User talk:Opus33

• Archive 1: August 2003 – October 2004
• Archive 2: November 2004 – June 2006
• Archive 3: July 2006 – June 2007
• Archive 4: July 2007 – March 2008
• Archive 5: March 2008 – March 2009
• Archive 6: March 2009 – June 2010
• Archive 7: June 2010 – February 2012
• Archive 8: February 2012 – April 2014
• Archive 9: February 2012 – August 2015
• Archive 10: August 2015 – January 2017
• Archive 11: January 2017 – January 2018
• Archive 11: January 2018 – December 2025

300 years ago, a Bach cantata was born: happy new year! -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:27, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Gerda. Opus33 (talk) 18:36, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you, - inviting you to check out "my" story (fun listen today, full of surprises), music (and memory), and places (pictured by me: the latest uploads) any day! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:07, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Today you can watch the 2010 premiere of a violin sonata with the composer also the pianist. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:16, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

Mozart music for today! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:32, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

20 January is the 100th birthday of David Tudor (see my story) and the 300th birthday of Bach's cantata Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen, BWV 13, if we go by date instead of occasion as he would have thought, so see my story for last Sunday, and celebrate ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:45, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your many fine edits.

One of my New Year's resolutions is to help get deserving subjects Good Articles. Among composers, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven...

Thank you for recommending Charles Rosen's The Classical Style, which I will get to eventually... (Also without a Good Article: Rosen).

The good news is we have our work cut out for us. Happy editing. Charlie Faust (talk) 21:14, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

<Happy editing> ... Thanks, and the same to you! Opus33 (talk) 18:03, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

I nominated Mozart for GA. Today is his 270th birthday, and what better way to celebrate? It seems the least we can do.

I had a music teacher who had a copy of Harold C. Schonberg's The Lives of the Great Composers. Reading that now. I fully intend to read Rosen. Charlie Faust (talk) 05:32, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Hello @Opus33, I have come to inform you that I removed the nomination by @Charlie Faust as it was a drive-by nomination since he ranks #23 on the article's authorship. But outside of that, I want to recommend if you want to nominate Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for GA as you have corrected various things and contributed to its quality in general. - RTSthestardust (talk) 05:38, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. Opus33 (talk) 06:34, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

23 on the authorship for Mozart! I'll take it. What matters is that it gets to GA. Charlie Faust (talk) 13:32, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

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Thank you for your efforts for Mozart! Tamás Vásáry today, who began his career with a Mozart concerto at age 8. -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:09, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, Gerda. More Mozart to follow ... Opus33 (talk) 17:24, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

Good to know! - Today some 1510 carving from St. Valentin. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:30, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

Today something new: a 100th birthday of someone alive, György Kurtág! In 2004 I was there when he and his wife played for the Rheingau Musik Festival where he was the featured composer. They played as the 2019 DYK said, on an upright piano, - listen, the last piece was the same. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:05, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

Today's main page features four biographies I helped to bring there, two women and two men, three opera singers (one pictured) and an actor, - a record for me, I believe ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:39, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Hi Opus33, I noticed you removed a sentence I added to the article about Beethoven's Fifth. I understand that the sentence "The Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini also performed the first movement of this symphony following the fall of Benito Mussolini in September 1943, stating that he would perform the remaining movements after Germany was defeated" might seem like it belongs in the article about Toscanini. However, I believe it is relevant to the reception and influence of the symphony. Toscanini's performance of the first movement of this symphony shows how the symphony was received during WW2. Furthermore, the paragraph already discusses the symphony’s connection with victory and World War II. Therefore, the example directly illustrates the symphony’s historical reception and symbolic meaning. I hope you can share your thoughts. Thank you for your understanding.CZL123 (talk) 10:16, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for your courteous message, CZL. I was thinking in terms of MOS:CULTURALREFS, which says the articles about Work X should be about X and not a batch of things that refer to X. However, your contribution seems to me to me somehow less of a violation of this policy than other items I removed, e.g. the inclusion of the symphony on the Voyager disks. If you want to put it back in I will not revert (though it remains to see what other editors might think). Yours truly, Opus33 (talk) 16:29, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Hi Opus33, thank you for your reply. If have added the sentence since you said you will not revert it.

I think there seems to be a misunderstanding on the definition of MOS:CULTURALREFS. Based on the article about that, it says that "an article should not contain a list of miscellaneous information. It is better to present things in an organized way." It also mentioned that "cultural aspects of the subject should be included only if they are supported by reliable secondary or tertiary sources that discuss the subject's cultural impact in some depth."

In my case about Toscanini, the information was documented by the New York Times and also appeared in my CD linear notes written by Mortimer H. Frank, who was close to Toscanini. Like mentioned in my previous message, it shows the cultural significance of this symphony during WW2, which isn't just considered as "a batch of things that refer to X."

