Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227/archive1

Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227

Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

• Featured article candidates/Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227/archive1

Nominator(s): Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:56, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

This article is about Bach's longest motet, with a complex text alternating hymn stanzas from "Jesu, meine Freude" with biblical text from Paul's Letter to the Romans. The music, in a symmetrical arrangement of 11 movements, displays various vocal scorings (from 3 to 5 voices) and compositional variation and finesse. For the longest time, the motet was believed to have been composed for a certain funeral, but recent scholarship questioned that. - The article has a long history, I came in late, Francis Schonken brought it to GA quality, - I wonder how he could receive credit. It received a peer review earlier this year, with good comments by Amitchell125 and Aza 24. There is no similar article, because it's a unique artwork. Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:56, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Image review

• File:Jesu,_meine_Freude_(Bach)_Anfangstakte.png is tagged as lacking author info, and should include a tag for the original work
• File:Jesu_Meine_Freude_Praxis_Cruger_1653_-_extract.jpg needs a US tag. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:56, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the review! GRuban, can you please help in a field I'm not sure I do the right thing? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:10, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: I fixed the complaining templates on both pages, but not sure what "should include a tag for the original work" meant. It's a score of a Bach composition, do you mean you want a link to our page for the composition, meaning Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227, this article in question? --GRuban (talk) 19:57, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Not a link, but a copyright tag, reflecting that the copyright of the work itself has expired. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:23, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

 Done --GRuban (talk) 23:25, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Comments from Laser brain

On first read-through this is very solid, with a cohesive narrative. It does a good job outlining what's of interest to the reader. I suspect I will have some nitpicks that I'll either correct myself or post here for clarity, soon. It's close to ready. --Laser brain (talk) 17:19, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Additional comments:

• "Bach set both in a symmetrical structure" - I do not understand what this means without an explanation or context.

  What would you expect? --GA

• Similarly in the second para, I don't know what "free setting" means.

  The other movements follow rather strict rules, but that one is free. How to say that? --GA

• "the genre was regarded as antiquated" by whom?

  Nobody specific, the genre just wasn't as fashionable any more as it had been in the Renaissance and early Baroque. --GA

• "which at some point or another" is too informal and imprecise for this type of writing.

  That corner of the article was written by Francis. How can we say - what I think he intended - that there is great uncertainty for many works of the 15 if they really are motets by Bach (doubting "motet, doubting "by JS Bach", or both), but for a solid five, there was no question. Aza, can you help with this phrasing, perhaps? Split the sentence? --GA

• "the large majority of his vocal church music" - similarly, this is imprecise writing. Use "a majority of" if it's more than half. If it's closer to 100%, then I'd recommend writing something like "most of".

  "most of" taken, talking about around 200 cantatas plus four-part chorale settings. I wonder if we should name the few 5-part works: Magnificat and Mass in B minor? --GA

• "The hymn tune appears in two variants in the uneven movements of the motet." Is any more detail available? What kind of variants?

  That is clarified in the individual movements, and the dating. It seems to suggest that the composition wasn't written at one time. --GA

• Article contains mixed American and British English (harmonization, analyse)

  I'll check. It should be British, - please feel free to just change when you see the other unless it's in a quotation. --GA

This takes me up to Movements. I will leave more comments soon. --Laser brain (talk) 23:49, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for looking closer. The article was written by many users, which explains mixed spellings. I'll look, but have a few tasks with a time stamp first. The symmetrical construction of the whole composition, as pictured under "Structure and scoring", is the key aspect of it, and how could it be said to be understood by you? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:35, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Maybe I just needed to keep reading. --Laser brain (talk) 19:34, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

More comments:

• Made some small edits for clarity and consistency.

  Thank you for those. I changed one, please check, about the last movement having the same music as the first. --GA

• Can you provide the passage(s) from Jones p. 203 that support the following text: "Jones noted that the tenor part is particularly expressive. The last movement has the same music as the different text of the last stanza, creating a frame that encloses the whole work"

  I'll have to look, but the tenor thing was again not written by me, and the same music of first and last is illustrated just below. --GA

• Explanation needed for "rhetorical homophony"

  I wish I could ask Francis. --GA

• "While the soprano sings the chorale melody, the lower voices intensify the gesture dramatically with word painting: 'weg' is repeated several times in fast succession." Is there some significance to this word? What is the translation?

  Yes, significant, and hard to translate. "away", and it's given in the first line of the paragraph. In the St John Passion, the text is "Weg, weg mit dem. Kreuzige, kreuzige ..." = Away, away with that one. Crucify, crucify ..." - Should there be more translation in this article? Or in the hymn article. How about English for the beginnings in the table of movements? --GA

• "Performers of Jesu, meine Freude have to decide..." The choir are the performers.. wouldn't a director or producer decide? The end of that long sentence doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I would break it up to more clearly articulate what the performance options are.

  Well, the intention is rather "whoever wants to perform it", and decision processes differ. Some small ensembles don't even have a conductor. The smallest group performing it are just five singers, because instruments are not prescribed (but would have been normal at Bach's time). Suggestions? --GA

• "based on the motet's first (=11th) and seventh movements" I'm not sure what the parenthetical is expressing.

  Again by Francis, and meaning again that the music of the first movement is the same as of the last (=eleventh) movement. I assume that CPE Bach rendered the setting without text. We can drop the (=11th) if it's confusing. --GA

That's all from me for now. It's in fine shape. --Laser brain (talk) 02:43, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for looking closely, User:Laser brain. Sorry about not replying sooner, but I travelled over last days and managed only some of the most time-critical things. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:50, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

No worries on the timeframe. I do have serious concerns, though, about how this can move forward without the involvement of someone who has access to and understanding of the sources cited. There are parts of this article that are somewhat inaccessible, although I understand a previous editor wrote them. --Laser brain (talk) 02:40, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Well, we talk about the most prolific editor for Bach's biography, list of works (98%), compositions, Baroque music in general. I wonder how far AGF goes for book sources on historic material. I'd call Mathsci, the other expert on Bach, if he wasn't in an interaction ban with Francis, so could probably be blocked for any comment. Sometimes Wikipedia is that crazy. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:41, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes it's unfortunate when user's behavior problems affect their ability to create content. I've seen far too much of that in my years here. Anyway, how do we proceed? I don't see how this can progress without ability to answer questions about the content and cited sources. --Laser brain (talk) 15:23, 6 November 2021 (UTC)