Jack Reed

Regarding the question of speeding up film and tape, can that be done without raising the pitch of the music? I'd think that'd be a clear sign that some speeding up had been done, except in the obvious case of silent clips, for example the Dark Red Roses clip in the two-hour Balanchine documentary originally shown on PBS. This looks pretty obviously speeded up, as silent film often was "to reduce flicker" (never mind movement accuracy, right?).

That looks a good hunch when you consider that the total running time of the ballets announced so far is only about 63 minutes.

Years ago, having read that Balanchine had said of Bejart's Rite of Spring, "You can't do it, but it's the best one," I took advantage of an opportunity to see Bejart's company perform it, and I remember having a pretty good time with it, so I'm looking forward to seeing it some more. (There are a lot of men in it, as I recall, and it will be interesting to see how Farrell meets this challenge. I think she will meet it; she seldoms misses her chosen target, and then not by much. The recent Don Quixote, for example.) I say, "pretty good," because I remember being a little underwhelmed by Part II, when the women join the cast, because having watched so much Balanchine, I tended to expect things to rise to a still-higher plane when women danced, and that didn't seem to happen. Maybe men are M. Bejart's forte. But I think it's a very good choice. (Salome preceded Rite on that program, and remember thinking it was pretty silly.) No, Farrell's company isn't a Balanchine museum, carbro, more of a garden, full of living organisms which restore us when we visit; it's the life in the dances that draws me, too. From what little I've seen of it since 1986, NYCB runs the museum, an extensive mechanical exhibit apparently, although some of your own remarks give me hope that some of the mechanisms are coming back to life there. (Farrell's own results show that, in the right hands, ahem, it doesn't take much to achieve that.) Another thing comes to me as I anticipate this program: What sequence? According to the formula which has been in use at the aforementioned museum, the pas de deux will come in the middle, because there are opening ballets and closing ballets and pas de deux in the middle, like in those Chinese restaurants where you order something from column A and something from column B; but according to Balanchine's own practice, in my experience and according to Suki Schorer, for example, "His tactic for exposing the audience to work they might tend to reject was to arrange the program with the 'hard' piece in the middle, [and] people stayed to see the last ballet." (Suki Schorer on Balanchine Technique, p. 12. Obviously, there is more to Balanchine technique than how to dance!) So, any bets? I'm betting the pas de deux will open the program, so people will say, "How sweet! Loved it!" Then Monumentum/Movements, which, incidentally, has some lead-them-down-the-path strategy of its own built into its musical progression, and Rite for a rousing finale, with another boy-girl bit at the end of it. As it happens, Monumentum/Movements is among my favorites, and is of a branch of Balanchine's repertory we don't see so much these days, the "leotard" ballets. Okay, it's not Agon, I suppose. As to the West Coast, a little chanting into the ears of whoever out there hires companies in to their theatres might help. Or letters to editors, or something. Does this seem a long post about very little? I think, between the lines, I'm saying I'm really keen to see this program.

In my experience, she speaks about Balanchine with writer Nancy Goldner where she has been setting his ballets, both here in Chicago and in Miami Beach, sometimes talking about the ballets she sets and sometimes about others. Her and Goldner's remarks may be accompanied by dancing, or not. And sometimes Ashley gets up and demonstrates something, although she's wearing street clothes. Here's a couple of links to highlights of one of these speaking engagements: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...17976&hl=Ashley http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...17975&hl=Ashley

In Bugaku she showed such flexibility that after one performance I saw a woman near me remarked aptly, "That woman has been fileed!" But in a performance of Sonnambula, Kent sailed out on stage with such force and energy! At the same time she had all the delicate qualities others have mentioned above. That's part of what makes dancers uniquely interesting, like Farrell's combination of innocence and sensuality in Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.

Cynthia Gregory, IMHO, had the wittiest nose in ballet, after Tanaquil leClerq.

You know, I think so too. After all, didn't he go where he was wanted (and away from where he was not)? Early on, he worked in France, Denmark, England, but they didn't really want him there. More recently, - someone - at the New York State Theatre said into a TV camera, "This is the house of Balanchine!", and I thought, Yes, but Balanchine doesn't live there anymore. I think you're right, FF.

