[mb-style] RFC: Works lists (and other related changes then implied)

[Aaron Cooper]

On 4-Mar-08, at 7:08 AM, Frederic Da Vitoria wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 12:26 PM, Leiv Hellebo  
> <leiv.hellebo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Frederic Da Vitoria wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 10:48 AM, Leiv Hellebo  
> <leiv.hellebo at gmail.com
> > <mailto:leiv.hellebo at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> >     Aaron Cooper wrote:
> >     On the topic of languages, I think we should try to pick one
> >      > language per composer  (as we've done with the wiki works  
> lists)
> >
> >     One language per work in Works lists sounds good. If the  
> composer e.g.
> >     lived abroad and used another language during that period,  
> it's to be
> >     expected that different languages might be best.
> >
> >
> > So Tchaikovsky in Cyrillic only? This is quite annoying. I love this
> > composer,
>
> hehe, I was listening to Viktoria Mullova playing his violin  
> concerto as
> this mail entered my inbox :)
>
>  but I don't intend to learn Cyrillic soon...
> >
>
> Sorry for the hasty formulation "one language per work sounds good", I
> don't have the solution to this problem. But my first thought is that
> Works ideally should be entered also in cyrillic. It might not be very
> practical, though.
>
> For tagging you should get most of what you need from the track  
> listing
> of your release. But we have a problem if strange characters in the
> Works make them difficult for editors to reliably find and use.
>
> Perhaps the opus numbers and other catalogue information can help?
>
> Yes, they could, provided the composer has a catalogue. Else, we  
> will have to set up some translation system soon. I agree the  
> original language makes the most sense, though. But sometimes, the  
> most logical choice is not the most user-friendly!

Do you think we might be able to set up automatic translation?  It  
wouldn't be too bad if we put a translation for each type of work  
(Cantata, Kantate, etc.) in a table with a LanguageId.  Keys could be  
translated pretty easily as far as I can see.  We don't normally  
change the form/tempo.  Is it safe to build titles using the same  
structure (see http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/BrianFreud/sandbox#CSGworkstructure) 
  across multiple languages?

I am not familiar with many, but I think generally German and English  
work titles look like they have the same structure.

-Aaron