Talk:Bohuslav Martinů

Untitled discussion

mgoetze: Could someone provide references for the supposed influence of jazz and Czech folk music? Clearly he was more influenced by baroque music, and looked up to other famous Czech composers such as Dvorak.

La Revue de Cuisine is probably his most notable jazzy piece (one of the movements is a Charleston) - there are quite a few others. Folk music I'm not sure about off the top of my head, but I'd be surprised if some of his early works didn't use folksy elements. The baroque influence came later, I think, from about the 1930s. I'll fiddle with the article a bit. --Camembert

Looking around a bit, it seems the folk music influence may have come out in the 30s, about the same time as the concerto grosso influence kicked off. I have a feeling the second piano concerto gets quite folksy in places - I'm going to dig out a recording of it and listen later tonight. I'm wondering about this reference to Debussy now, but presumably the person who put it in there knew what they were talking about. --Camembert

mgoetze: I have no objection to the Debussy reference, can't point to a specific piece but ISTR seeing him mentioned prominently in some bios. Are you sure the double concerto is specifically for two string orchestras? One of the earliest "neobaroque" pieces seems to be the Concerto for Sring Quartet and Orchestra of 1931.

Yes, I'm pretty sure the Double Concerto is for two groups of strings: that's the "double" part of it. Ken Thompson's Dictionary of 20th Century Composers (which is really a catalogue of various composers' works) says it is "for two string orchestras, piano and timpani". On folk music and Debussy, Britannica Concise's article [1] says "His early pieces combined the influences of Czech folk music and French composer Claude Debussy's music". Judging from his catalogue, interest in folk music continued into later years: there's the Variations on a Slovak Folk Song (1959) for cello and piano, and the Three Czech Dances (1949) for two pianos, for example. (I couldn't find my recording of the second pf concerto, by the way) --Camembert

Geffers: Does anyone remember the details about the Ken Russell film about Martinu. I seem to recall a woman at a sewing machine, and a lighthouse.

The Ken Russell film "The Mystery of Dr. Martinu" is a strange mix of biography and surreal commentary. The first half is a dream in which Martinu experiences various aspects of his life, including: the reoccuring lighthouse, the naked "Slava" in reference to Viteslava Kapralova with whom Martinu had an affair, the meeting of Charlotte (who is shown sewing money while Martinu composes at a toy piano), and of the emigration to America. The dream ends with Martinu's fall from a balcony- which actually happened in 1946. The second half of the film is an explanation of the dream by Martinu's doctor and friend. Though mostly based on Martinu's actual biography, there are many interpretations and artistic changes Russel makes. ~ rcs7684@hotmail.com

Martinu's Debussy and Czech folk influences

I wrote my Master's thesis a couple years ago on Martinu. I can vouch for the Debussy and Czech influences. The ballet Istar, for example, exhibits some Debussyian influence with regard to timbral choices. He also included folk tunes in his earlier stuff--before as early as the 1910s--though I can't remember any specific pieces he put them in off the top of my head. There are two very good resources that will back me up on both points. The best one is Safranek's biography "Bohuslav Martinu," which has been translated into English, and the other is Brian Large's biography "Martinu." Happy reading!

Mediafiles

Could someone please doublecheck the media files? I have the scores of the Sonata No2 for Cello and Piano and checked against:
http://www.martinu.cz/katalog/showitem.php?idcatalogue=201&language=en
but the ogg (1,2,3 movement for sonata No2) file contains something different?

The Opening of the Wells

The Opening of the Wells (Otvírání studánek, 1955) - cantata cyclus. --Snek01 14:22, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Separate page for works

I have created List of works by Bohuslav Martinů as a separate page for Bohuslav Martinů's works. If there are no objections, I will remove the works from this page and place them on that one. Asmeurer (talk • contribs) 23:08, 29 January 2007 (UTC) See also this discussion. Asmeurer (talk • contribs) 23:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Media

Can anyone explain me, how works of Martinu, who died less 70 (even less then 50!) years ago, can be free to be included here? Thanks, Okino 14:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Unless I am mistaken, the recordings come from Pandora Records. Asmeurer (talk ♬ contribs) 21:07, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Dates

