Wikipedia:Featured article review/Dmitri Shostakovich/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 14:07, October 21, 2007.

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Dmitri Shostakovich

Review commentary

Alerted nominator, WP:Composers, WP:RH, WP:MUSICIAN (Bio subgroup), WP:RUSSIA and WP:WPO

Old School ('04) FAC of Dmitri Shostakovich

Nominated & passed FA back in 2004, but while the bar has risen for FAs, the quality of the Shostakovich article has remained inert and I don't think this now passes FACR#1. While the article is good, it has varied problems, ranging from excessive reliance from too few scholarly sources (and way too much rehashing from Groves - a typical problem with composer articles) to language and flow issues. Comments and suggestion for improvements most welcome. Eusebeus 15:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Most of the citations from Grove's are direct quotations on the quality and impact of Shostakovich's music. We should include such matters; including them from Grove's will reassure the reader that they have not been cherry-picked as POV, but are likely to be the consensus of musical criticism, as I believe they are.

I am, in fact, strongly impressed by the use of sources. There is neither too little nor too much of Testimony, that perennial danger on this subject. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I make it 7 out of 37 references being to Grove, which doesn't strike me as unreasonable. Unfortunately Shostakovich has not been well-served in the academic literature as far as surveys of his output go - as far as I know there's no equivalent of Stucky and Rae for Lutoslawski (and I have looked). For general statements about the music rather than on invidividual works, that leaves the options of a) Grove or b) generalising from work done on individual works, which I think would be orignal research and much less preferable. Having said that, I have no particular opinion on whether this should still be an FA: I don't do FAs any more and don't know the current criteria. Henry^Flower 10:02, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c) and prose (1a). Marskell 19:38, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

• Retain as above; the only suggested concern I see is the use of Grove's, which I approve. For what it's worth, the new Grove's Online retains the judgments and much of the prose of the Second edition. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:16, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. I've read the article and added references for a few quotes that were not cited, and made some minor tweaks. The writing is actually quite fine, and it's sufficiently referenced. –Outriggr § 23:24, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Closing: I'd have liked more comments here and there are a couple of unreferenced sections, but I'll trust Rel's work. Marskell 14:05, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.