Dance on film or video is never quite as effective for me as it is on stage if I have a decent seat, but sometimes qualities of performance compensate - or overcompensate - for the limitations of the medium. In other words, I can be more moved by a fair bit of film than by a real performance seen from a good seat. I also saw the Don Q clips in Elusive Muse recently, and I quite agree with your comments, Michelle W. Not that I would want to see anyone imitate Farrell; that would be alien to the Balanchine way. (Indeed, Farrell danced differently each night, although her movement was recognizably, uniquely hers.) I gather from someone in the production that she shows Ron Matson (her Music Director) more than she does her dancers in order to have an expressive musical performance but to prevent her dancers from imitating her. I don't have all the details, but apparently, once the dancers have the steps and some general comments from her, it's largely up to them. In this connection, I remember once asking one of her principals whether she was perfecting her role, as I had seen several performances and they had been rather different. "Oh no," she exclaimed, "I hear the music differently each night." Nevertheless, I might have liked to see a little more abandon, too, but I note Ogden is still listed as Soloist. If she - or anyone - ever becomes anywhere near as "abandoned" as Farrell, I expect they will look like themselves, not like Farrell or anyone else.

kiki, after I slept on your question, I realized you didn't ask who's in NBoC and who's in Farrell's usual troupe. You just want to know who's dancing for her this time, right? That's not so hard to answer. Here's the list from my program, including the principals again for completeness: PRINCIPALS [4] Chan Han Goh (On leave of absence) Natalia Magnacaballi Sonia Rodriguez Runqiao Du SOLOISTS [12] Erin Mahoney Heather Ogden Shannon Parsley Bonnie Pickard Jean-Sebastien Colau Keiichi Hirano Nehemiah Kish Momchil Mladenov Jared Redick Eric Ragan Alexander Ritter Avinoam Silverman CORPS DE BALLET [29] Erin Ackert Gina Artese Amy Brandt Kristen Gallagher Celeste Gucanac Elizabeth Holowchuk Sara Ivan Lise-Marie Jourdain Alejandra Perez-Gomez Katelyn Prominski Lisa Reneau Erin Richardson Mariaelena Ruiz Parise Sellitti Cheryl Sladkin Lydia Walker Ilona Wall Amanda Weingarten Bill Biondolino Kevin Bowles James Leja Benjamin Lester Daisuke Ohno Stephen Straub Alfiero Supan Adam Toth Edward Tracz Joseph Welbes Aarik Welles APPRENTICES Megan-Marie Carlo Gwendolyn Duffy Lauren Fitzpatrick Oriana Kacicek Claire Roseland Dallas Blagg Joseph Bunn Ken Guan James Reed Hague Andrew Kaminski CHILDREN Katie Gilmartin Gabriel Hearn-Desautels Kiva McGhee Courtney Milton Marissa Ann Rocco Tiffany Terlizzi Timothee Courlouble Aaron Hilton Robert Stanley

Popcorn? Oh, popcorn popping! Yes, very apt. (Tasty, too.)

He danced Apollo with the Suzanne Farrell Ballet in recent years. (I don't remember the dates at the moment.) A photo of this by Paul Kolnik was included in a small exhibit of his work in the Kennedy Center Opera House lobby this past week, and there is supposed to be an on-line version of Kolnik's gallery walk on the Kennedy Center website eventually, with some of the images included, so maybe you can actually catch a glimpse of him in performance, Viviane.

Farrell Fan, I also find bits of the music running through my head. Now, ordinarily, when a tune gets stuck in my head, I can listen to other music for relief from it, but when I let this music play, I can see the dancing! So, my dilemma is, will I ever be able to listen to other music again? kiki, the soloists listed on the front page of the program number 12 and corps 29 but I think many members of the NBoC are included. The answer to this question might be more complicated than it appears at first. But check back in a day or two; after all, this is Ballet Talk!

