Lyricist field for settings of bible texts

[Cdalitz]

Dear all,

just posted a new setting of the passion after John

http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Joha ... _Dalitz%29

and wonder what the correct entry for "Lyricist" is. It seems that, on CPDL, for biblical texts the lyricist information is usually left empty.

IMO it would be however useful to specify the specific bible version in the form "Bible (version/translation)" or so, e.g. "Bible (King James Version)" or "Bible (Allioli translation)". Obviously, it would be a good idea to standardize this, so that we do not get "Bible (Luther)", "Bible (Martin Luther)", "Luther-Bible", "Bible (translation by Luther)" etc.

Any suggestions?

Chris

[Richard Mix]

Thanks for raising this!

A number of pages substitute Text source: for lyricist, but it would be useful to be able to categorize & search. I don't see (version) as a priority myself: what if Lyricist pages were made for the books of the bible and a parameter for chapter:verse added? One could search for John 3:16 and find quite a few settings in different languages: http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/God_ ... _the_world.

Coders: would it be easy to make the lyricist template categorize by book and chapter, ignoring verses after the colon so that John 3:16 and John 3:16-17 end up in the same category?

[carlos]

One could search for John 3:16 and find quite a few settings in different languages:

Coders: would it be easy to make the lyricist template categorize by book and chapter, ignoring verses after the colon so that John 3:16 and John 3:16-17 end up in the same category?

Richard, how exactly do you imagine it to work? Each book of the Bible would have its own category (like Category:Psalms), and inside these, a category for each chapter, is that it? How useful would that be for users? I'm not a conductor, so I have no idea if they search works starting from the biblical text.

[Cdalitz]

How useful would that be for users? I'm not a conductor, so I have no idea if they search works starting from the biblical text.

Yes, I think this is usually the way church choir directors search works: the first step is to look up the propers (biblical texts sung as part of the liturgy) of the day in the "Schott" (Catholic) or the "Book of common prayer" (Anglican) or whatever the liturgy list is of the specific denomination, and then to find settings of these texts in either a vernacular or an international (Latin) version.

My point however was not about "usefulness" but more in the sense of completeness: why set the field "lyricist" to "unknown", when it is known? Most users only think of CPDL as a tool for finding free scores, and do not care about the quality of the metadata, as long they can find scores. CPDL could however also be a great tool for data mining, and to this end the metadata should be as complete as possible.

Chris

[carlos]

the first step is to look up the propers (biblical texts sung as part of the liturgy) of the day in the "Schott" (Catholic) or the "Book of common prayer" (Anglican) or whatever the liturgy list is of the specific denomination, and then to find settings of these texts in either a vernacular or an international (Latin) version.

Thanks for the explanation, Chris! I imagined that the existing categorization under http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Cate ... _by_season would suffice, but having the works also categorized by the biblical text may be helpful too, in the cases you cited. I just don't think that the {{Lyricist}} template should be used for that. We need a new template, perhaps {{Source}} would be a good name for a generic template, and {{Bible}} or {{BibSrc}} for biblical citations.

My point however was not about "usefulness" but more in the sense of completeness: why set the field "lyricist" to "unknown", when it is known?

Agree! Biblical references have usually been added by editors in the "Text and translations" section, either by using template {{LinkText}} or not. Some also add a Source field below the composer name. A standardized format would be indeed an enhancement.

[Richard Mix]

I'm not quite convinced that we need new {{Source}}, {{Bible}} or {{BibSrc}} templates, when "Lyricist: Isaiah 6:3" is easily understood, whether or not one believes that's the author's real name.

The ultimate, and an idea long at the back of my mind, would be to break down the chapters and lump Evangelists into Category:Gospel motets by pericope which would list protestant Spruche with "in illo tempore" pieces, so that John 6:14 ( http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Da_n ... or_Franck) ) is listed under "Miracle of the loaves" with Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:31-44, Luke 9:10-17 but John 2:1-11 (Wedding at Cana, only in John) and John 2:13-22 (Cleansing of the temple, also described by Mark 11:15–19, 11:27–33, Matthew 21:12–17, 21:23–27 and Luke 19:45–48, 20:1–8) would have separate categories. I've added links to a very few Sacred music by season pages: http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Cate ... cost_XVIII but this seems the hard way to go about it.

