Talk:Charles Grobe

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by BorgQueen (talk) 00:21, 8 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

 

Charles Grobe, circa 1845

• ... that Charles Grobe (pictured) wrote over a thousand musical pieces in his lifetime, and had reached an opus number of 1998 when he died? Source: Kuhn, Laura; McIntire, Dennis (2001). "Grobe, Charles". Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. Gale. Retrieved November 26, 2022 – via Encyclopedia.com. Grobe was a prolific composer of piano music, producing a grand total of 1,998 opus numbers. He was particularly adept at creating "variations brillantes" on themes by the great German masters and on popular songs.
  • ALT1: ... that Charles Grobe (pictured) composed over a thousand musical pieces in his lifetime? Source: Kuhn, Laura; McIntire, Dennis (2001). "Grobe, Charles". Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. Gale. Retrieved November 26, 2022 – via Encyclopedia.com. Grobe was a prolific composer of piano music, producing a grand total of 1,998 opus numbers. He was particularly adept at creating "variations brillantes" on themes by the great German masters and on popular songs.
  • ALT2: ... that Charles Grobe (pictured) reached an opus number of 1998 during his lifetime by composing vast numbers of variations on popular songs? Source: Kuhn, Laura; McIntire, Dennis (2001). "Grobe, Charles". Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. Gale. Retrieved November 26, 2022 – via Encyclopedia.com. Grobe was a prolific composer of piano music, producing a grand total of 1,998 opus numbers. He was particularly adept at creating "variations brillantes" on themes by the great German masters and on popular songs.
  • ALT3: ... that Charles Grobe (pictured) wrote the "Old Rough and Ready Quickstep" in honor of Zachary Taylor? Source: Kirk, Elise K. (September 1980). "Sheet Music Related to the United States War with Mexico (1846-1848) in the Jenkins Garrett Library, University of Texas at Arlington". Notes. 2. 37 (1): 16–18. JSTOR 940246. Of the many pieces which bore the great soldier's name, one of the most popular was Charles Grobe's Old Rough and Ready Quickstep, "arranged for the Piano Forte and respectfully dedicated to General Zachary Taylor" in 1846.
  • ALT4: ... that Charles Grobe (pictured) wrote the "Lincoln Quickstep" in honor of Abraham Lincoln? Source: Hancock, Harold Bell (1961). Delaware During the Civil War: A Political History (PDF) (2011 digital ed.). Delaware Heritage Press. pp. 29–30. ISBN 978-0-924117-43-5. In honor of the presidential candidate, Harry Tatnall, of Wilmington, composed the "Railsplitter's Polka," and Charles Grobe, also of Wilmington, wrote the "Lincoln Quickstep."
  • ALT5: ... that Charles Grobe (pictured), an American composer, contributed money to support Albert Newsam, a lithographer who had been stricken by paralysis? Source: Stauffer, David McNeely (1900). "Lithographic Portraits of Albert Newsam". The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. 24 (3): 273. JSTOR 20085920. ...and as a result of this meeting a fund was raised, to which the chief subscribers were Francis H. Duffee, Ferdinand J. Dreer, Edwin Greble, Julius Lee, John A. McAllister, and Charles Grobe. With the money thus obtained Mr. Newsam was placed in the Living Home, near Wilmington, Delaware, a pleasantly situated and thoroughly respectable institution, founded by Dr. John A. Browne, of New England.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Patty Loveless

Created by RexSueciae (talk). Self-nominated at 02:00, 3 December 2022 (UTC).Reply

•   Article was created just on time (seven days before the nomination) and is free from close paraphrasing. A QPQ has been done and the image is suitable. While I have a soft spot for the Lincoln hook, I think the first hook is still the most intriguing option here. However, I do have some questions about it. I noticed that the source used is Encyclopedia.com: is it just a hosting site for the Baker's Encyclopedia, or it is the actual source? If it's the latter, is the cite reliable? Secondly, the hook gives the 1998 number as fact, while the article instead suggests that it was a reported number and thus is not sure. In addition, the sentence if accurate, it would make Grobe one of the most prolific composers in history lacks a reference: could it be synthesis or original research? And finally, is there no information about his personal life? The article seems to be a bit barren when it comes to his personal information: it doesn't even mention if he married, had a family, or even how he died. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 03:27, 6 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • @Narutolovehinata5: It's a hosting site for Baker's, which should be reliable -- I don't have a hard copy of the original on hand, but Gale owns both Baker's and Encyclopedia.com and used the latter to host at least part of the former -- I think an article in *The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians* also cites the 1998 number, although I don't have a copy of that one either (I could probably find it if I tried, I think it's available on the Wikipedia Library). So I've dug a little deeper, and here's the thing -- according to a user on the IMSLP wiki, the *Grove Dictionary* entry even gives the name for Grobe's last published work (Op. 1998) which...probably existed? But which certainly isn't digitized anywhere, and the IMSLP user seems to doubt that it exists (although that's clearly not a reliable source). Complicating matters is that Grobe published some pieces with very high opus numbers that are available online -- and a lot of sources sorta punt on the question by saying he had "nearly two thousand" works, or by mentioning one of his high-numbered pieces that they'd come across while leaving open the question of how many more existed (and again, the only sources that bother to state an exact number say 1998). And I sorta figured that the last bit of the article was something for WP:BLUE -- the outlier of Telemann aside, most composers don't even hit 1000 lifetime works. Finally, personal life -- aaagh. Most secondary sources don't even touch on it. I found one hobbyist's site of uncertain provenance which contains some info on his wife, his cause of death, and his burial place, but no bibliography, so I'm assuming that was all from research into primary sources like census records -- just to put a cap on everything, I looked up the cemetery where he was buried and apparently the place was demolished and built over, so we don't even have a gravestone.

