Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music/Archive 20

Archive 15 Archive 18 Archive 19 Archive 20 Archive 21 Archive 22 Archive 25

Thirteenth

Could some users able to cite sources pitch in on Thirteenth and Talk:Thirteenth. A users insists that straight-up thirteenth chords "don't exist". Hyacinth (talk) 05:19, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Note on recordings

In the European Union, copyright on sound recordings lasts 50 years from time of first publication. There is a proposal to up this to 70, which has not passed yet - but which doesn't matter, given we have to respect the Uruguay Roundtable Agreements, which gave the more restrictive American copyright to things still in copyright in 1996.

In short: Provided the underlying composition is PD, everything recorded in the EU before 1946 (1996-50) is Public Domain.

Let's get musical! Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 03:00, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

...except the servers are in the US so we have t respect US copyright, unfortunately in this case. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 03:21, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Pageview stats

After a recent request, I added WikiProject Classical music to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music/Popular pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 20:31, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! First step could be to see if there are any falsely-tagged articles on the list. Mika (singer), University of Texas at Austin, Donny Hathaway, Tears in Heaven and others. These are all already governed by other wikiprojects and may not fall under our scope.DavidRF (talk) 23:03, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Changes to popular pages lists

There are a few important changes to the popular pages system. A quick summary:

  • The "importance" ranking (for projects that use it) will be included in the lists along with assessment.
  • The default list size has been lowered to 500 entries (from 1000)
  • I've set up a project on the Toolserver for the popular pages - tools:~alexz/pop/.
    • This includes a page to view the results for projects, including the in-progress results from the current month. Currently this can only show the results from a single project in one month. Features to see multiple projects or multiple months may be added later.
    • This includes a new interface for making requests to add a new project to the list.
    • There is also a form to request a change to the configuration for a project. Currently the configurable options are the size of the on-wiki list and the project subpage used for the list.
  • The on-wiki list should be generated and posted in a more timely and consistent manner than before.
  • The data is now retained indefinitely.
  • The script used to generate the pages has changed. The output should be the same. Please report any apparent inconsistencies (see below).
  • Bugs and feature requests should be reported using the Toolserver's bug tracker for "alexz's tools" - [1]

-- Mr.Z-man 23:54, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Music of the Trecento

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have found a large number of concerns with the referencing which you can see at Talk:Music of the Trecento/GA1. I have de-listed the article. You may challenge this decision at WP:GAR or make improvements and submit for review at WP:GAN. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 20:43, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

As soon as you include, as part of "GAR", an actual assessment of content by someone who knows something about the topic, and cease to insist on footnotes for completely uncontroversial statements, I will consider working with the "GAR" process, which right now I find odious, bureaucratic, and a pointless exercise in ritual humiliation. It's much more satisfying to write articles to one's personal standards of "good" than to Wikipedia's arbitrary ones, and to let Google and thousands of readers find them. So no thank you.
If anyone thinks I am wrong, I am open to persuasion, and I won't object to your help, but I really do not see the point in working with a process I personally feel completely misses the point. Antandrus (talk) 20:57, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Not at all Antandrus. If anything you are being restrained. I know of no serious editor[citation needed] who gives a flying hoot about GA for precisely this reason.[citation needed] Why bother wasting time on the this crowd[citation needed] of "The earth orbits the sun"[citation needed] dilettantes? Eusebeus (talk) 21:53, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, Antandrus might have a point if the GA process was actually about content. It's only minimally about content (magnified by the legitimate complaint about over-requirement for citations), and much more about form. It's set up so you don't have to be terribly knowledgeable about the subject to do a review; it does help to be able to do at least some "research" to check that the content isn't obviously baloney. If this project had a peer-based A-class review, that might actually provide the sort of stamp of approval Antandrus seems to be talking about. (I use the GA process as a glorified copyediting processing to make sure my writing is up to snuff; I don't expect, or usually get, serious challenges on the content. Beyond that, I don't value it all that much.) Magic♪piano 23:23, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Don't we have an A-class review somewhere? Or is that just in Wikiproject composers? I seem to remember the biography project, or someone else, ripping out the "A" wherever the found it and putting in "B" with some sort of stamp of disapproval. But a content-based peer review would help a lot. Right now it makes me crazy that Wikipedia tells the world it's "Good Articles" are good not because anyone investigated them for content, but for widgets, semicolons, and footnote density. Antandrus (talk) 23:48, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
As far as I know, neither CM nor Composers has a formal ACR process. Other projects do -- I believe it was Biography, which for whatever reason put a moratorium on awarding A class to its articles, and someone objected when you changed their banner to A. There's probably an argument that WP should recognize A-class articles from projects that have appropriate process for reviewing them (something like FA, with formal archived reviews, and standards that include statements on completeness and accuracy, or at least verifiability, of content). This might be an improvement over GA and FA, which don't really recognize content because they (IMO) fundamentally cannot. This is something I suppose people interested in WikiPolitics could take up. Magic♪piano 00:36, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Minneapolis Pops Orchestra