Looking back over the run from Monday's viewpoint with the help of some of the latest posts - leibling's especially, and Farrell Fan's - I'm moved all over again. It was a phenomenal week - the production's strengths were many and powerful. Someone should mention Zack Brown's name - he's the scenic designer - because, thanks to a discussion with a friend from New York who came down for the weekend and who helped me remember more of the first setting than the few black-and-white pictures do, I think his work in this is really better than Esteban Frances's orginals. For example, there was a staircase at the left before, just hidden by a curtain; Brown's stair is enclosed in a giant book, which Marcela opens very early in the ballet - Sancho Panza makes his entrance down it - and, very late, when Don Quixote is on his deathbed, she slowly closes it: The Don's reading is over. Considering the role the Don's reading plays in the plot, this is wonderful, compared to a mere curtain. And my friend recalled for us how dead Frances's Act II was, but while Brown and Holly Hynes have retained the dominent color scheme - black trimmed in gold - the scene doesn't look dead to me - the light fixtures overhead, the metal details in the grand staircase (on the right in this scene) down which the guests arrive at the ball, indeed little glints of light play off the gold trim on the costumes of the aristocrats like echoes of the handsome fixtures above. (I could quibble about the tapestry behind the Duchess's throne, which is so "busy" the Don disappers into it when he stands motionless in front of it, but as my friend pointed out, the aristos pay him no attention either, until it suits them to taunt him, so it fits.) Anyway, for me, the ballet takes off when this scene begins - it's very attractive when we first see it, and the dancing is mostly better than in Act I, and there's more of it. Not that Act I is nothing. It establishes the characters and the situation and it entertains, too, intermittently: I was delighted by the puppet show, richly imagined by someone who knew what children couldn't do, and didn't force that issue, and how much they could do, and exploited that, in the best sense of the word. But what prodigious dancing there was last week! leibling's examples are really good ones - post more often, leibling! - because they show the individuality Balanchine encouraged and Farrell encourages, not merely among dancers but among each dancer's dances. Mahoney's two dances were so very differently done that when I first saw them I experienced a kind of cognitive disconnect between what I had seen and what the program book told me - that it was the same dancer in both, at the same performance. And so I think you're right, leibling, Pickard's highly detailed dancing is what Farrell tries to draw from her dancers in the sense that, in my experience anyway, this way of detailing what she shows us is uniquely Pickard's way among Farrell's dancers (like the dancing of Deanna Seay among the others in MCB, my other favorite company). Or was this what you meant? And Ogden's last Dulcinea was the most marvelous - in the Dream Ballet in Act III she seemed to be pressing onward into risky new territory from the strong, clear verticality that has been hers so far in this production. Do you think so also, Farrell Fan? Or did you see this sooner in the run? If I had to choose between Mauresque women, I would still prefer Magnicaballi by a small margin over Sladkin - Magnicaballi seemed to me more creamy-clear, large and flowing, showing greater mastery, although Sladkin was often sharper, some details slipped away from her. But Magnicaballi is an established principal, and Sladkin, as Mike points out, is listed in the corps! Both showed us what a great little gem this is, and it's one of those times I'm lucky I didn't have to choose - thanks to the three women - the two dancers and Ms. Farrell - I got both. Sladkin's third performance in Mauresque Sunday afternoon was even better than her eye-popping one on Saturday's matinee, and was preceeded by a few minutes by another corps girl, Lisa Reneau, in her one performance of Rigaudon Flamenco, with Runqiao Du. If it was a debut, it didn't look like one; it was clear and assured. But to return to leibling's post, I also wanted a little more drama here and there. For example, when I wash my feet, I lift each one and put it down. And at the end, Marcela is rather dutiful about closing the book and crouching to pick up the sticks to make the cross she lays on Don Quixote. Does she realize what finality closing the book signifies? Maybe she could caress wistfully the edge of the book as she slowly crouches, with her head at a bit of an angle against it too? Or is this sentimental? Just an idea. So much of this production is at such a high level - mainly the ensembles, variations, divertissements and the designs, but not entirely - that when a lapse or blank spot appears, it shows, by contrast.

Juliet, I'm sorry I missed you, too, but, with a little luck, there'll be other productions, of other ballets. But it was nice to meet carbro, and renew some other acquaintances. I agree about Ogden, her performances were very rich, although I found the dances to be too, after a while; lots of unexpected but flowing sequences make them virtuoso. (I couldn't help trying to imagine Farrell doing them.) I thought she was even better this afternoon. Alexandra, I think there's a lot more Tarantella than Allegro Brillante in the Courante Sicilienne (among the Act II Divertissements), especially in the ensembles the dance (for six, for those who didn't go) opens and closes with. Some of the duets have material that reminds me of A. B., though. Thanks for posting those ideas; I like anything that gets me to see more deeply into something I'm watching. I think the T. stuff is what makes it Sicilienne.