Anyways, to make a long reply short -- I'm also fond of the Lincoln hook, Charles Grobe and his quicksteps would be an amusing thought. I can't think of more sources (although there has to be more in unsearchable print somewhere) -- maybe these liner notes? But if you'd like me to harmonize things, I'll go take another look. RexSueciae (talk) 04:25, 6 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

How about a version of ALT0 that omits the 1998 part and just says he composed over a thousand works in his lifetime? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 08:24, 6 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Narutolovehinata5: This better? (I added it in as a new ALT1 and shifted everything else down.) RexSueciae (talk) 11:49, 6 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

That sounds good. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 12:06, 6 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

• @RexSueciae: Do you think anything else with the article can still be improved? For the personal stuff thing I may have to ask for a second opinion on it since I'm not sure if the source is usable; if it isn't it can be left out, can't be helped. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:16, 29 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • @Narutolovehinata5: Honestly I'm drawing a blank. I'd be down for a second opinion as well. RexSueciae (talk) 11:33, 29 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

  Per the above discussion I'm asking for a second opinion from another reviewer regarding the usability of the composers-classical-music.com source. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 02:58, 30 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

I'm against using that source. It's a personal website and I can't find evidence of the author being an established expert in the field. SL93 (talk) 01:13, 5 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

In that case, I don't know of anything else to add. If there are any other sources on the life of Charles Grobe, I have been unable to find them digitized. Meanwhile, just to confirm, there's no problems with the hooks? RexSueciae (talk) 03:43, 7 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

I'll leave the final approval to another editor, but my pick for a hook would be either ALT1 or ALT4 (with a slight preference for ALT1). Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 02:31, 8 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

@Narutolovehinata5: Could you please evaluate my proposed ALT hooks below? Note to @RexSueciae: It literally took two clicks to find more articles about Charles Grobe on Wikipedia Library (general search without going into individual databases), and the Internet Archive has copies of Grove Dictionary and Baker's Dictionary available to borrow as well. I have also now deleted the unsourced claim in the article (about "most prolific") and made further edits to the lede. (I'm not finding composers-classical-music.com in the References section, so I take it that has been removed per earlier comments.)

• ALT1a: ... that Charles Grobe (pictured) composed nearly 2000 musical pieces in his lifetime?
• ALT6: ... that Charles Grobe was the most prolific of 19th-century battle music in the United States? Source: The Grove Dictionary of American Music, p. 379 Excerpt: The most prolific 19th-century composer of battle pieces in the United States was Charles Grobe, who from the late 1840s on wrote no fewer than 12 “descriptive fantasies,” as well as other pieces, on battles of the Mexican and Civil Wars

  Approving ALT4 only for now. On second thought, I really like ALT4 (which Narutolovehinata5 already approved previously), and would like to request @BorgQueen: to run it on February 12, which is Abraham Lincoln's birthday...!? Would that be possible? Otherwise maybe we go back to evaluating other hooks. Cielquiparle (talk) 10:59, 7 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

Oh, hey, new source -- thanks! (composers-classical-music.com was never used for this article, I suggested it as literally the only potential source that mentioned a cause of death -- there may have been a miscommunication) RexSueciae (talk) 11:19, 7 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

@Cielquiparle: Now that I'm looking at the new source, I'm remembering that I found it back when I was researching for this article and discarded it -- I really don't think The Clavier Companion is a reliable source in that it is not a scholarly or literary journal but rather a magazine aimed specifically at piano teachers -- and in its paragraph of content on Charles Grobe the only source it cites is the 2001 edition of the Grove Dictionary. We can keep it, but if its only cited source for the info on Grobe is a tertiary source (a later edition of which is now used in the Grobe wiki article), I feel that's a little shaky. (Also, taking a look at the Wikipedia Library, there genuinely are no other sources on Charles Grobe -- he gets an offhand mention in a couple articles as a guy who existed during the 1800s, and his name is in some music catalog, and that's about it.) RexSueciae (talk) 11:29, 7 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

@RexSueciae: Have struck ALT5. What do you think of ALT6, or the idea of going with ALT4 for Lincoln's birthday? (BTW – It's also worth checking the relevant databases in Wikipedia Library individually; it often yields different/additional results; the general search only captures a sub-set, but is incredibly useful, and I'm finding a lot of people still don't know that it exists since the functionality was launched more recently than the rest. Cielquiparle (talk) 12:04, 7 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

@Cielquiparle: I think, for my money, that ALT4 on Lincoln's birthday would be neat! RexSueciae (talk) 12:51, 7 February 2023 (UTC)Reply