I've just created the article titled Minneapolis Pops Orchestra. For now it's very stubby: two sentences and an external links section. To do:

  • Expand it.
  • Decide which additional category tags it should bear.
  • Decide which articles should link to it.

Happy editing. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:42, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

John Willison (musician) and Carmel Kaine

The articles on these two Australian musicians who are husband and wife have no references and are orphaned. There has been some discussion about this at WT:Articles for deletion#John Willison (musician), so I thought that I would give this project the heads up as there seems to be little or no suitable referencing material to be found via Google. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:31, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Notability of Im Frühling

Could someone check the notability of the subject for me? I'm not very familiar with the requirements for notability for a classical music article. Vltava 68 00:36, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Probably. It's been recorded a LOT (I'd wager 75 times at least), a major song by one of the most prominent art song composers. The article itself needs some work though, indeed. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 03:21, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. Unfortunately, I'm terrible at creating new articles. Vltava 68 08:52, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Published editions

I think it would be useful to add published versions (in print and out of print) of every composition listed. Finding editions seems to be a problem people encounter on a daily basis and I haven't yet found a well organised database of all the different publishers. One way to approach this might be to add publisher information (dates, editors, plate numbers) after each piece in every composer's list of compositions. It could be useful also to be able to cross-reference this with publishers' own pages, perhaps with pages listing works published by each publisher. I'm quite new to Wikipedia (though I use it a lot), so I thought it best to run this past people before diving straight in. Any thoughts? Thaliathalia (talk) 21:29, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I think this could in some cases be genuinely useful to our readers. Here are some aspects I thought about in connection with this.
  • The earliest editions (from the composer's own lifetime), though seldom available commercially, are important from scholarly point of view because they are used in establishing the correct text.
  • The age of the edition is important in another respect. The 19th century often published inaccurate or unfaithful editions. These bad editions often get republished with 20th or 21st century dates on them, so it's good to tell readers when an edition is very old; the date of editing is more important than the date of publication.
  • I think it's also useful to indicate when an edition is labeled as urtext.
I hope this is helpful. Opus33 (talk) 22:09, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, Wikipedia is not a guide, and this sounds a bit too much like that, especially since for pre-20th century composers, the publisher would be a third unrelated party and could be seen as advertising them for no reason. Plus for me, that would clutter up the works pages WAY too much with what is mostly irrelevant info. You can try the IMSLP (imslp.org) for some of it though. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 22:11, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
It doesn't sound like a guidebook at all to me. For older pieces knowing a full history of it's major publications is definitely encyclopaedic - similar lists are already on some book articles (e.g. David Copperfield (novel)#Release_details). In terms of presentation I agree that simply adding them as sub-items on the "list of compositions" may make the pages a bit too long. If those lists were converted to tables though, it would make much more sense (Title/Tonality/Opus No./Date/Editions). ed g2stalk 10:50, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
The "many many others" in the David Copperfield article doesn't look too encyclopedic. Dickens' works are in the public domain so any publisher so inclined can print an edition, no? A google shopping search reveals several screens of different dust jackets for this. Much of classical music will have the same issue, no? Not that I'm against the concept, but there should probably be some standard for which editions are notable. DavidRF (talk) 14:28, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

