Using Wikibase To Model A Data-Driven Approach Ro Ricardo Viñes’ Public Concerts And Repertoire

Keywords

Ricardo Viñes, Wikibase, Linked Open Data

Abstract

This paper will present a Digital Humanities project focused on the personal archive of Ricardo Viñes (1875-1943), one of the finest pianists of the early 20th century. Our aim is to reconstruct his musical career and set data-oriented grounds for an innovative path of analysis within the history of musical performance. Viñes, renowned for his audacious recital programmes and a rare commitment to contemporary music, was trusted with the premiere of dozens of works by composers such as Ravel, Debussy, Satie, Séverac, Poulenc, Falla or Mompou, to name just a few.

His personal archive —almost entirely unpublished and recently entrusted to the library at the Universitat de Lleida— is surprisingly comprehensive and consistent. It is comprised of hundreds of concert programmes, a large collection of press clippings, a fair amount of photographs, plenty of correspondence, and an impressive personal journal where he recorded all sorts of details concerning his professional and personal life between 1887 and 1915. Since an accurate reconstruction of his artistic journey seems plausible, we seek to examine Viñes’ musical repertoire and career through structured data extracted from the aforementioned sources.

After a brief description of the collection and the data mining procedure, this paper will devote special attention to our chosen methodology and workflow. These are based upon the development of a Wikibase instance and the subsequent definition of a suitable data model and ontology. Furthermore, the challenges and opportunities of this approach will be discussed in the light of open knowledge standards and requirements. Finally, a summary of a data-driven analysis of Ricardo Viñes’ career and further uses of the generated resources will be outlined.