Talk:Anatoliy Brandukov

Brandukov's Age?

Hello, I noticed that Brandukov's age at the date of his death is incorrect. If he was born in 1859 and died in 1930, he died at the age of 71, not 81. This caused me to look for sites to confirm the date of his birth and death. It looks like his birthdate is in dispute. Some sites have him born in 1856......see http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/c/Brandukov while other sites have him born in 1859 (http://www.tchaikovsky-research.org/en/people/brandukov_anatolii.html). I will continue looking but is there any authoritative documents out there that have his correct birthdate?

My first ever post to Wikipedia so please go easy on me if I've violated any protocols :)

Dbedwards 15:30, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

That's great that you caught that. The Russian sites (ref 2-4) all say he was born 1859/1858, but Grove says 1856. I would trust the Russians more than Grove in this instance, but I will note the discrepancy until we can sort it out. ALTON .ıl 20:06, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

The Campbell book confirms the 1859 date on page 93. ALTON .ıl 23:00, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Russian

References 2, 4 and 5 are in Russian, as you know. How can you expect them to be taken as references when one would have to speak Russian to know what they say? --andreasegde 15:48, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I encourage you to look at other heavily ethnic, but featured articles, such as Zhou Tong (archer) or Marian Rejewski, which also use foreign language references. Of course it is better to use English sources, but there are very few resources on this person in English, and I've used probably most of them. Also, there are other people willing to help you; you can ask Miyokan to verify anything. As a last resort, use machine translations like Google's to get a gist of what it is saying. Although they aren't entirely accurate, they won't produce any lies. ALTON .ıl 21:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I thank you. If I thought I was good enough, I would review this, BTW. It's a good article. --andreasegde 17:53, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your remarks, I hope your future endeavors end successfully. ALTON .ıl 18:50, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I've been waiting for over a month for Jim and Mary McCartney to be reviewed :) I thank you for your kind words. --andreasegde 19:05, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

GA Review

After reviewing the article, there are a number of problems which I have outlined below. Overall there are three major issues with the article. First, the writting is poor at some points. As you can see from my points below, there is a problem with about every other sentence of the article, for one reason or another. I've tried to describe all the problems below, but I would highly recommend a thorough copyedit. Second, there are many instance of opinion written as fact. This has to do with they way Brandukov is generally described, as well the way opinions are not properly cited from their source. Third, the article is lacking breadth. The article only consists of two sections, a biography and an odd relationships section. I must say, I've never seen a section dedicated to someone's relationships with other people, though that isn't necessarily a bad thing. What concerns me is that there is very little coverage of anything besides his life story, such as style, legacy, etc. The points below are in no particular order.

• Weasel words: renowned cellist, respected professor, renowned pianists, lauded performance, very fruitful career,

• This is true. Removed.

• How is the 19th C. the "height of Russian music"? This sounds an awful lot like an opinion. Whether or not it is a widely held opinion or not, it is still an opinion. Someone else might say that 18th C. Russian music was far superier, and that is the height of Russian music.

• Is a general "in the 19th century" an improvement? The "height of Russian music" was the period in which The Five flourished, and although it may seem subjective, so are the arbitrary periods we divide classical music into, such as Romantic music (which, ironically, is under a debate about the definition of it anyways). I'm not completely convinced to remove this, because it provides a little context.

• "Premiered"? Does this mean he was the first to perform them? I don't know if this is a typical word in composing, but it seems like an odd word choice.

• Yes, it functions as a transitive verb.

• As per WP:Lead the lead section should summarize the article's main points. Therefore having a quote in the Lead is general a bad idea, since not only is the quote not anywhere else in the article (new information), but it doesn't summarize anything.

• I realize this, and it seems about of place on second read.

• The same thing applies to the last sentence of the lead: it doesn't summarize anything. Not to mention the fact that it reads more like an opinion.

• I try to close off the paragraph with an ending statement, as in essays, since it seems weird to me to leave it hanging. The book very clearly states that Brandukov influenced later cellists' music, and again, "influenced" may be a marginal term to use in this work, but you cannot write these articles without using these words. You cannot deny that Ludwig van Beethoven was not "influential," as it says in the article, and although Brandukov is much more a minor figure than LvB, he nevertheless influenced, and that is important to mention. I do agree that it should be reworded, and "regarded" should go.

• The sentence "His first exposure to classical music..." seems odd to me. In the 19th C. was there such thing as "classical music"? Isn't that more of a modern phrase? Wasn't music just music? (In the same way that "classic rock" was just music in the 50s/60s/70s.)

• While attempting to write in a timeless fashion I feel that qualifier was necessary. It would be inappropriate to insert "modern" music in there, for example, even though it surely was contemporary for him. And the other facet, that it makes it seems as if he was exposed to something else beforehand (other music? as you say) makes sense, but at the same time, if you remove "classical" it appears as if he had never heard any music at all before.

• "But the most decisive influence on him was an 1867 performance of Beethoven's fifth symphony" Accoding to who? Did Brandukov himself say this? If so please provide a source.

• Provided in 5: Но решающее влияние оказало на него выступление симфонического оркестра Гектора Берлиоза, приехавшего в Москву в конце 1867 года. Пятая симфония Бетховена буквально потрясла мальчика: But the most decisive influence (lit.) was the Hector... orchestra, which came to Moscow in late 1867. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony literally shook the boy.

• The second paragraph of Life and Work starts with "While there..." While where? Shouldn't start a paragraph with a pronoun.

