Talk:Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Classical music, which aims to improve, expand, copy edit, and maintain all articles related to classical music, that are not covered by other classical music related projects. Please read the guidelines for writing and maintaining articles. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.Classical musicWikipedia:WikiProject Classical musicTemplate:WikiProject Classical musicClassical music articles

Requested move April 2006

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move. —Nightst a llion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 06:42, 11 April 2006 (UTC) Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun → Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune[reply]

To refer to the piece by anything other than its original title is extremely rare -- Picapica 20:40, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

Support. David Kernow 04:45, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose My experience varies. Concert programs are often (but not always) in French; but only the most pretentious of radio announcers will use the French without the English, English without French being not uncommon. Septentrionalis 17:29, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support, as the French title is how I usually see the song mentioned. I have even seen Sirius use the French title. Olessi 20:11, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support I see and hear both, but the French most often in print. My feeling is the article should be in French with a redirect from the English. Rizzleboffin 23:39, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Add any additional comments

Personally I would not object to moving the article, but there is a guideline that says we should use English. Also, 59,500 Google hits suggest that use of the English title is not "extremely" rare. David Sneek 21:38, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I ought perhaps to have qualified "extremely rare" with "in my experience". I can honestly say that in over 50 years of listening to music I have never seen "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" on a concert programme or heard the piece thus announced.
This may well be a UK/US thing, of course. While accepting that search engines, like the Bible, can be used to "prove" anything (how many of the 59,500 are derivatives of the current WP entry itself?), I would point out that googling for "BBC Radio 3"+"Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune" produces 223 hits; "BBC Radio 3"+"Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" gives only 21 (and a good proportion of the latter turn out to be American sites).
The convention referred to above says, by the way: "Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly used in English than the English form" (my italics). Quite apart from the poor choice of words here (Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune is not a "native transliteration" of Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun), I think that there is a good case for saying that the original title is indeed more commonly used, as is the case with the titles of all Debussy's works as included in the WP article dealing with that composer. -- Picapica 10:18, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Suggested move back

This article was moved from the English title to the French title in April 2006. The users supporting this move seem to have largely ignored WP:UE, so I felt it was worth having another look at this.In fact the English title is not uncommon (Google searches excluding Wikipedia have a comparable number of hits, [1] and [2]) and therefore it seems most consistent with Wikipedia policy to use the English title for this article. Heimstern Läufer 07:44, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move February 2007

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was PAGE MOVED per discussion below. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:06, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune → Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun — from WP:RM: "This article was moved from the English title to the French title in April 2006. The users supporting this move seem to have largely ignored WP:UE, so I felt it was worth having another look at this. —Heimstern Läufer 07:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC)" [ Chris cheese whine 08:01, 10 February 2007 (UTC) ][reply]

Survey

Add # '''Support''' or # '''Oppose''' on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~. Please remember that this survey is not a vote, and please provide an explanation for your recommendation.

Survey - in support of the move

Support - WP:UE suggests that we should use the well-known English name. Chris cheese whine 08:02, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support — the English name is in common enough usage to invoke WP:UE. As long as you don't try to move My Mother. --SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 08:52, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support as nom. Heimstern Läufer 03:54, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support. WP:UE; I think it's pretty clear that this piece is known by an English name. Is there an authoritative dictionary/encyclopedia to turn to in cases like this? Liner notes? --Akhilleus (talk) 19:46, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Survey - in opposition to the move

Oppose The French title is by far the more common. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 14:01, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Add any additional comments:

Here are some reliable sources that use the English title, which I hope will dispel the notion that it's uncommon: A Norton Critical Score [3], an article in the peer-reviewed journal 19th-century Music [4], and a program description on the National Symphony Orchestra's website [5]. Heimstern Läufer 18:38, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that anyone has said that it's uncommon (though I might have missed that), just that the French title is more common. A quick Google gives 126,000 hits for the French and 50,400 for the English title. In The Penguin Guide I counted fifteen recordings with the French title and none with the English. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 21:57, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Recordings nearly always give original languages, as they are meant for international consumption (note that liner notes are typically in at least three languages: English, French and German). They also almost universally write "Wiener Philharmoniker", while our article is Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. The classical recording industry does not reflect everyday English usage. As for the Google search: don't forget this gives French-language sources which would obviously use the French title and thus have no bearing on English usage. Heimstern Läufer 22:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I found that doing an English pages-only search gave comparable results for "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" and "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune". Heimstern Läufer 22:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Recordings nearly always give original languages, as they are meant for international consumption"; so is Wikipedia. More importantly, although Googling for English-language pages gives similar hits, it's interesting to not that the majority (of the ones that I looked at, flicking through the results) give the French title first, followed by the English translation. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 23:34, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia, but it's still an English-language encyclopedia with a standard of using English titles. Heimstern Läufer 00:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this at the English title?