I've changed the dates back to US formatting. Thought this was more appropriate considering his migrating to America. --Leodmacleod (talk) 20:38, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I stand by this. I don't see any reason to use British formatting for someone with no direct connection to either the UK or any of the Commonwealth nations. If anyone can justify making the change, I'd be happy to see it done. However, if anyone can show why the formats should be changed, I'd also ask that person to go the extra step and make sure that ALL the spellings and the grammar are made to conform to British standards, that is, if there's anything that does not already do so. --Leodmacleod (talk) 18:20, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Why is this "British" formatting? Martinů was a Czech composer who spent a larger part of his life in France than in the US, and he lived his last years in Switzerland. In none of these countries is the M-D-Y order observed for dates. I concede that his ties to America are somewhat stronger than to Britain, but his ties to his homeland and to France are stronger still.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:04, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

This kind of discussion seems to crop up a lot. Personally I prefer the date-month-year format which doesn't need a comma (even though I'm from the US). However, I think it may be policy that once one of the other format is established in an article it should be adhered to for consistency and not changed. (Not sure where I read this, and not that I necessarily agree with it. At least the IP who first changed it in this article, did it for all occurrences so it remained consistent, so I decided not to revert it. But then Leodmacleod decided to revert it, and now we have a discussion. :) --Robert.Allen (talk) 02:28, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

From the Wikipedia Manual of Style:

"Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the more common date format for that nation. For the U.S. this is month before day; for most others it is day before month. Articles related to Canada may use either format consistently."

This can be found here. While Martinů's ties to the US may not have been the strongest, it's still a stronger connection than he had to the UK or the Commonwealth nations. And while I'm aware that DD-MM-YYYY is used throughout Europe, this is the English wikipedia and I thought it more appropriate to go with the English-speaking country he was most closely associated with. --Leodmacleod (talk) 03:12, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

There is of course the proviso (in cases where a format is already well-established) that reasons may be advanced for changing the format. If memory serves, the guidelines used to take into consideration the nationality of the subject, and not just his/her ties to the US or the UK. Perhaps this has changed. If so, it does raise the tantalizing prospect of treating, for example, Brian Ferneyhough by American rather than UK standards. Despite his nationality of birth, he has spent very little of his professional life in the UK, compared to his time in the US.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:19, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if your example is applicable since it's between English-speaking counties. However, you got a hell of a point about his nationality trumping US ties. Here's the thing though; the article uses US dates and, as far as I can tell, US English. If you were to change the date formats then I believe you'd have to change the text to conform to British grammar, or some other standard of English, since US English uses month before date. Now, I haven't checked, but unless the change is as simple as reformatting these dates, I don't see any reason to make a change that big in the article. However, whatever we decide, I think we should make sure to put a notice up on the top of the talk page about it. --Leodmacleod (talk) 05:48, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

At WP:DATESNO:

Retaining the existing format

• If an article has evolved using predominantly one format, the whole article should conform to it, unless there are reasons for changing it based on strong national ties to the topic.
• In the early stages of writing an article, the date format chosen by the first major contributor to the article should be used, unless there is reason to change it based on strong national ties to the topic. Where an article that is not a stub shows no clear sign of which format is used, the first person to insert a date is equivalent to "the first major contributor".

Since a decision cannot be easily made based on national ties, perhaps we should follow the above policy. The first major contributor appears to have used the US format, so I suggest we stick with that. --Robert.Allen (talk) 12:09, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I am perfectly willing to abide by this myself but, since the question was raised earlier about US vs UK standards, since I speak both English and American ;-) I just had a look at the text to see which language it is written in. There are no specifically American traits (e.g., "center" vs. "centre", "color" vs. "colour", "quarter-note" vs. "crotchet", "measure" vs. "bar", "tone" vs. "note", "English horn" vs. "cor anglais", etc.), but I do notice two usages that identify the language as UK Englsh. In the "Life" section, there is the sentence "However, Martinů did acclimatise himself" (instead of "acclimatize"; although the spelling with a Z would also be perfectly good UK usage, the "-ise" ending is not used for this word in American), and toward the end of the article, "His orchestral work Memorial to Lidice … was written in 1943 whilst he was in New York" contains the specifically British "whilst".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:01, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I still feel like American English would be the more appropriate form, considering his ties, wiki-policies, etc. But I guess that the real question now is, what do we change? Reformat the dates, and put a British English notice up, or change the spelling and use of "whilst" and put up an American English notice? Either way, it's not that big of a change or that big of deal, I mean, really. As long as it's in English and not Manadrin, etc, right? --Leodmacleod (talk) 18:10, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Is there a policy that says we have to make all the language conform to one style of English? I've never seen it, if there is. The dates policy only seems to apply to dates and doesn't mention things like "whilst". I've always enjoyed the fact that the encyclopedia is so all inclusive, and these differences are just evidence of the diversity of our editors. Personally I could live with more than one date format (but I can understand why most editors prefer a consistent format, at least at the article level). The Wikipedia is such a new kind of publication, it doesn't seem reasonable to expect it to be entirely like a traditional one which has top-down control. --Robert.Allen (talk) 21:31, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