• Would it be better to join the preceding paragraph? Moscow Conservatory was just mentioned and I want to avoid saying it a billion times...

• The sentence "However, initial success does not ensure popularity, and it was hard for his name to sell seats." is problematic, as reads more like a proverb than an encyclopedia. This is also another case of opinion being peddled as fact.

• It is a comment made by the source, but I'll remove it. Again, I'm much more used to essay-style writing.

• "Although he had marginal success alone, he decided to go to the musical mecca of the time—Paris, and from 1881 to 1889 he lived in France, continuing to give successful concerts in London.[2]" is a run-on sentence and is awkwardly worded.

• Agreed.

• "would have none of this "young" (now in his early thirties) upstart in their faculty." is an awkward phrase.

• Agreed.

• "of which the autograph manuscripts are preserved in the Tchaikovsky House-Museum in Klin, Russia.[10]" Who cares where they are preserved? Does this really belong here?

• No, I suppose not.

• "In Moscow he married the wealthy Nadezhda Mazurina and had a son, Sasha, but life would become difficult, as World War I would begin in 1914, during which he often spoke at charity events for wounded soldiers" Another problematic sentence (run-on, opinion as fact).

• Run-on, yes, but here (I suppose) the opinion is "life would become difficult", but it does. There is no other way to say that life becomes difficult for them because WWI started.

• In general, it is frowned upon to cite sources that require a subscription, since it is nearly impossible to verify. Citation #8, for example.

• I'll extract the necessary quotes, but Grove is usually accessible on any university network, which is how I acquired the information. It is also available as a paper edition, so I suppose I'll look it up in the hard copy.

• The blockquote by A. V. Brouna seems uneccessary. I think something as simple as "One of Brandukov's students, known only as A. V. Brouna, commented that "Brandukov was not a teacher in the conventional sense. This was a close friend, generously spreading his spiritual wealth." Or something like that. Not only would I recommend incorporating the quote into the prose, but I don't see the point of the entire thing. A single phrase from the quote would suffice.

• Ok.

• This passage is also problematic: "His emotional connection to music never faltered, as recorded in this incident reported by Heinrich Neuhaus, one of his partners at the Theater. In 1919, on the way to a concert held by Fyodor Ivanovich, Brandukov slipped and fell on his instrument. When the cover was removed, Neuhaus recalls, Brandukov "embraced his cello, as a living creature, tears and tears from his eyes." " The first phrase, "His emotional connection to music never faltered," is opinion, and the way everything is worded is confusing. Especially "this incident".

• It could be clearer, agreed.

• Another run-on sentence "Rachmaninoff dedicated his Cello Sonata, one of the pieces he composed during his recovery after the depression onset by his first symphony, to Brandukov,[13] who also premiered this piece with the composer in Moscow on December 15, 1901."

• I apologize for this recurring irritant :)

• More opinion as fact: "Tchaikovsky was instrumental in securing Brandukov's success, and, to some extent, vice versa."

• The first part is not, second part, questionably but still probably mentioned in the source.

• "but some discerning present-day cellists prefer the original version." Who cares what version modern cellists prefer?

• Modern cellists reject his revision: "Critical reception."

Because of the many problems outlined above, I've failed the article's GA nomination, rather than putting it on hold. You are more than welcome to renominate the article if you feel the issues above have been addressed, and, if you want, I'd be happy to re-review the article at any time. If you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate to drop me a line on my Talk page. Drewcifer 00:11, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm almost more glad you left a thorough review than a hasty pass. Almost :) ALTON .ıl 03:45, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Happy to help, sorry if my thoroughness bordered on tediousnwaa. =) Let me know if you have any questions! Drewcifer 05:50, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Peer review response

I'm not sure why your peer review was closed before receiving any replies, but no matter, I'm happy to give you some feedback here. As your say, the biggest area for improvement is broadness of coverage; unfortunately, as I've not had much experience with biographical articles, I haven't been able to think of any obvious information that's missing. I did a brief skim through a number of similar FA articles (listed below) and, in general, they seem to be significantly more "wordy" (for lack of a better term). This isn't always a bad thing, I guess; being too brief can cause articles to lose clarity and increase the density of information to the point where the reader feels overwhelmed.

One example of this is the following sentence from the current article, "From 1881 to 1889 he lived in France, giving concerts in London". This could imply that Brandukov didn't perform in France during this period or (to very unaware readers) even that London is in France. I realise this might sound like a ridiculous nitpick, and perhaps it's not the best example, but by simply expanding the passage, you can gain both extra length and increased clarity.

Here are the FA articles I glanced through for comparison:

• Rebecca_Helferich_Clarke
• Olivier_Messiaen
• Witold_Lutosławski
• Dmitri_Shostakovich
• Joseph_Szigeti
• Tōru_Takemitsu

Skimming through these articles may also give you other ideas of what areas this article might be expanded into. Now, it's possible that the information you'd need to do such expansion just isn't available; if that's the case, it may be that Brandukov isn't notable enough to have an extensive Wikipedia article. Obviously he is notable in a dictionary sense, but wikipedia only presumes a topic notable if it has a significant number of reliable sources (all of which I suspect you already know).--jwanders^Talk 06:34, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

That is an excellent review, and I intend to incorporate it as fully possible. I believe that the situation here is that he just isn't notable enough. Thanks for your time. ALTON .ıl 21:32, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

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