FYI, the style manual already says "Ideally, include the original publisher and publication date, and a currently available Urtext score. If you refer to a version of the score that is not Urtext, specify the editor(s)." (from here). I happen to know this because I wrote it a year or so back.

In the case of well-known pieces, like the Mozart quartets, to list published versions would be onerous and superfluous. But if a piece is hard to get - for example, the Raff octet (published, I think, by Merton) or the Bazzini quartets (by Silvertrust), it could be really helpful. --Ravpapa (talk) 15:35, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Are there enough articles on this subject to justify an Outline of classical music?

Here's a discussion about subject development you might find interesting.

The Transhumanist 23:59, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of John Willison (musician)

 

An editor has nominated John Willison (musician), an article which you have created or worked on, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Willison (musician) and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to address the nominator's concerns but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:41, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I say concertos, they say concerti

Some rather bold edits are being performed, changing comprehensively concertos to concerti; see these contributions and this edit. The latter in particular leaves the first sentence of Concerto rather nonsensical. More edits at Cello concerto, Violin concerto, and Piano concerto. Any thoughts? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:16, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Both are OK. Dover use "Complete concertos for two or more harpsichords" (JSB) and "Great organ concerti Opp.4 and 7" (GFH). However, the plural of Concerto Grosso has to be Concerti Grossi. Similarly for Concerto di Camera. In musical journals, at least for what I'm editing, people write concertos. Mozart Piano Concerti also sounds very odd. I think if it's already half in English we'd normally use concertos. Anyway that's what I'm doing. So organ concertos not concerti per organo. GFH himself wrote in 1738:
These were amongst the first concertos to be composed and published in England I think. Handel had English nationality by that stage. Mathsci (talk) 12:16, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
  • We should have a single standard for the plural form and stick with it. Concertos has stood well so far, so I suggest we stay with it and revert the edits. Eusebeus (talk) 12:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC) Update: I have reverted the moves. Eusebeus (talk) 14:05, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I agree with "concertos". "Concerti" sounds to me as pedantic as "octopodes". ALTON .ıl 15:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
For me, it's not that pedantic, but pedantic nevertheless. I support "concertos". Opus33 (talk) 15:11, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
It's concertos, scherzos, librettos etc. They are now English words so let's use English plurals. Centyreplycontribs – 17:04, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:Chopin works

This has recently appeared as a template and whilst I appreciate the work that has gone into this, it's rather cumbersome at the moment, hard to read and is somewhat duplicating the Chopin templates already in existence Category:Solo piano works by composer templates.

What does everyone this the best way to proceed is? I can work some Navbox magic but I'm inclined to complete the current set of Chopin templates and just have a single nested group a la Template:Navbox with collapsible groups. This avoids having one huge navbox template that is a pain to maintain and breaks the lists down into more manageable groups. Thoughts? Centyreplycontribs – 17:06, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm being bold and removing the use of this template for now. My sandbox shows what I mean about Chopin's body of work is probably to big to have in one navbox. It doesn't help that the list there is still not complete and he has a lot more solo piano works without opus numbers.
As you said, most sets of compositions already have a tiny navbox at the bottom with a link to the full list. If the reader is going through all the works, it's only one extra click to the "List of Compositions" page, which has all of them anyways. ALTON .ıl 20:55, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Moscow Conservatory

