Template talk:Classical discography row

First draft

This is work in progress. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:37, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Excellent initiative. What would be the right microformat to use? Alakzi (talk) 15:44, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

hAudio; I'll add it once the layout is more settled. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:04, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

@Alakzi and RexxS: Added. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:07, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, I like it a lot! Role will be used only for operas, can we think of having it in the work column such as

Flosshilde in Das Rheingold, - then filling the top differently?

Similarly, if no Reissued is given, can the column be dropped, - alternatively in one column "date / reissued" or "date (reissued)"?

I could imagine a full entry in the work's article, for example Das Rheingold discography, with a label, and in the singer's article a link to that label, concentrating on important things, - otherwise we have the same stuff in 20 articles for an opera with many roles. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:51, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

We can make columns optional. Wikidata will solve the latter problem, eventually. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:04, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

How do we make role and reissued optional? Thinking of BWV 22#Recordings: there's also "label", and the option to have separate columns for choir and orchestra. What then if no choir? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:16, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

I used it for all of the Schiml. Questions/observations:

• If choir is a plainlist, we get an extra blank link?
• The construction "chorus and orchestra" is rather frequent.
• The other soloists appear in alpha order, - it might be an idea to have the possibility of adding a part. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:32, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

More:

• In the typical discography, like Mass in B minor discography, it would be boring to repeat the same piece name again and again, unless we want to stress that other people call it differently and how.
• Looks like we need "label", possibly also something for DVD, CD etc.
• To get real, I would like something working for Bach's works soon, to improve BWV 165 before Main page appearance.
• For the Category:Lists of classical music recordings, would such articles also belong in it, perhaps in a subcat (by work, by artist)? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:44, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Comments

• I'd advise against having any column containing multiple names sortable: the sort button offers what it can't deliver in such cases.
• I'd also suggest caution about having a "reissued" column. If it means first reissued what's the point? And if it means latest reissue WP:DATED is an ever-present problem.
• If we go down the OCLC route, which I'm all for, we ought, I think, to recommend that editors use the OCLC that refers to the earliest release.
• We might, perhaps, also add a note in the documentation pointing editors to WorldCat, where they can get the OCLCs.
• Some editors (not me) get very exercised over whether Date means recording date or release date. The OCLC of course points to the latter. We ought perhaps to make this clear.
• There is also the matter of live recordings not released until years after the event. It is, I agree, momentarily nonplussing to see a recentish Date for a recording by someone who died years earlier. Perhaps we might suggest that a footnote should be added in the Date column for first releases of old concert performances.

Hope these comments are of help. – Tim riley talk 07:11, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for good ideas, and please stay tuned, it's a beginning. The more I think of it: we need different forms of display of the same data, something like |simple=, |opera=, |chamber=, etc., with big titles "Work", "Performers", Publication", "Reference", and with subtitles/subcolumns depending on the type (if that is possible). I hope for the technical people for that ;) - References can be others also, actually sometimes better and including a review. A date could perhaps neutrally called "Year" and be explained in an introduction to the table or clarified in a footnote. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:17, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Wishlist

Simple

Can we have for a start a simple thing as mentioned above? Can it collect under performers as a flatlist all entries of conductor to soloists, or should we go for an extra para "performers" instead? A complete listing up to of every minor part would be good for the work, but not a singer, imo. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:58, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Example how the example might look:

Composer / Work / Performers / Issued / Ref

Debussy / Pelléas et Mélisande (Geneviève) / Rafael Kubelik · Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks · Helen Donath · Nicolai Gedda · Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau / Orfeo 1971 / reflink

Beethoven / Symphony No. 9 / Herbert Blomstedt, Staatskapelle Dresden / Naxos 1980 / reflink

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:25, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Subheaders

