Category talk:Instrumental (chamber)

More categories needed

What are the chances the list of categories could be expanded? I think the categories of chamber music should relate to the ensemble of instruments and that terms like "Trio" and "Quintet" are too broad. I'd like to see categories like the following:

• Trio (piano, violin, cello)
• Trio (piano, clarinet, cello)
• Trio (piano, clarinet, violin)
• Trio (violin, viola, cello)
• Quintet (piano, two violins, viola, cello)
• Quintet (piano, violin, viola, cello, bass)
• Quintet (piano, clarinet, oboe, horn, bassoon)

I play the piano, and would prefer not to sort out string trios from piano trios. I'm quite familiar with chamber music and Wikipedia, and would be willing to make these changes if you need somebody to do it. Sparkyfry 12:12, 9 March 2007 (EST)

I really have mixed feelings about this; on one hand, more categories means that people can find more specific stuff, but on the other hand, I'm afraid that it might become excessive, and become counterproductive (very few pieces actually in each category). Plus, there are also different ways of categorizing (i.e. by instrumentation or piece structure/type)... for example, someone recently suggested I have another category for "Trio Sonata" since it was a big genre during the Baroque. What I'm afraid of is that if I open the floodgate, I won't be able to stop it and IMSLP will end up in a mess...

Anyway, I'll think more about this issue :) --Feldmahler 12:26, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Fair point. It seems there should be a middle ground, though. Some instrumentations are common enough that I do think a separate category would be worthwhile. I notice, for example, that you've already created a separate category for standard string quartets (two violins, viola, and cello), which is certainly reasonable for the most plentiful kind of chamber music in existence. I would say that piano trios (piano, violin, cello) are also common enough to warrant a separate category. There's even a lot of pieces out there for piano/cello/clarinet trios. Perhaps something like the following would be a possibility:

• Trio (violin, viola, cello)
• Trio (piano, violin, cello)
• Trio (piano, clarinet, cello)
• Trio (miscellaneous instrumentations)

This way, you wouldn't have a separate category for trios for horn, violin, and piano, but then have only the Brahms Horn Trio in it. That would presumably fall under miscellaneous. (I'm sure a horn player will now point out that there is a fertile repertoire for these sorts of trios, and I apologize in advance to him or her for my oversight.)

As far as categorizing piece by "structure or type," that seems to be a wholly separate project than categorizing pieces by instrumentation. Quite frankly, I'm not sure it's very useful. I can't imagine many people deciding one day that they feel like playing a Bagatelle and the next day deciding they'd like to play a Gigue. However, searches by instrumentation can be very useful, particularly in the area of chamber music. I'm an amateur chamber musician, and it may sound obvious, but what you play is completely dependent on what instruments are playing. If I know I'm going to have a clarinettist and cellist over, it would be helpful to be able to search easily for clarinet trios. I suppose that there may be value in looking for common types of piece structures, such as symphonies, sonatas, or concerti, but it seems that should be a separate search option than searching by instrumentation.

Just my $0.02. I apologize if I'm being presumptuous. Sparkyfry 15:04, 9 March 2007 (EST)

The name of the subgenre "other(no more than eight performers" shoud be changed in "other(more than eight performers)Notenschreiber 14:03, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Japanese translation

Could you put Japanese translation into "Genre Criteria" section using "#iflang:" like below?

{{#iflang:
|en =
== Genre Criteria ==
All purely instrumental works that have 8 performers or fewer. The sole exception are purely percussion pieces (regardless of the number of performers); those pieces can be found in the [[:Category:Instrumental_(other)|Instrumental (other)]] genre.

[[Browse_by_genre|Browse all four main genres]]
|ja =
== 分類の基準 ==
8人以下の楽器奏者で演奏される作品群です。ただし、打楽器作品については、奏者の人数に限らず[[:Category:Instrumental_(other)|大編成の合奏曲]]のページに入っています。

[[曲種と編成で探す|その他の編成を探す]]

}}