Talk:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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Infobox birth and death details

It's pretty standard across wikipedia that infoboxes contain state of birth. See Pope Paul III or Elvis Presley as random examples. To maintain editorial consistency Mozart's infobox details should therefore read:

Birth: Getreidegasse 9, Salzburg, Prince-Archbishopric of Salzburg, Holy Roman Empire

Death: Vienna, Archduchy of Austria, Holy Roman Empire

Ecrm87 (talk) 18:55, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What specific benefit do you believe that would provide to this article? Nikkimaria (talk) 01:21, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly consistency with other biographical pages. Secondly clear presentation of facts; Mozart was born as a subject of the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg in the Holy Roman Empire, this is no different to someone being born in a modern state and these details being listed. Thirdly being a subject of those states would have had an impact on Mozart's life, therefore listing in the infobox is appropriate and in keeping with other historical figures. The linking of those historical polities is a separate issue which I'm going to raise on the MOS talk page, but otherwise due to the quasi-sovereign status of states of the Holy Roman Empire I'm confident in those listing details. Ecrm87 (talk) 03:39, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The "quasi-sovereign status of states" would seem to be a reason for exclusion, in that it's not something that needs to be expanded upon there - that, much like its impact on the subject, should be deferred to the article body. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:47, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I completely disagree, by that same argument you might as well remove Massachusetts from John F Kennedy's birthplace details because it didn't have sovereignty. The fact that the states of the Holy Roman Empire were more sovereign then any other sub-national entity before or since makes it an important detail. The detail should be listed in the infobox as it of great relevance and factually accurate. Ecrm87 (talk) 04:28, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 8 April 2024

THIS PAGE DOES NOT INCLUDE MOZARTS CHILDREN. 2601:547:F80:200:F51D:B2D1:E7DC:DEC5 (talk) 00:31, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a
"change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. '''[[User:CanonNi]]''' (talk|contribs) 00:36, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply
]
The page does include Mozart's children. See the section "Marriage and children". Antandrus (talk) 01:07, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Intro

"Born in Salzburg, then in the Holy Roman Empire and currently in Austria". Currently has never been used, to the best of my knowledge, to mean anything but the present. The entire sentence is unclear as a result. It implies he was born in multiple places. I'd put the rest of the sentence: "Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood" after the comma following Salzburg, though it still leaves the sentence awkward. 75.190.170.74 (talk) 06:09, 10 April 2024 (UTC) DEL[reply]

The subject of the explanatory phrase (, then in …) is clearly and unambiguously the closest term, Salzburg. OTOH, 'currently', which raises expectations of change, might be changed to 'now'. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:37, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My edits in the opening section

I've edited the opening section of this article, and I hope that I have not overstepped my bounds, by doing so. The nature of my edits will be apparent to anyone who compares them with the previous state of the text. I've made no substantive changes to the facts or their presentation. To provide guidance, I shall explicate the reasoning that I employed, when I made some of my edits. This is not a comprehensive explanation of every edit, but instead a few examples which will, I hope, illustrate my approach.

  • "more than 800 works representing virtually every Western classical genre of his time." This states that there are 800 works of every genre. It also leaves the artistic medium ambiguous (genre of what?). The clumsy phrase "of his time" is unnecessary, when we have an adjective which says the same thing in a more compact and pleasing manner. Thus, my edit, which fixes these problems and results in a more well-written statement: "more than 800 works which represent virtually every contemporary genre of Western classical music."
  • "Born in Salzburg, then in the Holy Roman Empire and currently in Austria, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his early childhood." This states that Mozart was born in Salzburg; following his first birth, Mozart was born in the Holy Roman Empire; and Mozart is currently being born in Austria. This is patently ridiculous, and must be changed. (The sentence may also be parsed in a way which results in a different meaning: Mozart was born in Salzburg; following his birth, Mozart showed prodigious ability in the Holy Roman Empire, and he is currently showing prodigious ability in Austria. Alas, only two of those three statements are true.) My edit: "Born in Salzburg, which was then within the Holy Roman Empire (and is currently in Austria), Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood."
  • "At 17, he was a musician at the Salzburg court but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position." At 17 what? At 1700 hours, that is to say, at 5pm? At the height of seventeen feet tall? At the count of 17, starting on my mark—Now? The figure of 17 must be provided with some context. English idiom identifies a "musician at...court" as a "court musician"—it is silly and cumbersome to use the phrase "musician at...court". The sentence states that Mozart travelled while at the court in Salzburg, and that is not true, because one cannot travel while also remaining in the same place; so, we must explain that Mozart left Salzburg in order to travel. The sentence ends with the word "position" and the following sentence ends with the same word; one must therefore be changed. The one to change is the one in this sentence, because Mozart was not necessarily seeking another "position" such as the one he'd had at Salzburg. Instead, Mozart travelled to find any situation whatsoever which would improve his welfare; why would Mozart leave one position for the strict purpose of finding another position? If I may be allowed to speculate, then I would say that if Mozart was on his way to Vienna, and he found a treasure that contained a lifetime's worth of gold and jewels, then any "position" whatsoever would be far away from his future plans. Thus, the word "situation" is better here. My edit: "At 17 years old, he was working as a court musician at Salzburg, but he grew restless and left to travel in search of a better situation." My inclusion of the word "working" emphasizes the lamentable state in which the musician found himself, and foreshadows the difficulties that he will face in Vienna.
  • "While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position." We begin a new paragraph with a pronoun as our subject; this is weak writing; we must identify the person. And this sentence seems to warp time and space—is this the story of Vienna, or the story of Mozart? Which has primacy in our narrative? Which ought to come first, to preserve the narrative flow, and to maintain chronological cohesion? The answer is that, in this sequence of events, Mozart came before Vienna. So, he shall come first in an effective rendition of this event. My edit: "While Mozart was visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his position in Salzburg." The original sentence leads with a dependent clause, which is feeble. My edit fixes that mistake by making the introductory clause robust.
  • Also, please be aware that historical human beings are not the subject of myth. Instead, they are the subject of legend. No one has seriously proposed that Mozart has become a god.

I shall refrain from any further explanations, although I can share the reasoning that moved me to make every one of my edits, if it becomes necessary. Just read my work, compared with the original version. My writing speaks for itself. —catsmoke talk 05:20, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree that some of your changes were improvements, and retained those. However, I think some of your explanations above are not reasonable interpretations - nobody is going to read "at 17, he was a musician" as referring to his height or a specific hour! In fact in some instances your proposed fix creates more ambiguity than the original, as in the case of "contemporary" - the varying definitions make it potentially unclear whether the genres in question are those of our time or Mozart's, whereas the original specified the latter. Similarly, if you consider "genre" to be ambiguous, it does not make sense to change "music" to "body of art" which is more so. Your edits also introduced some problems. For example, you added an apostrophe in the middle of a citation template - this may be grammatically acceptable, but it broke the template's functionality. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:02, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The lead seems satisfactory as is; I can hardly sympathize with these comments when the rest of the article, quite literally the entire thing, is painfully incomplete and lacking. Aza24 (talk) 20:33, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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