I agree, Mike, you'd hardly know it was the same dancer! Chalk up Friday evening to debut nerves, or something, I guess. For the record, I still find Magnicaballi more satisfying, but I want to see Sladkin again. Yes, I think the production as a whole is jelling, notwithstanding a few mishaps this evening (Saturday), especially around the transition in Act III from the Garden (Scene 1) to La Mancha. And also tonight, Mladenov showed many strengthened and clarified moments, the procession at the end didn't bunch up, and so on - people have been at work on this, apparently. But, Alexandra, could you be a little more specific about the references you saw? Allegro Brillante? I recently saw a few performances of that, and I would like to know where that and the other examples are. (Not that I doubt what you say or anything like that.) I also think Heather Ogden has the edge on Sonia Rodriguez as Dulcinea - they're both a little too "vertical" and correct in a role originated by someone famously abandoned, but I wouldn't expect many dancers to leave behind hard-earned technique quickly - but Ogden has more dramatic imagination, I'd say. One little improvement I'd like to see someday, if it's not impractical, is to have more of the cast take final bows. If I remember correctly, there are eight at the end - the three principals, the two solo couples from the dream ballet in the Garden scene, and the conductor. There are droves of people in this. Still, maybe it's a lot to expect to have people wait around while Act III finishes up. Speaking of the conductor, the orchestra plays more vividly for Ron Matson than for Ormsby Wilkins.

Friday evening, Cheryl Sladkin and Alexander Ritter took over the Pas De Deux Mauresque from Magnicaballi and Kish, and while Ritter was fine, it was a little inauspicious for Sladkin, whose dancing looked small-scale - except when she had his support. I got more out of Rodriguez's Dulcinea this evening than previously, beginning with her long dance late in Act I, which still looked incompletely realized; but her dancing in the dream scene beginning Act III did look clear, secure, and fully mastered, right out to her fingertips "but no farther," as a BTer I met who had seen Farrell and Leland aptly put it. And Magnicaballi's Variation in the dream ballet was beautiful, while Pickard's Ritournel in Act II was again large, beautifully shaped and nuanced, as it had been opening night, if not better.

Clare Croft has a good, accurate, detailed review of Wednesday's performance in this morning's Washington Post, but she makes a mistake on the history of the casting of this ballet where she says no one but Farrell danced Dulcinea: Had she looked in Nancy Reynolds's Forty Years of the New York City Ballet, she would have found that Sara Leland and Kay Mazzo danced Dulcinea, too. And looking there myself, I got to thinking: Some of the other Dons are still very much with us, Jacques d'Amboise, Richard Rapp, and Jean-Pierre Bonnefous. (I think Francisco Moncion is no longer among us; apologies if I'm wrong in this bit of history myself.) Maybe Mladenov could benefit from some coaching from one of them? (I saw both Bonnefous and Moncion, opposite Leland, in 1972, and preferred Moncion as a "prodigy of detail," according to my notes.) "'The dancer cast as Dulcinea'" is right on, Michelle W; and my progression in the effect of her performance as that dancer was the same. But there was a similar progression, though less well projected and effective for me (sitting in an upstairs seat more to the side), in Rodriguez's performance Wednesday, so maybe we are also seeing something in the role as staged this time. We'll see. Or maybe not.

