I think it’s true for Russians in general that they don’t use their second name (unless there’s a possible confusion with someone else). It would be nice to have some confirmation on this by a native Russian speaker though.
I generally agree with you, except for the aliases for languages using the Latin alphabet. Russian (and in fact most non-Latin scripts) are transliterated differently depending on the language, because one of the reasons for transliterating something is allowing speakers of the language to pronounce the word or name right. Maybe a “generic transliteration in Latin script” language could be added for this case, or there could be two separate attributes for aliases: one for script and one for language.
You’re right, this was a hasty generalisation.
“Tchaikovsky” should be the latin transliteration only for languages where this transliteration is acceptable. This would include English, German, French, Italian (based on Wikipedia pages). However it seems that for Spanish the transliteration would be Chaikovski, Portugues Tchaikovski.
Actually there is a different transliteration for each of these languages: Tchaïkovski or Tchaïkovsky for French (notice the diaeresis), Tschaikowski for German, Čajkovskij for Italian (what is that caron doing in Italian?!) etc. Of course various labels have their own preferences and may use the English transliteration even for releases in another language.
Indeed, what I meant is that when there are several possible transliteration, we should default to “Tchaïkovsky” or the closest transliteration (e.g. Tschaikowsky in German, Tchaikovsky in Italian, etc.)
And it seems that the diaresis was used originally, e.g. Manfred or Mazeppa
Russian names consists of 3 parts: personal name, patronymic and family name. A patronymic is different from a middle name used in English: it is not a second personal name, but is a part of a name derived from father’s name.
Using a patronymic is a matter of respect and politeness. Addressing somebody just by a personal name is considered to be impolite, with exceptions such as close friends, family members etc. Using a patronymic as a part of a name is a standard, official, default way of addressing a person; a Wikipedia article gives more details. In the modern Russian rules are relaxing a bit, and for modern composers and performers it may be appropriate to skip the patronymic, but not for a XIX century composer. Using just “Пётр Чайковский” sounds weird for me as a native speaker, even if his works were published under a name “П. Чайковский” in his lifetime.
Most Russian classical composers and performers exist with full name (that is, with the patronymic) in the MB database: Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Glinka just to give a few examples. Tchaikovsky shall be “Пётр Ильич Чайковский”.
My understanding is that they use the patronymic in Russia, but drop it in International usage. So I don’t think it should be dropped. I also don’t agree with just using the initial letter, even if that is what appears on manuscripts.
True. But can we start by making the obvious changes rather than possibly contentious ones? Where the MB name is the one in common international usage, but is not the legal or original language name, I would prefer to leave it like that for now. I would like to be confident about the rules and application of aliases before we change commonly-understood names (in the classical music world) to ones which most people might consider obscure.
Thanks for this information.
My suggestion was therefore not a good option
It’s better to keep the name that way. We could probably add this to guidelines, so that the debate is not raised again.
People who insist on calling Chopin only French or only Polish are applying XX Century thinking to XIX Century where nationality was much less defined and fluid. I think he was both. Born and raised in Poland to French immigrant father and Polish mother. Educated both in French and Polish. He was cosmopolitan enough to speak French in daily life and spend most of his life in France , at the same time his music is directly connected to Polish folklore and he responded very passionately to Polish Uprising against Russian Empire. We can say he was born in Poland (although country legally did not exists at the time, it was under Russia) and died in France, but calling him either only Polish or only French somehow diminishes him.
The whole nationality discussion of prominent people is always charged and misguided, as belonging to the same nation somehow makes one better as an individual. It always bothered me.
I also think that he should be listed under Frédéric Chopin and have ample aliases in relevant languages, including Polish and French.