I imagine for a work a subheader, derived from present recordings of operas, (Das Rheingold discography), which lists the parts and their order for the single entries. Similarly, in a Bach cantata we would like to know that the soloists are alto - tenor - bass for a given piece. Let's not forget chamber music, - one of the examples in Schiml has a pianist, who - for Worldcat - appears in alpha order among the soloists. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:57, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Possible subheaders:

Work: Title, Role

Performers: Conductor, Choir, Orchestra, Ensemble, Soloist

An extreme is one performer, thinking of a Bach cello suite and Beethoven piano sonata

Issued: Label, Year

A start, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:32, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Cantata

Please rather soon, to be shown on 31 May in BWV 165, similar table already in BWV 22 (also mentioned below):

• Header: Title - Conductor / Choir / Orchestra - Soloists - Label - Year

A reference could go anywhere, it would - for Bach cantatas - be mentioned in prose. Columns similar to what we have, different template or this one with options? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:41, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

I tried something in Template:Cantata discography row/doc, - please tell me why the last column is presented (at least in my browser) in a strange way: the header "Year" and the entry (but only in the second row) appear higher than I expected. I will go ahead and format the rest of the recordings of that piece in the doc, - hope to know by tomorrow if "Cantata" will be incorporated in "Classical" or stay separate. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:35, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

There was a blank line between the year cell and the first data row, which was being parsed as an empty paragraph. Alakzi (talk) 15:45, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:59, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Opera discography

Example Falstaff: different focus, different order of the columns, - would that be another template, of this one with options? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:41, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Performance

With an aniversary coming up, I would like to organize the listing of concerts better here:

Year / concert title /composer(s)/work(s) / conductor/choir(s)/orchestra / soloists / location / image .

Should in such a case the standard performers and location be mentioned every time, - kind of boring? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:47, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Too wide and doesn't scale

I think this template is used at Marga Schiml discography, yes? If so, it's so wide I need to use the horizontal scroll bar to see all of it and it extends way beyond the actual boundary of the page—almost two inches past the search box the upper right corner and into the grey area. I use Mozilla Firefox and have a laptop with a small screen (11 inches). But I've never had this problem with any other sortable tables on Wikipedia. Voceditenore (talk) 14:06, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is used at Marga Schiml discography. At that article the horizontal scroll bar appears for me (in Firefox using Vector skin) at a window width of around 1060 pixels, which I agree is sub-optimal. However, the problem is always going to exist when we view a table which needs to display the following words across the page: Composer, Götterdämmerung, Flowermaiden, SWF-Sinfonieorchester, Ridderbusch, Date, Reissued, 704904121. I've done my best to shave off a few pixels from the width here and there, but there are only three solutions available to the problem of trying to fit a quart into a pint pot:

• Only try to fit a pint - in this case cut out some of the columns; which ones would you suggest?
• Get a quart pot - but I assume you don't want to buy a bigger laptop;
• Change how big a quart is - if I use my own custom Monobook skin (that has smaller font size), I can get the width down to 950 pixels before horizontal scrolling, but that wouldn't help unregistered visitors who can't do that.

I suppose changing "Flowermaiden" to "Flower maiden" would help somewhat, but that's only applicable to Marga Schiml discography, so doesn't represent a general solution for those wanting to create discography tables. --RexxS (talk) 16:04, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps somebody could write some table media queries for Vector, à la [1]. Alakzi (talk) 16:14, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

@RexxS: Well I do have another laptop with a slightly wider screen, and a desktop with a huge screen. I'm just thinking of readers who don't have a choice. I tend to agree with Tim riley about the number of fields. I'd remove the re-issue column completely and include that information (where appropriate) in the date column in ()'s after the original release. You've also got a problem in that lots of recordings, especially those made from live performances/broadcasts have multiple reissues on multiple labels in multiple years. Take a look here for all the issues of the 1980 live Beethoven's 9th with Schmil, Adam, Schreier. For one thing it was reissued as early as 1994. It seems incredibly arbitrary to use the OCLC link to a 2009 streaming audio file release. I'd use the OCLC for the first edition only, i.e. probably this one. Voceditenore (talk) 17:03, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

