Wikipedia:Naming conventions (pieces of music)
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This guideline documents an English Wikipedia naming convention. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense and the occasional exception. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. |
As a general rule, when naming articles about pieces of classical music, use the most common form of the name. Do not include nicknames except when the work is almost exclusively known by its nickname (for example, Franz Schubert's Trout Quintet) - nicknames can vary from country to country and age to age, so what is familiar in one part of the world may be completely unfamiliar elsewhere.
- If the name of the piece is unique to that one piece, then the title should be the name of the piece alone. For example, Enigma Variations, War Requiem, Piano Phase. Note that what we mean by a unique name here is a unique descriptive name, and not names that are unique only because of opus number, catalogue number or key. For those cases, see below.
- If the name of the piece is shared by another piece or pieces, include the composer's surname in parentheses following the name of the piece. For example Concerto for Orchestra (Bartok), Concerto for Orchestra (Lutoslawski); Violin Concerto (Beethoven), Violin Concerto (Berg).
- An extra level of disambiguation may be required if one composer has written several works with the same title (this is particularly true of works with generic titles like "Symphony" or "String Quartet"). The title should refer to the work in whatever way is most common in other publications. If this method is insufficient for describing one piece individually, the following methods should be used in order until the title is unique:
- Cardinal number: Symphony No. 7 (Sibelius), Symphony No. 40 (Mozart), Symphony No. 1 (Mahler) - A period follows the "No".
- Opus number: String Quartets, Op. 76 (Haydn)
- Key: Prelude in C sharp minor (Rachmaninoff) - The key letter is uppercase, the word sharp or flat is lowercase and follows the letter with a space, and the word minor or major is lowercase and follows with a space.
- Catalogue number: Piano Sonata, D. 958 (Schubert) (see Opus number for an indication of which composers these might apply to) - A period follows the abbreviation. Try to avoid catalogue numbers if possible, however, as they are unfamiliar to most people. In particular, be wary of using Köchel (K) numbers for Mozart, as some pieces are given different numbers in different editions of the catalogue.
However you title an article, consider making redirects to it from other plausible names to aid searching and avoid people creating duplicate articles. For example, if you create Piano Trio No. 1 (Schubert), consider making redirects to it from Piano Trio in B flat major (Schubert) and Piano Trio, D. 898 (Schubert).
