Talk:The Four Temperaments

to do

• San Francisco Ballet 75^th anniversary season at City Center October 2008

Fan Page

I would go so far as to say this article reads like a fan page. It gives the reader no information about the ballet itself (though it manages somehow to slip in many many many references to productions and reviews). What lazy editing, almost as if it were created by someone who loved to dance but knew nothing about the art form itself...a fan. 38.109.88.194 (talk) 07:29, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

DYK nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Edge3 (talk) 04:05, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

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• Article history

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Kansas City Ballet dancers in The Four Temperaments

• ... that George Balanchine's ballet The Four Temperaments (pictured) premiered at a high school auditorium? Source: "The audience in the auditorium of the Central High School of Needle Trades that November evening in 1946, favorably disposed toward Balanchine, thought they liked what they saw; but it would be some years before The Four Temperaments achieved the status of acknowledge masterpiece." ([1])
  • ALT1:... that a few years after the premiere of George Balanchine's ballet The Four Temperaments, the costumes were replaced by practice clothes (pictured)? Source: "Another early ballet for this process of reduction and concentration was “The Four Temperaments” (1946), whose Kurt Seligman costumes Balanchine began eliminating soon after the premiere. Today it’s always danced in black leotards (women) and white T-shirts and black tights (men); nobody should want it otherwise." ([2])

• Reviewed: Gorgeous (Taylor Swift song)
• Comment: Might be a good idea to get the picture cropped?

5x expanded by Corachow (talk). Self-nominated at 14:53, 30 January 2021 (UTC).

• Currently there's some issue regarding the title of the article, see talk page. Corachow (talk) 20:58, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• Moved to the current title, although it's not my preferred solution. Corachow (talk) 11:48, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

• This article is new enough and long enough and the image is suitably licensed. The hook facts are cited inline and either hook could be used, the article is neutral and I detected no copyright issues. A QPQ has been done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:54, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Article title

@CurryTime7-24: Can you please explain why did you move the article to the current title without requesting first? Most ballet articles, unless there's multiple ballets under same title, use (ballet) to disambiguate because of the involvements of both the composer and the choreographer. Also, the score was composed separately from the choreography. Corachow (talk) 20:59, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

It seemed a common sense move. The involvement of composer and choreographer cannot be "disambiguated" here; they are integral to one another, although one is more subordinate to the other. The only The Four Temperaments ballet I'm aware of is choreographed to Hindemith's eponymous music. In other words, you can have the Hindemith without the ballet, but not the ballet without Hindemith. But the article title (and content) framed it to seem as if the music were somehow incidental to the choreography, which makes no sense. If there is another well-known The Four Temperaments ballet that I'm not aware of which doesn't make use of Hindemith's music, then please let us know so a corresponding article can be made for it. CurryTime7-24 (talk) 21:04, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

There are plenty of ballets that are set to existing scores, so your argument of "you can have the (composer) without the ballet, but not the ballet without (composer)" applies to all of them yet they usually have separate articles for the score and ballet. The Four Temperaments has one article probably because Balanchine happened to be the person who commissioned it and decided to choreograph on it a few years later. From my research it seems like the score is performed separately quite often so I think the best move is to split the article to one about the score and one about the ballet (The Four Temperaments (Balanchine), which is currently a redirect). Corachow (talk) 21:12, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

That makes no sense, though. Why would the choreography need its own article? It's vitally dependent on Hindemith's music. Otherwise, what would the dancers be dancing to? I think both music and choreography can be treated in a single article; there's ample space here to discuss not only the music and choreography separately, but also how they are connected in performance and reception history. The music has an independent life outside of the ballet stage, but its very existence is also owed to Balanchine's commission, which allowed Hindemith to salvage the score he had been composing for Massine's aborted project. No reason to split the article off. CurryTime7-24 (talk) 23:19, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

My point is every ballet is dependent on the music, but when the score and ballet are created separately, they should have separate articles. However, in this case Balanchine is involved in both the score and the choreography which made everything more confusing. While Hindemith started working on the score for a ballet, the final product was merely for concerts, but Balanchine decided to choreograph on it a few years later. While that's my preferred solution, alternatively we can just move the article to The Four Temperaments, which currently redirect here, but more about the composition must be added, and please clean up the citations you added. Corachow (talk) 23:44, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Of course, that's fair. Thanks. Let me clean up those citations in a moment. CurryTime7-24 (talk) 23:53, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, I requested a move to The Four Temperaments at Wikipedia:RMTR as I think it's best to have a third person to do it. Corachow (talk) 00:02, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Infobox

I don't want to step on anybody's toes and do this myself, but is it possible to modify the infobox to display both the concert and choreographed premieres of The Four Temperaments? As it stands, the information conveyed is confusing as it would imply that there was only the 1946 premiere. But in fact the music itself was debuted three years before in Switzerland under Scherchen. CurryTime7-24 (talk) 21:08, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't think so. Corachow (talk) 00:11, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Is it possible then to move the infobox into a section where it would be more relevant? Again, the infobox is confusing; it refers only to a "premiere," not separate ones for music and ballet, even though the lede makes reference to the music's premiere under Scherchen in 1943. If modifying the information therein isn't an option for whatever reason, this issue could be improved by moving it into a section which specifically deals with Balanchine's choreography. CurryTime7-24 (talk) 01:44, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

There are plenty of GAs without infobox so I think it’s okay to not use one at all, but keep the image at the lead section. Corachow (talk) 02:00, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

That works too! CurryTime7-24 (talk) 02:24, 2 February 2021 (UTC)