I've never seen this piece referred to by its English title alone. Even the first line of the article admits it is commonly referred to by its French name. The same goes for Debussy's other compositions. It's La Mer, not The Sea. How frequently do you hear of Games, Woodcuts or The Slower than Slow?- -Folantin (talk) 20:28, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're right about La Mer, I've never ever heard it as anything but that outside of in cases where the title is explained. But for this one, it's ALWAYS announced in English on the radio, be it my local station (such as written down here) or a national feed. Maybe this is indeed a case of US vs UK (I'm in the US). It does seem to be in French on all my recordings of it though. I would agree that it should probably be moved back (again). ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 21:58, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. I'd rather go by academic literature/booklets to recordings than by US radio announcers (I'm from the UK and I've always heard it in French - however badly accented - on the radio). I think this should be in line with the titles of Debussy's other works on Wikipedia. Also, the creator of the article put this under the French name. --Folantin (talk) 22:05, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My preference is the French title, and I'm with Melodia that it's likely a US/UK thing, as announcers on the radio here invariably use the English, but for this piece alone -- curiously, I'm having a hard time thinking of other Debussy pieces that get the English equivalent, except for maybe the "Dances, Sacred and Profane" (how they usually say it). Sorry I missed the initial move discussion, I would have opposed it. Antandrus (talk) 04:21, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say Sunken Cathedral and The Girl With the Flaxen Hair are used pretty regularly too, but both of those are at their French titles. Also, as far as written goes, I think Children's Corner is often English (Jimbo's Lulluby, The Little Shepherd). Also, I usually see it as 'Sacred and Profane Dances'...but anyway, for THIS piece I'd say it's a fine line because WP:UE vs. what's common in whatever sources would reference the piece. The title it's at now IS the normal one, which is a point for it, but...eh...I think this piece is at the very LEAST, recognizable in its French form as normal. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 04:46, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On the radio I almost always hear the English title. Once in a while you get a deep South DJ make a hillarious attempt at the French title. Willi Gers07 (talk) 20:06, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have moved the page back to the French title based on the above. Eusebeus (talk) 20:13, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Naming issues

Please see Talk:Das Floß der Medusa#Title revisited for some pertinent comments about this article. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:35, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Musical Literalism?

What is Musical Literalism? The link doesn't seem to go to an actual article. --108.88.162.182 (talk) 23:16, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note 8 - incorrect reference?

The text states "The work is called a prelude because Debussy intended to write a suite of three movements – Prelude, Interlude, and Final Paraphrase – but the last two were never composed." It refers to note 8 which is a naxos page which discusses Debussy's works - but does not relate nor mention this work at all. Note 8 should therefore be removed.§

Use of Expanded Tonality

The article reads: "It is a work that barely grasps onto[clarification needed] tonality and harmonic function."

I wouldn't agree. It is throughout quite tonal but uses harmonic devices uncommon in 1894 and expanded tonality via whole-tone devices in one brief section. This claim reaches too far; isn't it sufficient to say that the piece was a significant departure from common practice in its time?Pinikadia 13:00, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Turning point in music history

The article states that Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun "is considered a turning point in the history of music." That's a bold statement. But it's just left at that. The very next line "Pierre Boulez has said he considers the score to be the beginning of modern music" is also left without explanation. Since this is such an important piece of music in the history of music, an explanation of these statements would be useful. Why is it considered a turning point in the history of music? What about it makes it a turning point? What about the piece caused Boulez to consider it the beginning of modern music? What was different about this piece of music from the music that had come before it? How did it began a whole new era in music?

If the article is to be encyclopedic, it should expound upon these ideas and statements. A person comes to an encyclopedia article to learn more about a subject. However this article piques interest with these bold statements but never answers the question of why this is such an important piece of music in the history of music.

Agree. Also, not all critics consider this the turning point in Western music; arguably, much earlier, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde broke the bounds of conventional harmony; I believe I heard this in a talk on CBC radio (Canada), may have been a Massey lecture. Another point: I have read criticism that the middle of the piece abandons impressionism and slips into romantic style--sorry no source. Hopefully these will ring a bell for someone --D Anthony Patriarche, BSc (talk) 23:30, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Notice that you’ve changed “a turning point” into “the turning point”. There is a difference. That’s one thing; the other is that the example of “Tristan and Isolde” as pivotal is, of course, a moldy old cliche, and Boulez here was attempting to look at this from a refreshingly different perspective. Wagner pushed the boundaries of tonality in a much less radical way from Debussy because Wagner retained the tensions of traditional tonality, and the tensions really represent the underlying presumption. Schoenberg in his pre-serial atonal period, following from Wagner, retained these as well, and I would argue that Debussy’s innovations were more profound and far-reaching than either Wagner’s or Schoenberg’s. TheScotch (talk) 17:54, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In fact the article needs a section on "Reception" that discusses the reception at the time and the significance of this piece for classical music. I was looking for that and was disappointed to see virtually nothing about it. Zaslav (talk) 05:33, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]