I'm starting work on the Moscow Conservatory article (because I just got to visit it yeahhhh). It's a major institution and it's a shame that the page looks like it does right now. None of the other languages have anything more substantial than a list of alumni or professors, such as ours, except the Russian which has a small, un-cited history. I'll be translating that to have something to work with, but it's completely lacking references, so I doubt the veracity. I'm requesting help from anyone in finding sources for a good, solid bit about the history of the Conservatory. Google hasn't turned up anything super useful. Thanks. ALTON .ıl 20:59, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Category:Chamber music

I understand that the Category:Chamber music is for articles which deal with Chamber music and not to categorise individual chamber musicians or composers. There are currently a few individual chamber musicians and composers listed in that category: Richard Goldner, William Corbett Jones, Elisabeth Lutyens, Ursula Mamlok, Andor Toth, Graham Waterhouse.

Should those entries be removed from this category? Do we need a category "Chamber musicians" (which probably should be located in Category:Classical musicians by genre)?

In my opinion, the entries for individual chamber musicians and composers should be removed from the Category:Chamber music and a category "Chamber musicians" is not needed.

Lastly: should the page Category talk:Chamber music (currently empty) be bannered with {{WikiProject Classical music|class=category}}? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:11, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Graham Waterhouse, composer and cellist, (DYK today,) is mostly interested in chamber music, therefore I - new to Wikipedia - used this category so that a reader of his page can see that at a glance. (He is hard to categorize anyway, see discussion page.) If that's "out of order" I can easily remove the category, please let me know.--Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:55, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
This is not uncommon. Well-intentioned editors often tag articles with hyper-generic categories. This happens all the time with Category:Classical music, Category:Classical compositions, etc. Every once in a while, I do a periodic sweep of the hyper-generic cats and see if I can re-categorize pieces more specifically. Often, these pieces may be "orphaned" or "lost" because they only contain hyper-generic cats. Just today, I found The Hope (Magle). Giving it a more specific category often will put in on the radar of more editors who could potentially improve the article. DavidRF (talk) 14:55, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Midi files / WP:EL

Can we get some eyeballs on this? Note the editing history and the talk page at Mahler's 9th: Symphony_No._9_(Mahler) & Talk:Symphony_No._9_(Mahler). A quick view of the edit history will show the slow-motion 3RR war going on. The opinion of other editors would be highly salutary on the relative merits of this kind of link. Kleinzach, I'm looking at you especially! Eusebeus (talk) 22:17, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Is the link trying to sell you something? Is the link irrelevant to the article? Incarnatus (talk) 18:36, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska

From the article: "Modlitwa dziewicy Op. 4 (A Maiden's Prayer) .... Possibly one of the biggest selling pieces of piano music of all time". Has anyone heard of this? ed g2stalk 12:18, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

It is (or was) indeed a very well known piece. A more critical assessment ("kitsch") is at the German Wikipedia. I would call it a predecessor to Richard Clayderman — just look at the score. There is a rather virtuoso performance of "A Maidens Prayer" (sic) on YouTube — it's normally played at about 2/3 of that speed. I think that claim ("Possibly one of the biggest selling pieces of piano music of all time") is probably correct. However, I'm pretty sure that this piece has nothing to do with "Maiden's Prayer", so the claim that this tune is played on garbage trucks in Taiwan and that there are lyrics to it seem to me to be false.
PS: I have now, under duress, listened to various versions, and it seems to me that Bądarzewska-Baranowska's Op. 4 is indeed the basis for "Maiden's Prayer", which of course strengthens the claim in question. It's odd how neither article mentions their connection. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:11, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
Specifically, has anyone heard of the claim before. Surely we should find some evidence to back it up. Does it feature in a commonly used hymn book perhaps? ed g2stalk 11:45, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
An interesting aside, in the liner notes of Gottschalk Piano Music Vol. 6 on Hyperion, it describes the pieces as "perhaps the most ubiquitous pieces of sentimental tosh ever written for the piano". I for one like the piece...but anyway, both the Bądarzewska-Baranowska article and the Maidens Prayer article mention the ice cream turck in Taiwan thing. I imagine most people would think it trivia and probably shouldn't be in either article, but at most it should be in just one, right? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 21:51, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
I can't talk about how well it sold, but it was at one time in virtually every pianist's repertoire. There are other salonish pieces that once upon a time everyone played but are now forgotten - like Ignace Leybach's Fifth Nocturne. Out of curiosity, I obtained the score some while back, and it is indeed quite forgettable. Maybe not as much as the first four Nocturnes, of which nobody ever seems to have heard at all. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:46, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

