Talk:Piano sextet

A few comments:

1) The piece by Chausson really is entitled Concert, not Concerto. It was Chausson's first major public success, receiving an extremely enthusiastic response from audiences, critics, and fellow musicians alike after its premier in Brussels in 1892. Chausson uses the term Concert in his diary when he writes of the work, and the first edition published in Paris by Rouart, Lerolle & Cie uses the title Concert en R&eacute majeur. The French word for "concert" is "concert"; the French word for "concerto" is "concerto". Please do not "correct" the "typo". I think it is fair to say that, along with the string quartets of Debussy and Franck, Chausson's Concert remains one of the best-known and most popular works of French 19th century chamber music. The mistranslation of Concert continues to haunt the work.

2) There seems to be some question as to whether the piano sextet actually exists as a distinct genre of chamber music. Since the term is in use, albeit perhaps infrequently, I think it makes sense to have a page on it. However, a possible alternative would be to fold the current piano sextet page into the sextet page, and create a redirect from piano sextet to sextet. I am not going to do this, since I prefer the current arrangement, but if this page meets with widespread opposition, then I will not protest too vehemently.

3) Because I view this as a minor genre, I kept the original entry brief. If, however, we are going to have a list (which I now feel is a good idea), then let us use a uniform format. I have tried to impose one, leaving logical blanks only where I was unaware of the required information.

4) I have rewritten the text, attempting to retain the key points introduced by Camembert, but stripping away some redundancies and inaccuracies that had crept in. For example, with the works list now at ten entries (and growing?), we can no longer claim that there are only a "handful" of compositions. An error of 100% is unacceptable.

Physicist 17:42, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

To be fair, it didn't actaully say "a handful" but "a few", but I take your point, and agree your version is better.

Basically I think this page is OK, and I don't want it to be removed or merged or anything like that. However, I do have a bit of a problem with it.

The thing is, while it's true in one way that a "piano sextet" can be anything written for a piano and five other instruments, the title implies more than just that (at least it does to me). It implies similar things to what "string quartet" implies: a piece of chamber music, something more than a miniature, probably in multiple movements, for a piano and five other diverse instruments, in a broadly classical idiom, in which each instrument is more or less an equal partner.

I think the Chausson is particularly troublesome in this regard. I admit I don't know the piece at all, but from what I can gather, the piano and violin are treated as solo instruments with the string quartet accompanying them. That's quite different to a piece made up of equal partners, as suggested by the name "sextet". Martinu's La revue de cuisine is another one which troubles me a little; it is a ballet score, and while I would certainly be happy to call it a ballet score for sextet, I'd balk at actually calling it a sextet.

Now, that said, I agree that this is a nice page - it's good to have a list of pieces for piano and five other instruments - and "piano sextet" is probably a better title for it than "pieces of music scored for a piano and five other instruments". So could we, perhaps, keep the page here, but make it clear than some - maybe even most - of these works wouldn't normally be called "piano sextets"?

Sorry, I feel like I've whittered on for far too long there about something of relatively little consequence. Been one of those days... --Camembert