Talk:List of compositions by Alan Hovhaness

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Links to disambiguation pages[edit]

On 13 April 2012,‎ DPL bot tagged this List of compositions by Alan Hovhaness with the following message:

  • This article currently links to a large number of disambiguation pages. Please help direct these ambiguous links to articles dealing with the specific meaning intended.

I have removed this tag, because a number of the titles used by Hovhaness for his compositions are inherently ambiguous. For instance Jupiter and Saturn might refer to either the mythological beings, or to the planets - or both. Hovhaness lived in both the Northeast and Northwest United States at various times, and always had a abiding fascination with mountains; he also traveled widely throughout the Caucusus region and Eastern Asia. Monadnock might refer to the generic term, or to any of a number of specific places with this name. Similarly, there are many places in the U.S. called Prospect Hill. All links provided are disambiguated as well as can be, without making arbitrary choices that may be wrong. It will remain to the reader to decide, if possible, which reference Hovhaness may have intended. Milkunderwood (talk) 18:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

While this is undoubtedly true for many of Hovhaness's titles, it is arguably not the case for other instances. For example, I have just disambiguated the word "Suite" near the beginning of the list, since I am reasonably certain that the title of the Suite for Violin and Piano is not meant to pun with a sort of hotel room or "a furniture set of sofas and chairs".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:16, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - I screwed up there. (Maybe others where I just bracketed without verifying?) Milkunderwood (talk) 21:46, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I see the bot has restored the banner, as well. I believe there is a way of marking deliberate links to disambiguation pages so that the bots (and perhaps even human editors) will realize they are not oversights. I'll have to look into this.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:07, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The bot has now retreated. Thanks again for cleaning this up. I've been busy all day, and my computer is running at a crawl in refreshing pages. Right now I'm finding only three dablinks: Op. 2 No. 2 Wildcat Mountain, Op. 153 Laona, and Op. 388 Lilydale - but again, I may have missed some, because I did not reconfirm all the foreign names and words that could not reasonably require disambiguation. I see you chose Washington rather than Oregon for one that you fixed. I went ahead and chose Vega; but now I've put the dablink for Op. 346 Prospect Hill back in, so that should be four altogether. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:23, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It seemed slightly more likely to choose Washington over Oregon because of Hovhaness's long residence in that state. This does not mean that it is correct, but until someone comes up with a better reason, it should do. As for truly ambiguous links, such as Jupiter, where the composer probably had both the planet and the god in mind, perhaps it is best to simply leave it unlinked, rather than annoy the sleeping bot.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:54, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree - neither Jupiter nor Saturn really need to be linked for WP readers; and as you say, it's likely Hovhaness may have intended some ambiguity with these anyway. Milkunderwood (talk) 02:27, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ambiguity may be either delightful or annoying, depending on your point of view. For my own part, I would like to imagine that Hovhaness really slyly meant Vega or Vega, or even Las Vegas, but wanted to mislead his listeners into imagining an interstellar journey. Humour in music is actually more widespread than most people suppose to be the case.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:03, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Today DPL bot has had the courtesy to post a message on my user talkpage complaining about my dablinks, but so far the List of compositions itself is being left alone for now. :-) Milkunderwood (talk) 16:46, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]


  • I have now added a note to the explanatory lead to the list; this should help. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:30, 2 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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