External links of scores

Recently, the editor Oracle2universe has been adding external links to scores from a website called easybyte.org to the pages such as Badinerie, Pavane (Faure), Pachelbel's Canon. Myself and another editor (User:Graham87) have been removing these links. My reasons for removing them are that there are other scores available from IMSLP, that these scores are reductions for "simple piano" and that the scores were created and signed by owner of the website which makes them feel a little "spammy" to me. Oracle2universe disagrees with my opinion and has been persistently reverting my reverts and debating my reasons. Rather that let this become personal between two editors, I thought I'd post here and see if I could get some sort of collective decision so this reverting does not continue for weeks. What does everyone think? I'll let the other editor know of this discussion so that he can weigh in. Cheers, DavidRF (talk) 01:07, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Check out the thread related to his contributions on the village pump. My thoughts are there (in summary, yes they should be removed as we don't need every little link possible). ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 02:07, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ is right. As charming as Oracle2's arrangements may be, they have no place here. --Ravpapa (talk) 07:29, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Just ran across another site that's been added to multiple articles -- Load.CD. It's not ad-supported, the public-domain downloads are free, and they don't attempt to assert copyright over the scans. Let it ride to encourage good behavior, or delete it to discourage linkfarming in general? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:13, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually it looks like they sell some of the sheet music, and give others for free -- though I guess by your comment you realize that. To ME, that's clearly a spam site, IMO, and even if not, again we don't need to link to every little site unless there's something special about it. This one doesn't seem to have anything. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 16:15, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

The spirit of [WP:EL]] is based on the importance of wiki articles as a first stop for people seeking out information (derived from its top ranking on Google Search Returns) and the role these articles play in providing further links to relevant information. The standard of encyclopaedic scrutiny should be as high in assessing ELs as any other part of the article. Thus, I suspect we all agree on the need to be diligent in applying those principles to ensure that linked sites (e.g. IMSLP) do not contain a principle commercial interest being indirectly served by the traffic stats of Wikipedia itself. The next concern should be regarding the value of the scores being linked. If they are of high quality, are free from copyright issues, etc... then providing a link might be acceptable, even in the event of a subsidiary commercial presence. All this said, in light of the discussion here it might prove salutary to draw up a simple guideline for ELs as they affect our project (along the lines of infoboxes) since the topic comes up from time to time and it would be useful to have a central policy statement. Eusebeus (talk) 18:38, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

FINALLY ... getting to the nitty-gritty! And in the correct place!

The links don't go to my web site, only to the free music. (All the links to my website were wiped out earlier. Linking direct to the website wasn't exactly the best way to get to the music, but until recently the only way I could afford it with my ISP charging an arm and a leg for storage.) Actually there is one link still hanging around and I don't know why it hasn't been discovered yet. And there are the foreign Wiki's that link to my site even though I can't figure out what the heck they are saying or how they found it.

And ... just as a suggestion, before taking anyone's word for anything, check it out yourself. That is what lawyers and doctors do.

Anyway, even though Melodia may dislike my arrangements, a whole LOT of people do. Especially when a keyboard player has a wedding to play for and wants something to sight read or improvise from. They seem incredibly grateful.

As I explain on my website (please go there, enlighten yourselves at the FAQ), people either listen to the definitive arrangement in all its glory on an iPOD, or want something they can sight read and improvise from. All the in-between arrangements are not germane nowadays.