Yes, there are both a synopsis of the story and cast credits in the program, but even if you do read them, you won't have an outline of the ballet anything like some of the books we talk about here provide. Anyway, Thursday night I had a much better time, and I had a much better seat, too, to be fair to Sonia Rodriguez, last night's Dulcinea; nevertheless, Heather Ogden's dancing seemed more supple, after being a little stiff and careful in the solo with the sheperd's crook. Indeed, at the end of Act II, in the Pas de Deux with Don Q, she was lovely, and she was even better in the dream early in Act III, although actually, both women opened this dance with the lovely port de bra Farrell had quoted Balanchine last night as evoking by telling some dancers, "It's like you're opening the windows in Monte Carlo and smelling the salt in the sea air," a simile I believeFarrell added she didn't get until sometime later but now uses herself. It sure gets results, from the looks of it. I'll be interested in others' comments as to whether they think Ogden projects better than Rodriguez. But one of the problems with B's Don Q is that neither of these women have Farrell's power to carry it. Another old timer claimed, I think correctly, that while there have been several excellent Diamonds performers other than Farrell, none of whom looked like her, some other ballets haven't had the same success without her. Chaconne is one, and Don Quixote is another. So we have the other dances, like the Act II Court Dance and Divertissements and the Dream in Act III, where Dulcinea appears later. (For that matter, there were some ballets she couldn't do: Balanchine let her try anything, this person pointed out, even The Four Temperaments, which "didn't work.") Bonnie Pickard's dancing is always on a large scale, beautifully nuanced, and very effective even from my somewhat distant locations, and her Rigaudon Flamenco tonight was like that. With her in that, Erin Mahoney took over the Ritournel, the last of the Divertissements, and I wrote "another wow!" in my program. She doesn't look like Pickard - why should she? - but she also made it a powerfully effective end to the suite. Some of the audience where I sat tonight had a pretty good time with much of Act I, including the superbly imagined puppet drama, nearly all done by children (except for some magical lifts done through a slit in the backdrop of the puppet theatre) well within their abilities. Nevertheless, most of the two rows in front of me were empty by the start of Act III. *sigh* And the music hardly ever bothers me now. Thank God for small favors, I guess.

Natalia, that's a nice expressive fantasy about the announcement over the P. A., I hear where you're coming from, but as a practical matter, I sometimes just butt in with something like, "Not enough dancing for you, either?" or "Didn't go for the first part?" and let those gathering up their belongings to leave know that what's next is different and in what ways. It's often worked in spades for me - people are so happy for a good tip 'midst all the hype in our lives - and so far at least, even people who disagree at the end are polite about it, and appreciate the consideration they're shown. Doesn't our passion need all the adherents it can get?

I'm in general agreement that the mime and "acting" were not very effective, and I'm ready to take Natalia's word for it that the RDB outclasses this from the first moment. (They have, I think, decades or centuries behind them, while this production has five weeks - not to excuse, but to try to account for it.) Act II, which is mostly dance, arrived not a moment too soon; dancing is what these performers know. For me, Magnicaballi and Kish's Pas de Deux Mauresque, the third Divertissement, and Bonnie Pickard's Ritournel, the last of the Act II Divertissements, were among the few high points, and I also enjoyed Shannon Parsley's Danza della Caccia, the second one. (I prefer the Mauresque costumes on the Kennedy Center's website, from Farrell's previous showing of this, to the nearly-monochrome ones we saw last night.) And I also enjoyed the dream-dance which begins Act III, even - rather, especially - when it begins to become disturbed toward the end. And the bit of stagecraft Tammy mentions was very effective, upstaging Momchil Mladenov's Don. (He is the only one in the cast lists; I hope by the end of the run we will see more preparation or development from him.) But there are no "big" relationship pas de deux. Indeed, this is not a very "dancey" ballet, and the pyschological and philosophical themes are perhaps inherently difficult to show, ironically in a piece of work from someone who famously remarked, "There are no mothers-in-law in ballet," that is, there are things you can't adequately show in ballet. *People who are tempted to leave at the first intermission should somehow be informed that the dancing comes next, in Act II and the beginning of Act III.* As to Nabokov's music: Ron Matson and Farrell did some snipping here and there to remove what Matson calls "paper music" - music that looks good on paper, according to ways of composing in fashion at the time, but - well, they decided to take some of it out, especially where Farrell didn't have any action. I remember the music gave me a lot of trouble when I saw the ballet a few times in 1972 (never with Balanchine in it). I don't enjoy Berg's music either, but in his opera Wozzeck I take his cracked harmonies as generating the world of Wozzeck's cracked mind, and I enjoy the opera from beginning to end, and so, when I hear Nabokov's music for this ballet, I take it that way, too, but it's so thin, I can keep it in the background of my attention where I don't really listen closely to it, unusually in a Balanchine ballet, where typically the music is equally important to the choreography and often seems to generate it. Noreen, for what it's worth, I'm told NBoC wants to inaugurate its new building with this production, and construction is far behind schedule; that seems to be what's holding up their staging of it. I hope for your sake and others' that the intervening time will be put to good use in the studio.

