Talk:Asrael Symphony

Start

Basic info, anybody willing to check the grammar??Vejvančický (talk) 12:00, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

The grammar is very good already. I just made a couple of very small (and pedantic) changes. I hope that's all right. Stfg (talk) 14:53, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Title

Sometimes this work is referenced as "Symphony (for large orchestra) in C minor, Asrael, Op. 27" or similar, as if "Asrael" were a subtitle like "Pathétique" or "Unfinished". It's also the second of Suk's symphonies, but doesn't always get given the number.

So, what's its formal title, so we can assess whether this article is properly titled?

I could see the following all being possibilities:

• the current title
• Asrael Symphony
• Asrael Symphony (Suk)
• Asrael (Suk)
• Symphony in C minor (Suk)
• Symphony No. 2 (Suk). -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:30, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, this composition is the only symphonic work widely known as "Asrael", so it should be included in the title. I suggest using either Asrael Symphony or Asrael Symphony (Suk). The work is titled Asrael Symphony, Op. 27 in the Czechoslovak Dictionary of Music. Personalities and Institutions (published in 1965, but very useful source), and it is referred to as Asrael Symphony or Asrael also in the recently published monumental Czech biography of Václav Talich.--Vejvančický (talk) 14:09, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Belated thanks, Vejvančický. I've now moved it to Asrael Symphony as you suggested. Cheers. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 12:21, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the cleanup, Jack. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 13:35, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The composer's (so-called!) "bright and optimistic character"...

... Oh, I see. Humor! I like it! Totally inappropriate for a Wikipedia page meant to be serious, but it's nice. We are talking about the same Suk of whom Dvorak, looking at his (Suk's) Serenade for strings, praised his student's departure from his conventional melancholy - because it was a departure, not because the sunniness of most of the serenade was somehow typical of his earlier works? Is the writer somehow ignorant of everything by Suk before this symphony except for the serenade and the symphony in E (if the latter)?... Schissel | Sound the Note! 22:43, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

The author is Vít Roubíček, a Czech music publicist. I don't think he is a leading specialist on Suk's or Dvořák's work. I've added the claim many years ago and I have no objections against its removal. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 11:24, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Opening movement and finale

are referred to here with just their introductory tempi, leading William Grim in his MPH Preface, for example, to claim that the work is indebted to Tchaikovsky's Pathétique, with a scherzo preceding an (extended) slow finale. However, the 5th movement here is not a slow movement - its actual tempo is Adagio e maestoso — Più animato e molto appassionato (bar 10) ( - etc.) (both in the Vesely piano-4hand reduction and the later full score available at IMSLP- the early first edition full score has not been compared, but it seems unlikely that it is a slow movement in the same way that the Tchaikovsky's is (with a brief fast interruption, in its case) but rather, here, a slow introduction and a faster main tempo.) ELSchissel (talk) 23:50, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

the first sentence

I'd like to see the first sentence rewritten. "Czech composer Josef Suk's Second Symphony, named "Asrael" . . . was completed in 1906 following two deaths - first that of his father-in-law, in 1904, and then that of his wife, Otilie Dvořáková, daughter of his composition teacher, Antonín Dvořák. Antonin Dvorak was Suk's father-in-law and his composition teacher; as written, it seems to be referring to three people: his father-in-law, his wife, and Antonin Dvorak. ~2026-98762-5 (talk) 01:23, 13 February 2026 (UTC)