User:Thomas W. Jefferson

About me

I am a musicologist, historian and sinologist by training (M.A.) but have never worked in any of these fields. I earned the ubiquitous MBA to work in consulting and that's what I still do. I am (evidently) interested in classical music, European history, and literature. I translate from German, Italian, French, Spanish, and, when requeired, even Latin. I think my particular strengths lie in my broad overview. There are better pianists, there a better sight readers, there are people who read orchestra scores with more facilility than I do - but it sometimes is the whole package that makes the difference.

Articles created

Christian Kalkbrenner

I rewrote the article on his son Friedrich Kalkbrenner, when I realized: I don't know anything about his old man, who, as it happens, was a composer too. So I just had to.

Ludwig Wenzel Lachnith

Collaborator of the older Kalkbrenner, according to Berlioz a really evil person. Obviously, I couldn't resit.

Articles rewritten

I researched, put in footnotes and references and thus completely rewrote the following articles:

Nicolás Ruiz Espadero

The Espadero article is still in progress. Espadero was Cuban, quite well known in the 19th century, but today has fallen into almost total obscurity. Sources are very hard to get; I am currently waiting for some.

Christian Cannabich

Work in progress!

Carl Stamitz

Not a great composer, but a good one. He had an unexpectedly tragic life, one of the few examples where a the composer son of a composer father was the lesser composer. Usually it is the other way round (Mozart, Johann Strauss II, Richard Strauß). His clarinet and viola concertos are very nice in-deed – not great music, not tragic, but charming, exhilarating, fresh, melodious, well crafted. A minor master (“Kleinmeister” as the Germans call the species), ready for exploration, editing, a new biography, some more recording etc. Thomas W. Jefferson (talk) 21:04, 14 March 2010 (UTC)