The string "Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks" is long; is there a suitable abbreviation? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:15, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

We could put reissue dates under release dates, and differnetiate them by the use of parenthesese. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:25, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

The German Wikipedia lists BRSO for "Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks", if that's any help. It really is an frightfully long string in its full form. Voceditenore (talk) 16:53, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps a good idea to have a list of all these orchestras with their tons of different names and abbreviations. The abbr should work fine with a link. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:01, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Could perhaps be added to List of symphony orchestras - that too, could usefully be made into a table, with home venue, date of foundation, etc. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:43, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. I've abbrevaited to BRSO ([[Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra|{{abbr|BRSO|Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks}}]]); though I wonder why we wouldn't use BRSO ([[Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra|{{abbr|BRSO|Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra}}]]). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:41, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Sandboxes

I've created sandboxes for Classical discography header and row to test out possible changes without disturbing live articles for the moment:

• Template:Classical discography header/sandbox
• Template:Classical discography row/sandbox

At present, I'm testing a horizontal separator to distinguish Conductor / Choir / Orchestra. I've also made a test page - it's in the wrong namespace, but we can sort that later - at:

• Template:Classical discography row/test-hdr-row-end

which is a copy of the current table from Marga Schiml discography, but using the sandbox versions of the templates. It does demonstrate how easy it is to change tables around if they use wiki-markup and templates as I've demonstrated a possible layout that combines Work and Role (the article wiki-text remains unchanged; just the template has altered). It may go some way to reducing the minimum width of the table before horizontal scrolling takes place.

Anyway please feel free to try out changes in the sandboxes - if you have problems seeing the changes in the test-hdr-row-end page, just preview that page as it forces it to use the latest version of the templates. --RexxS (talk) 22:13, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! I like the separator between conductor and the others, but not so much between chorus and orchestra, because it often says "Chorus and orchestra of xyz". I see no separator when there's no chorus. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:29, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

I could imagine the two dates in one column, - I don't think sorting by "re-issued" will be of much interest, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:31, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Next dream: some parameter to request that no "role" and "reissued" is needed, resulting in a different header and number of columns? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:45, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Semantically, it should be |choir=Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks and orchestra=Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and that's particularly important if we want to embed microformats. Once we've split up choir and orchestra, we can't really write Chor und Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks as a single entity any more.

Putting the two dates into one column would be easy, but we need to address the concerns about which date (recording, issue, re-issue, etc.) is meant. That's work for the documentation.

Having another parameter for |type= is not difficult, but I'd recommend finding some existing examples of how you want these to look - or make some in your sandbox, as it's then much easier to develop the templates to match what is required. --RexxS (talk) 00:12, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

First 2 taken. Example for a cantata listing in BWV 22#Recordings, - we have no individual refs for them but the listing in bach-cantatas, which could be mentioned in the prose above. I suggest to use "Title" instead of "Album", and to combine conductor/choir/orchestra. There will be cases with no choir.

For parameters, I could imagine types, such as "type=cantata" (for example, would work for all vocal music with orchestra, such as masses), or saying "reissued=no", eliminating certain columns, which needs to match the header. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:59, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Before seeing this, I just made some changes to the live version, inluding placing the three "Conductor / Choir / Orchestra" headings on separate lines. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:17, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

What do we do with Bach Collegium Japan which includes both choir and orchestra, or Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir? For the moment I put them under para=orchestra. They are well-known names. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:26, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Would it be possible to have a separator between conductor and the other two, but not between choir and orchestra? How would we show "no choir"? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:03, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure what would be best. Maybe it could default to printing a dash when choir is empty and it could be suppressed when |choir=orchestra? Alakzi (talk) 21:56, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

I like the separator test and copied it, also to {{Cantata discography row}} --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:38, 20 June 2015 (UTC)