Style/Classical/Language/English

Status: This page describes an active style guideline proposal and is not official.

Proposal number: RFC-CSG Language/English Champion: symphonick Current status: RFC Initial Discussion RFC JIRA ticket STYLE-113

This is the guideline for titles or parts of titles in English. Do not assume that anything expressed here is valid for other languages.

Catalogue & number

Catalogues should always be preceded by comma and space.
Opus and number should always be lower-cased and abbreviated: op. and no. If they are used together, space is delimiter. There should also be a space before the number.
Specific catalogues (eg. Köchel) should follow their usual capitalization.

Examples

op. 4
op. 27 no. 3
Symphony no. 5
String Quartet in D major, op. 11

Keys

The word "in" should always precede the key name.

Sharp/flat

If the key name contain the words "sharp" or "flat", they should be in lower case and a hyphen should be used as delimiter.

Major/minor

The words "major" & "minor" are always lower-cased. Do not add "major" or "minor" if these words are omitted in the source; tonality is sometimes expressed with capitalization: Upper case = major, lower case = minor.

• Using "major" or "minor" is the preferred style for generic Works titles in English

Examples

A-flat major
C-sharp minor
Concerto in c
Symphony in E major

Capitalization

English titles in general should follow MB standard capitalization/English, but librettos and quotes should always follow sentence style.

Quotation marks

Always use double quotes "

• Remember that this is only regarding quotes in English; do not change for example a German quote to have English quotation marks.

Examples

Songs of Travel: The Roadside Fire
Songs of Travel: Bright is the ring of words
Nocturne from "A Midsummer Night's Dream"