NPR's Morning Edition today broadcast a short "segment" twice, just before the hours of 9:00 and 10:00, in which Kim Kokich presented Suzanne Farrell talking about this production and also George Jackson talking about past ones. I think people with the appropriate audio player on their computers can hear such items from the NPR website later on the day of broadcast, so check it out. (There was not a lot really new, but for me, it's fresh, nevertheless : Farrell said, for example, "I feel him [balanchine] in every book, every piece of scenery.") In Paul Kolnik's Gallery Walk and Talk last evening, we found out his response to what he sees and especially to what he catches with his camera is also what I would call transcendant. His interpretations of his images and of the reception they got from Balanchine were an enlarging experience to hear, and I am glad to report that an "interactive" version of the talk is supposed to go online eventually at artsedge.kennedy-center.org, with images of the pictures and an edited version of Kolnik's comments. Meanwhile, though, I suggest planning at least a few minutes to give time to the exhibit, in the Opera House lobby, of the fourteen or so affecting photos (some of Farrell, many of her company). There's also a central case with a display centered on Don Quixote, with costumes (Farrell's "Dulcinea" costume is on loan from the Smithsonian, if I remember correctly) and Farrell's "memory book". Suzanne Carbonneaux gave a lecture Monday about Farrell and Don Quixote which was enthusiastically received by a self-described "arts critic" in Kolnik's audience. I wasn't here yet. Did anybody go? What did she say? What did you think?

(from Washington, DC) I'm here for the run! Meeting by the Kennedy bust sounds like a good, albeit popular, idea. Tonight I'm at a dinner, and I don't know wheher we will be herded directly into the Opera House (this "cosseting" clashes somewhat with my democratic instincts, I must say), but at other performances I'll loiter there, and I'd be pleased to meet other BT'ers. I expect to wear my customary pink face (although I'm feeling a little pale this morning, in spite of my level of anticipation), blue eyes, and very pale blond hair.

Maybe some of the actual contents of the articles disappoint expectations aroused by the list in the front: I did find Levenkov's article on Apollo more than interesting; the text refreshed and enlivened the ballet in memory for me, and the historic photos, fascinating in themselves, make me all the more appreciative of the powerfully clarifying and simplifying effect of the ending of the last (complete) version I think most of us know, including the slight alteration of the arms in the last moment to the linked arrangement, compared to some earlier stagings with both of each dancers' arms forward and with some pretty amazing concepts for Mount Olympus. But Levenkov lost me completely where he plunges too abruptly, and without explanation, into his geste concept in a publication intended, I thought, for the general audience or at least one of of aficiandos, not academic scholars (not that these are entirely separate); and speaking of the photos, am I the only one who suspects that the caption under the one on page 85 is wrong and that that is Ib Andersen, not Peter Martins, as Apollo? (I'll bet someone here can clear me up about both matters.) But really peculiar to me was the article by Barbara Newman (page 62), who thinks it was the printed and graphic decorations in the New York State Theatre lobby that were "evidence of the [NYCB]'s pride and respect for Balanchine's accomplishments" rather than how authentically the ballets were danced on the theatre's stage, a matter she says she doesn't want to "debate," not that she's completely oblivious to matters of style, saying in the context of the Royal Ballet's anniversary that Fonteyn's personal qualities "Ashton transformed into an entire style and repertory." So does the repertory exist without certain qualities and style in its performance? It looks to me like in saying there is good news in their still being danced she wants us to believe that ballets still exist in performances lacking the style their choreographers made them in, in contradiction of herself.

But is she right, FF? I picked up the magazine because of your post, and I found her article peculiar. We have another forum for that kind of discussion, and here's a short-cut to it: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...29entry158929

carbro, the only change like that I can corroborate is the substitution of Concerto Barocco, with Watts, Lavery and Nichols, for Tchaikovsky Pas De Deux, with Watts and Luders, in the Sunday evening performance, but my run of programs ends with Tuesday, 3rd May, and doesn't resume until the 20th. (I recall this change was out of consideration to Luders.) The Magic Flute, Mother Goose, and The Four Seasons were performed on the days after Mr. B's death as previously annouced, appropriate to a period of mourning or not. (Thinking about all this reminds me of Balanchine's observation that "Americans make too much of death" and his statement that "In Russia, we drank a toast to the guy who died." When I heard much later that some people were thinking of holding a memorial on 30th April, I mentioned this and suggested that 22nd January might be more appropriate, in celebration of his coming to us.)