Another issue I would like to address is the inclusion of this symphony in the Voyager Golden Records. Like Toscanini, it was well-documented by NASA. It is significant as this symphony is one of the many things used to represent humanity to potential aliens, not just random "miscellaneous information." I believe that, like my information about Toscanini, it should be allowed and not a violation of MOS:CULTURALREFS

Lastly, I would like to address the edit you made about the reassigning the bassoon notes to the French horn. This edit is my fault as I didn't check the article properly to see if the information was already mentioned. However, I noticed you also deleted the sentence before the part I added, which was "During the recapitulation, there is a brief solo passage for oboe in quasi-improvisatory style." I think this could be a mistake as it wasn't mentioned anywhere else in the article. Do you have a reason why you deleted the sentence?

Lastly, I would like to thank you for the other contributions you have made on the page, especially the notes you have added.

Sincerely,

CZL123 (talk) 04:00, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for your message, CZL. Re. the actionable items:

Oboe solo, oh dear, a blunder, sorry. Yet, trying to put it back, I see that the discussion of the first movement is almost incoherent, the sorry result of cumulative editing. I'll try to implement a larger-scale repair.

Voyager disk: here, I dig in my heels. Carl Sagan and his colleagues, who designed the disk, were very smart people, but they were not Beethoven experts and they had no authority to speak for all of humanity. I was around when the disk was promulgated, and my sense was that the whole business was a bit tongue-in-check, as evidenced by the tiny budget allocated to the project. After all, it's vastly more likely that the Little Green Men will discover Earth before they find the Voyager probe. The whole business just shouts "trivia" to me.

If we're talking Legacy (a subject taken up earlier on the Talk Page for Beethoven) I'd much rather put in what Berlioz, Schumann, and Wagner thought, or what thoughtful modern scholars like Lewis Lockwood or Jan Swafford think. Such opinion is more encyclopedic, or so I feel.

Lastly, for me the important message of MOS:CULTURALREFS is "Cultural references about the article's subject should not be included merely because they exist. Cultural aspects of the subject should be included only if they are supported by reliable secondary or tertiary sources that discuss the subject's cultural impact in some depth. The mere appearance of the subject in a film, song, video game, television show, or the like is insufficient." This should count as a serious hurdle for inclusions, I think. Opus33 (talk) 18:27, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your explanation.

I agree that the description of the first movement in the article is incoherent. It explains a lot about about the exposition, but not much about the development and recapitulation.

I understand you point about trivia in MOS:CULTURALREFS. According to the article about that, "If you want to add a fact to the banana article stating that bananas are used as weapons in the Worms video game series, you should cite a reliable source focused on bananas—such as, to take a fictitious example, The Cultural Impact of the Banana by Ferdinand Fruitanalyser. This ensures relevance to the subject of the article. Citing sources specific to Worms, such as the games themselves as primary sources, or an article in PC Gamer magazine, is not sufficient. While these may verify the fact, they do not demonstrate the cultural significance of bananas in a manner proportionate to their overall treatment in reliable sources about bananas. It is the fact's relevance to the topic of bananas that matters, not its significance within the Worms games." This means that the information could only be added to the Beethoven article if there are reliable sources about Beethoven Symphony No. 5 (not about the probe) that mention its cultural significance. So far I couldn't find any. I think you are right.

For the first movement description, what do you plan on improving?

CZL123 (talk) 06:38, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

I would like it to be more than a "blow-by-blow" description, which seems pretty boring. Also, this movement really stands out in classical music and deserves a broader sort of discussion. Perhaps points like the following:

• Despite the extreme emotion on display, it's in totally conventional Classical sonata form.
• The particular version of sonata form on display is the type favored by Haydn, with extensive development (i.e. within the exposition) of one single motif. (Compare Mozart, who liked to lay on a whole series of melodies for his expositions.) Source for this is A. Peter Brown's article on sonata form in the Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia.)
• Something from Antony Hopkins's book The Nine Symphonies of Beethoven about how the themes of the exposition are derived from one another.
• The remarkable interruption of the recapitulation for an oboe cadenza (the part I deleted by mistake).
• There is a very substantial coda section, introduced by a surprise cadence.
• Maybe quote famous musicians on the emotional intensity of the first movement and how they responded to it?
• Other? Suggestions?

For several of these items the hard part is to remember where I first read it (none of the above points originate with me) so I can give the needed sourcing.

Opus33 (talk) 06:58, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

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Of the four topics I helped to bring to the main page, I'm most proud of a woman's work, so made it my story. As it happens, last year's story OTD was about the woman. -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:36, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

on Bach's birthday, a story about my joy --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:43, 21 March 2026 (UTC)