page numbers in the text that would be better in the citation.
• "References
  • It wouldn't hurt to give the OCLC number for the Johnson booklet and CD set: it is OCLC 1055457940
• General – three points on punctuation. As far as I can see, the Manual of Style requires double quotes as the default, with single quotes reserved for quotations within quotations. So" – to take a random example - The markings are 'appassionato, con fuoco' and 'très joyeux' in Toutes les fleurs ought to be "appassionato, con fuoco" and "très joyeux". There are many more such in the article. The other point is the punctuation of page numbers. Wikipedia is dogged by American adherence to mid-20th-century conventions. Although other countries have long since done away with unnecessary full stops, the US and hence Wikipeda would still have us write, e g, "J. S. Bach", not "J S Bach", "No. 5", not "No 5" and" – to the present point" – "p. 21" rather than "p 21" or "p21". Thirdly, and last, you'll be glad to know, some French-style gaps have crept in here and there before punctuation marks in English text – Love creed : "I believe in things eternal", "recitative like passage ; the first waltz returns" etc.

That's all from me. I enjoyed the article from start to finish, and it has sent me to my CD shelves. One can see why Poulenc loved Chabrier! (I wonder if this, with seven Chabrier songs, is worth a mention in your discography?) Splendid stuff – thank you! – Tim riley talk 08:33, 25 August 2019 (UTC)