Forum standards for naming pieces?

[Gurn Blanston]

Meanwhile, over at CMG, someone just created a thread, Let's Nickname Pieces That Have No Nicknames!!!

Coincidence? 

I'm shocked, just shocked!!





CMG is still online?   

[springrite]

CMG is still online?   

Yes, online, which means technically and legally not deceased. 

[Karl Henning]

Well, the pace is slower, sure . . . .

[Jo498]

op.131 has become so iconic that they named a festival in Frankfurt after the piece!

https://www.alteoper.de/de/programm/themenschwerpunkt.php?id=513653217

[RebLem]

All are perfectly acceptable. We have some very knowledgeable members but most are not that snobbish. 

It seems to me that you should want to be more precise.  The more knowledgeable members might not object, but those who are not so knowledgeable need more detailed information to understand what you are talking about.  I would list it as Beethoven: Piano Sonata 15 in D Major, Op. 28 "Pastorale"--Andante, Mvt 2 of 4.  OK, you might be able to drop the key designation, but I wouldn't leave out anything else.  Presumably, people would know that Beethoven wrote 32 sonatas which were published in his lifetime, and that this one is  just before the mid-point of the numbers.  And yet, its only Op. 28--this would tell the beginner that most of the sonatas were written before mid-career, an important piece of information for a beginner.  You might even want to put in the timing for the movement.

[RebLem]

Fifteen seems to be the cut-off. We know Shostakovich's fifteen symphonies by number, but Beethoven's sixteen quartets only by opus. (Doesn't help that they weren't composed in publication order—#1 chronologically is #3 as published, etc.) Similarly we only know Haydn's symphonies by Hoboken number (and good thing too given how many times he tried to sell his works to different publishers ). Mozart's 27 piano concertos go by K number more often than anything else, but the symphonies are a borderline case (basically there are eight of them, numbered 25, 29, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40 and 41. >.>) I have no idea what they do on the Havergal Brian thread, though.

Mozart's own favorite, though, was #31.  If you read the exhaustively detailed booklet included with the Hogwood set of the symphonies, you will find that there were two different versions of #31, both composed during his disastrous stay in Paris, beginning 28 March 1778, during which his mother died.  It was the first symphony in which Mozart employed clarinets, and the first or one of the first in which there was no continuo.  He also composed 2 different versions; most of the changes are in the andante, and Hogwood performs both versions; they are listed as K. 297/300 for this reason.  They are both 3 movement symphonies.  The booklet devotes quite a bit of space to discussing this symphony--it extends to more than 3 full pages, from p. 33-35 in very small type.  I consider this set absolutely essential.  First of all, it is exhaustive, and extends to 19 discs including the Symphony # 37, the last two movements of which were composed by Michael Haydn.  It also includes a complete Haffner Serenade as well as the Haffner Symphony.  Lots of different alternate movements for several other of the symphonies.  In addition to the great and meticulous scholarship, these also happen to be very fine performances, including my absolute favorite recording of #40, which is my personal favorite of the symphonies.

[coffee]

Mozart's own favorite, though, was #31.  If you read the exhaustively detailed booklet included with the Hogwood set of the symphonies, you will find that there were two different versions of #31, both composed during his disastrous stay in Paris, beginning 28 March 1778, during which his mother died.  It was the first symphony in which Mozart employed clarinets, and the first or one of the first in which there was no continuo.  He also composed 2 different versions; most of the changes are in the andante, and Hogwood performs both versions; they are listed as K. 297/300 for this reason.  They are both 3 movement symphonies.  The booklet devotes quite a bit of space to discussing this symphony--it extends to more than 3 full pages, from p. 33-35 in very small type.  I consider this set absolutely essential.  First of all, it is exhaustive, and extends to 19 discs including the Symphony # 37, the last two movements of which were composed by Michael Haydn.  It also includes a complete Haffner Serenade as well as the Haffner Symphony.  Lots of different alternate movements for several other of the symphonies.  In addition to the great and meticulous scholarship, these also happen to be very fine performances, including my absolute favorite recording of #40, which is my personal favorite of the symphonies.

Thank you very much for typing all of this. This kind of thing is very helpful to me as a newbie (or an almost newbie).

[jochanaan]

Mozart's own favorite, though, was #31.  If you read the exhaustively detailed booklet included with the Hogwood set of the symphonies, you will find that there were two different versions of #31, both composed during his disastrous stay in Paris, beginning 28 March 1778, during which his mother died.  It was the first symphony in which Mozart employed clarinets, and the first or one of the first in which there was no continuo.  He also composed 2 different versions; most of the changes are in the andante, and Hogwood performs both versions; they are listed as K. 297/300 for this reason.  They are both 3 movement symphonies.  The booklet devotes quite a bit of space to discussing this symphony--it extends to more than 3 full pages, from p. 33-35 in very small type.  I consider this set absolutely essential.  First of all, it is exhaustive, and extends to 19 discs including the Symphony # 37, the last two movements of which were composed by Michael Haydn.  It also includes a complete Haffner Serenade as well as the Haffner Symphony.  Lots of different alternate movements for several other of the symphonies.  In addition to the great and meticulous scholarship, these also happen to be very fine performances, including my absolute favorite recording of #40, which is my personal favorite of the symphonies.

K.297?  Isn't that also known as the Sinfonia Concertante for four winds and orchestra?

[listener]

K.297?  Isn't that also known as the Sinfonia Concertante for four winds and orchestra?

The Concertante is K.297b.

[jochanaan]

The Concertante is K.297b.

Right.  I knew that.

[Jo498]

#31 is the "Paris" symphony and while it probably was Mozarts fav when he had just written it I doubt that he preferred it to his 38-41...

[jochanaan]

At such rarefied compositional heights, preferring one over another of Mozart's later symphonies is a little like preferring a Guarneri over a Stradivarius, or a Boesendorfer over a Steinway.

[Monsieur Croche]

I think that in some cases, such as the Beethoven Piano Sonatas and Quartets, a lot of people only know them by opus number. I have no idea what number (as in String Quartet #x) Opus 127 String Quartet is, nor Piano Sonata Opus 101. I would not use opus number for Beethoven symphonies, though. Some of these practices are just de facto ways that many if not most people have been using. That is all. If I don't use it this way, my only option is to shut up, because I am not going to search to find out that it is Quartet #x or Sonata #x.

These searches are sooo easy though. You're already online when a lot of this crops up. You can drag cursor over, do a search in another tab, and have a result, all within about two seconds.

With my background, I'm 'supposed' to know all of it by Form, No. Op. No. and key, i.e. 'the old-style formal and scholarly way.' Still, when talking to a friend who does refer to "Kxxx," I have to ask him for either the No. of the work he is referring to, sometimes the genre [symphony, concerto, etc.] and often enough, for me the key signature is the clincher of identification.

Since even musicians will vary in how they identify works, best to be flexible and be ready to copy, paste, and get the low-down in a new tab -- its very little work, really.

I shouldn't mind, but when those 'names' are used where I know the composer did not give that name 'moonlight' sonata [It was arbitrarily slapped on after his death, like ALL the titles for the Chopin Preludes and Etudes, lol] I always have at least a little 'first-world problem' tic of irritation, yet, that is how most people call that piece.

Copy, paste, new tab, and -- presto; you know which what they're talking about.