There are no policies on this, but there are guidelines. See, for example, Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Internal_consistency, and Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English, and within the latter section, especially Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Retaining_the_existing_variety and Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Opportunities_for_commonality.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:05, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Policy. Guideline. Whatever. We still got the same problem. Do we want to change it all-American or all-British. Like I said, I can go either way. Like a well made cake, I just want that sweet sweet internal consistency. --Leodmacleod (talk) 17:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Ironically, the problem ultimately boils down to the date-format thing. The guidelines on commonality cited above encourage us to avoid regionalisms wherever possible: "Wikipedia tries to find words that are common to all varieties of English". Changing the ending of "acclimatise" to "-ize" may infuriate many British editors (especially readers of the Guardian), but it is in fact the conservative—even old-fashioned—preferred British usage, according to the OED and other Oxford University Press style guides, and is the style used by more conservative newspapers such as the Times. The word "whilst" can even more easily be dealt with, by using the national-neuter "whereas" or "while". That just leaves them pesky dates, and it seems to me, under present Wikipedia guidelines, the whole thing seems more to hinge on "who got there first" than the somewhat doubtful English-language national associations of a Czech whose second country of residence was France and whose second language was French.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:15, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Jerome, thanks for the links. Everything you say makes a lot of sense to me. Go for it! --Robert.Allen (talk) 09:39, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

There's nothing doubtful about his association with the United States, I mean, he lived here for a bit. But all that's moot, cause I like your idea and yeah, like Robert said, makes perfect sense. --Leodmacleod (talk) 21:20, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I didn't mean to suggest that the association with the United States is in doubt—only that planting the American flag on his body of work merely because he was a refugee in that country during the latter part of the Second World War (and remained for a few years after, owing mainly to a serious injury, before returning to Europe) is a somewhat dubious proposition. He did after all visit the UK a few times also (in 1919 and 1938), though as far as I am aware never resided there.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, my mistake. Anyway. Glad we could get this all cleared up. --Leodmacleod (talk) 03:24, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Expansion / Rewrite

I am going to greatly expand this article which will most likely turn into a rewrite. I am a musicologist who is actively involved in research on Martinů and I feel the article can have more detail without being overly lengthy. I will try to retain all changes and elements discussed here, but do make changes as necessary that I might have overlooked.RobtCSimon (talk) 23:14, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Five years belatedly, if you're the Robert Simon whose substantial reference work/guide on the composer I was recently reading, then thanks !! Schissel | Sound the Note! 14:09, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Middle name

Bohuslav Jan Martinů I thought? Schissel | Sound the Note! 22:20, 8 June 2016 (UTC) Schissel | Sound the Note! 22:20, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, that is what the New Grove article gives.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:26, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

And the Oxford Dictionary of Music. I've reversed the forenames to match this. --Deskford (talk) 15:34, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

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Making some minor and some larger changes in the article

Dear colleagues, with support of the Bohuslav Martinů Institute in Prague, I would like to make some minor and some larger changes in the article. Above all, I would like to deal with the lack of references and specialized literature; the article is based on too few sources, the main one being a monograph written by a non-musicologist F. J. Rybka. As a result, the article contains many speculations and unverifiable information, and focuses mainly on Martinů's personality instead of what should be the most important - his work and music. Kateřina Nová (talk) 10:39, 2 August 2019 (UTC)