IMSLP Forums

We have a page for Giovanni Punto (which is how most horn players know him), but his birth name was Jan Václav Stich, also known as Johann Wenzel Stich. I think we should have a page with a re-direct for the Stich name. Some people (albeit I don't think many) refer to him by his birth name, and it was his real name.

As far as I remember the story, he left the service of some Count without permission, so the Count sent men after him with specific instructions to beat him up especially around the mouth area so that he would never play again. (I think I'd change my name too!! )

I know we aren't supposed to have pages with no works on them, but there is a possible problem here of not finding works that we have if someone looks under the birth name. It would also prevent someone creating Stich and uploading to it, not realizing that we have works on the other page.

Opinions?

While I understand your concern, we have a strict rule to follow the Library of Congress Authorities' decision on what the most common form of a name is. They give him in their heading as Giovanni Punto, which is as you say the more commonly recognized form. This is far from the only case like this (a pseudonym much more well-known than the birth name), and I fear that if we make any exception to our current rule, by the same logic we would have a fair amount of redirects to other names listed in the main category. This would be kind of messy, and I for one would be uneasy with it. And after all, one could always search for the name Stich - we always list alternate names wherever applicable.