Discussion:Giovanni Bottesini

Hello everybody, excuse my writing in English, please: My French is a little rusty and has never been one of the greatest anyway, especially when it comes to musical terms. Please note that « Juan » Bottesini is, in fact, no more than the hispanized version of the Italian name Giovanni Bottesini. He was a close friend of Giuseppe Verdi's (conductor of the premiere of Aida in 1871) and, as probably any contrabass player will attest, one of the most influential double bassists of the 19th century. A highly popular traveling virtuoso and conductor of the epoch, he also toured the Americas quite extensively (which is what brought him to Mexico in the first place). To my knowledge, he only stayed in that country for about a year and never seriously attempted to acquire Mexican citizenship (which was, in general, an issue of lesser importance than it is nowadays). On the other hand, it was commom practice in these days to « naturalize » peoples' given names. Bottesini was often billed as John, Jean, or João when performing in the respective countries. It is unfortunate that there is no article Giovanni Bottesini in the French Wikipedia so far, into which the present stub should by rights be merged. If somebody is interested in writing it, I'll be happy to give assistance. You can contact me on my German user page, Rainer Lewalter

Redirect, nationality & renamed into Giovanni Bottesini. --pixeltoo⇪員 30 septembre 2007 à 17:47 (CEST)

Merci pixeltoo, I added some minor details that do not exactly require excellent French, plus some categories and interwikis. --Rainer Lewalter

Thanks for your change and your suggestions, Benutzer. :) --pixeltoo⇪員 30 septembre 2007 à 19:32 (CEST)

Bonjour, en commençant la rédaction de mon article sur Giovanni Bottesini, je découvre une controverse sur sa date de naissance. En effet, certaines sources (dont Wikipedia en anglais) mentionnent qu'il est né le 22 décembre 1821, d'autres en 1822 (Dom Adrien Nocent, "Mon ami Arthur Grumiaux"). La source reconnue comme référence en langue française est le livre de Paul Brun "Histoire des contrebasses à cordes", édité en 1982. Or cette source nous apprend que Giovanni Bottesini est né le 24 décembre 1823...
Je vais continuer mes recherches. Si d'autres contributeurs possèdent des informations ou d'autres sources, merci de nous les mettre à disposition.
--Papageno3 14 octobre 2007 à 15:33 (CEST)

Hello Papageno3, I hope you don't mind my answering in English - I think I understand French pretty well, but I find it awkward to write an answer in something that approaches good grammar. All the German and Italian sources I used when writing the German article (Warnecke, Planyavsky, Inzaghi, MGG) agree on December 22, 1821 as date of Bottesini's birth. All the sheet music editions of his compositions give that same date, too. I discovered the discrepancies in certain internet sources as well, though. Plus, nobody is really very outspoken as to the question « whence thy wisdom » ;-). However, even if we accept 1821 as his year of birth, Bottesini must have been accepted at the Milan Conservatory at a remarkably young age (especially for a double bassist), and I find it hard to believe that he should have been still younger. About the date, my conjecture is that the confusion with December 24 stems from the premiere of Aida, arguably the date which gave his name importance in the music world (outside bassists' circles, that is :-)) --Rainer Lewalter