I suppose, I should create a new work, translated from the original. But should I also create a complete work La Traviata with her translation? According to Wikipedia, she translated the entire work so this seems to be relevant. Should I then also include a middle layer “Act I”, as in the other versions? It is probably rare and it is doubtful whether there are other recordings with this translation.
And there’s another one that troubles me: Guten Abend, gut’ Nacht
It’s really a well known song, played in the most usual way - piano and vocals. However, at first I also failed to find the right work because the credits didn’t match the existing ones.
It’s this song: Song “5 Lieder, op. 49: Nr. 4. Wiegenlied “Guten Abend, gute Nacht”” - MusicBrainz and the reason for my difficulties: only the first verse was recorded and its lyrics were not written by Georg Scherer - he only wrote the second verse.
Should I create a new work, part of the two-verse song? According to Wikipedia, the original edition contained only the first verse (German Wikipedia), therefore it seems reasonable to add it. (or better just a partial recording?)
And I didn’t find the translator, at least not in a relationship for this work. For the song collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Clemens Brentano translated the song from Low German into standard (High) German. And that was really translation. German Wikipedia compares Brentano’s text to an earlier Low German version (German Wikipedia). Should a translator be added?
I would add the full opera work at least. The act work… I mean, in theory it makes sense, but then we should probably add them for all acts for consistency, and it can get annoying, so I’d be fine with just linking the work straight to the full opera for now.
Are you sure it’s a different translation though? https://www.discogs.com/release/6201485 (which is related to the existing work) lists “Libretto By [Deutsch] – Natalie von Grünhof” which is the same person…
It does seem like it would be sensible to create a separate work, but I wouldn’t link it as part of. Link the existing work as “later version” of it, I guess, and disambiguate it as “early one-verse version”?
I can at least say that this version of the song has a different title (a different first line). The credit on the CD is Verdi/Piave/Eschborn and I assumed that it’s a different translation. The Discogs release actually suggests that the German translation is generally attributed to Natalie Eschborn (birth name), later Baronin von Grünhof (I wonder what her primary name on MB should be).
And I found nothing about Antonio Ghislanzoni writing or translating the libretto for La Traviata - I’m confused.
I will do so.
And should Brentano be added as a translator? I would guess so.
I created a new “early one-verse version” published in 1868, lyrics by [traditional], translated by Clemens Brentano in 1808… now, that’s not entirely correct, as it was published in 1808, but probably translated earlier. I think I should remove the date.
I found no proper way to link Des Knaben Wunderhorn in which it was published in.
I haven’t touched the “two-verse version” yet.¹ The current disambiguation is useful to distinguish from various arrangements. and I think, I should leave it.
Apart from the shortened title (to be corrected?), a different approach to the source was used - lyrics by [traditional] credited as “Des Knaben Wunderhorn”. This can’t be said in case of a translator, as the traditional work of unknown origin had lyrics in Low German and only the translated High German lyrics were published in Des Knaben Wunderhorn.
¹) I’ve added the publication of the commonly known 2-verse version as noted (and referenced) in the German Wikipedia article. And I’ve seen that it premiered 1969-12-22 …but this date would belong to the early version. Brahms only found the poem (which became verse 2) in 1870 and it took him 3 years to adapt it to fit in.
You are getting good advice about your actual questions, so I won’t add to them. Primarily, I want to say, “Bravo!”.
Good metadata for classical music is hard. The relationships are complex, and the evidence is hard to assemble. So when I see how diligent and careful you are being, I really appreciate it. Thank you for your contribution to MusicBrainz!
I have some general advice for future situations like this:
It’s OK if you don’t make it perfect on the first pass. Do as much as you reasonably can, leave good edit notes, and move on. In the future, you or someone else may come by and improve your contribution. It will get closer to perfection over time.
Disambiguation notes are your friend. Especially, when you make an entity which is similar to another, definitely include a clear disambiguation note on both your new entity and the one it resembles. Think of a future editor who comes across both entities in doing their edit. What disambiguation notes will steer them correctly.
Annotations are your friend. If you want to record facts and links to evidence about a Release (or anything with an annotation really), but can’t do it perfectly right now, the annotation is a place where you can store that until you or another editor has a chance to come back and improve it.
Thank you, @ernstlx, and please keep up the good work!