Obviously that plan would take a lot of thought, but in the meantime using {{lyricist}} to divide the Bible into chapters would be relatively easy and quite useful as a starting point. So as I imagine it, the template {{lyricist}} would ignore anything following the colon, but place "Book N:nn" into a category for that chapter.

[Cdalitz]

Thanks for all the interesting thoughts.

I must admit however that my original point was much simpler: how shall I specify the Bible Version (i.e. the translation)? Every setting of a bible verse is based on a specific translation: Vulgata, King James, Luther, and so on (translations still under copyright like the translations used in the churches today obviously are absent on CPDL).

To answer the question "who cares?" again: there are use cases that we can now imagine (e.g.: Are there polyphonic settings of Zwingli's translation? Which translations were most used in the 19th century?) and many others no one of us might think of.

Chris

[Richard Mix]

I admit those are interesting questions! There's an outline of psalters at Psalm and sketchier info at http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Bible_versions. Perhaps the template could incorporate version as well: What if the parameters were

{{Lyricist|Bible|book|chapter|verse(s, optional hyphens & commas)|version}}

and the output:

Text source: Book chapter:v-vv,vvv-vvvv, version

with text "Bible" when others blank, and "Book ch" and "version" both linked to categories? The documentation could add instructions for future adding of code to look at verse numbers so that John 2:n1-n2, n3-n4 could be placed in Category:Wedding at Cana for n1 < 12 and in Category:Cleansing of temple for n1 or n3 >12 or n2 > 13.

[carlos]

I'm not quite convinced that we need new {{Source}}, {{Bible}} or {{BibSrc}} templates, when "Lyricist: Isaiah 6:3" is easily understood, whether or not one believes that's the author's real name.

That works fine for Isaiah, but "Lyricist: 2 Kings 6:3" or "Lyricist: Numbers 6:3" would sound funny.

Using the {{Lyricist}} template for such task is not unfeasible, but the current template code is already quite complex; these new additions would make its maintenance much worse. The categorization system will also require some tweaking: {{Lyricist|William Shakespeare}} adds the work to Category:William Shakespeare settings; how shall we categorize {{Lyricist|Isaiah 6:3}}: under Category:Isaiah 6 settings, or under Category:Isaiah 6, as we already do for Psalms? (e.g. http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Category:Psalm_150 )

Some other complications I anticipate are:
1) Multiple sources {{Lyricist|3|Mathew 3:15-17|Mark 4:1-5|Luke 2:20-22}}
2) Psalms (the different numbering system used by the Vulgate would require some mechanism to indicate when that source is used)

[Cdalitz]

There seems to be some confusion about the term "version".

What Carlos and Richard mean, these are actually chapters, and I do not think that "Lyricist" is the appropriate field for this information. Some pages use a (non standard?) filed "Text source", which might be appropriate for this. Currently the problem of different settings of the same text is solved by a redirection from the "Original text and translations" field to an inventory of settings, like here:

http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Magnificat

What I mean is the translation or edition on which the text is based. Maybe the "Text source" field is more appropriate than the "lyricist" field, which assumes the modern concept of a specific auther, a concept that is difficult to apply to older texts.

[Richard Mix]

Let me answer in the order Carlos posed the questions:

In my 3rd post I suggested the output could be Text source without separate templates. I'm quite indifferent to whether "settings" is added or not.

1. Matthew Mark & Luke use identifiably different wording and only one is usually chosen for a given work. At some point though it would be useful to see side by side settings of texts describing the same event. These sometimes can conveniently be put on a single sacred music by season page but often in the 3-year cycle are scattered about the church year. I see your point though about how messy the parameters of Matthaeuspassion would be. Should there be a {{Bible}} template that nests within multiple authors? Would relying on spaces and colons instead of pipes help? As an editor it just seems easier to have a single template name to remember, if feasible.

2. Psalms are indeed a problem in terms of chapter division: how are they handled now? I'm really don't know how consistent the other books are in various versions...

On a little more thought, Chris, maybe the version name should just take the place of |bible| as the first parameter (that triggers the substitution of Text source: for Lyricist:). For example {{Lyricist|KJV|Luke|1|46-55}} would produce:

Text source: Luke 1:46-55 (King James version)

and would categorize the page in Cat:King James Bible settings as well as Cat:Luke 1. Perhaps someday it might also add LinkText as well as a listing on [[Magnificat]] annotated with version, voicing and instruments info., and would check the description field for the word alternatim too.