So go to my website easybyte.org, read the guestbook comments, and see that I'm not a crank, loon, moron, idiot, kook, or troll and there really is a market for these arrangements.

Discuss this amongst your sewing circle of editors, and come to a consensus decision here. ALL the editors. And if your decision comprises what you believe is a fair impartial hearing, I'll accept your decision as final. If nay, I'll go in peace. If yea, I don't want to tangle with over a 100+ page gate-keepers to put up my music for sight-reading performing musicians.

Soooooooooooooo ... that is the best case I can make. Come to a decision.

Thank you! Oracle2universe (talk) 22:41, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

  • Ok, so first of all, I aver that Oracle2universe is not a "crank, loon, moron, idiot, kook, or troll". Fair enough. Also, I agree that it's not at all unreasonable for someone to want to find a beginner's piano arrangement of a famous piece of music. Also fair enough. And lastly I'll ignore the rude remark about the "sewing circle". Oracle2Universe is probably upset and should be cut some slack.
All this being said, my own judgment is that I would like to remove all the links to these arrangements from WP and ask Oracle to "go in peace," as promised. Reason: our encyclopedia is meant to be a source of information about the works in question. Providing a link to a score that consists of the notes the composer actually wrote is right up our alley. But providing a link to a super-simplified version is not telling anybody anything about the work, and so cannot be justified here.
There are all sorts of links we could be including on WP if we just want to be useful to people. But our mission is narrower than that: we want to be useful by being accurate. Opus33 (talk) 23:14, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
  • I'm very pleased that Oracle2universe has produced these scores and made them available, and agree he's not a "crank, loon, moron, idiot, kook, or troll". I've bookmarked his site for future reference. I'm a crappy sight reader, and having the simplified arrangements is great for me. That being said, I don't think they should be linked from Wikipedia. It's a wonderful resource, but not all wonderful resources are appropriate links from an encyclopedia. TJRC (talk) 23:24, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
  • No, not crank, loon, moron, idiot, kook, or troll; I believe it's called self-promotion, and we have a policy at WP:EL about this kind of thing. These links are not germane. They should go. And stop picking on Melodia. That's our job. Eusebeus (talk) 01:19, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Sorry, Oracle, but I am duty-bound to agree. Try getting links from some other music sites, like [www.andante.com] or [www.classical.net]. They would probably be delighted to do a link exchange with you. But Wikipedia is not the place. --Ravpapa (talk) 05:37, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree with Opus33's point about having only links to scores of what the composers wrote, possibly extended to common piano reductions and famous transcriptions. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:56, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
I agree with this too. Going slightly off-topic, sometimes digging out arrangements need not be straightforward - eg Brahms' own arrangements for piano duet of his chamber music for strings, some of his piano quartets, piano concertos and symphonies. According to the Simrock, he arranged symphonies 1,2 and 4 himself: they've all been recorded on Naxos. 3 and 4 he also arranged for 2 pianos. The String Quartets have been reissued by Dover. This is well documented in "The Pianist's Guide to Transcriptions, Arrangements, and Paraphrases" by Maurice Hinson and could be a wikipedia article itself. IMSLP does not appear to have scanned them. Mathsci (talk) 08:36, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
Still off topic: yes indeed. I think it's basically a question of notability (WP:NOTE): if the transcription is by the composer, then of course it's relevant, and it also seems relevant if the transcriber is not the composer but is him/herself a notable composer, such as Liszt or Busoni. Opus33 (talk) 16:12, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
And in the large majority of cases, any of these that are available online can be gotten at the IMSLP, etc, which are always considered fine for linking, so it comes full circle. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 18:12, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
Agree. Maybe including more famous arrangements would be helpful. For notability though, I think it should depend more on whether the arrangement itself is often used and not just the notability of the arranger. Vltava 68 10:27, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your fair hearing and reasoned arguments. I go in peace. Thank you! Oracle2universe (talk) 13:28, 4 September 2009 (UTC)