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To “English” eyes then, particularly at a time when English choreography was performed in such a sludgy way, the tungsten strength, crispness and speed of NYCB dancers were a surprise. The impersonal performing style and choreographic tradition were alienating.

So now? Well, no wow.

The scale of the current season is far less the embarrassment of riches that we saw in 1983 (three weeks of fluidly programmed bills including works not seen before – or since – in London), nor from reading Clive Barnes’ interesting programme, note as encompassing as the NYCB seasons in London in the 1950s. A new generation of principals, yet to put down their own stamp, is carrying the baton.

Intrigued to discover more of his work, we saw the Jerome Robbins’ bill – a bill that showed the dancers to better advantage than the choreographer.

Te programme doesn’t help so I don’t know the origins of Robbins version of The Four Seasons (thankfully not to Vivaldi, though Verdi is a mixed blessing). It looks like a graduation piece for students that sat uncomfortably on adult dancers. The cutsey humour, the baroque tableaux and posturing and naff designs detracted from some lovely classically inspired choreography, delivered with élan.

Too long (though the music was not so intractable as the Verdi used in Ballo della regina), the ballet was enjoyable in part. Best – the winter ensemble girls were elegant and crisp; Sara Mearns and Jared Angle in the spring duet; the sheer attack of the autumn section as a whole, Ashley Bouder’s spinning a delight as were Benjamin Millepied’s pyrotechnics – and if we must have a frolicking faun, Daniel Ulbright did all we can expect.

Moves, delivered in silence bar the occasional grumbling of the London underground, started like one of those easy to satirise improvisation exercises. It did become engrossing – particularly the sequence for the five men – and at half the length would have remained so. Best to admire the control, steel and attack of the cast – but this, as The Four Seasons, does not etch itself in the memory. The cold, impersonal performing, as much as the choreography?

Unlike The Concert. Even when you know the jokes this remains a clever and very funny work. Played broad and fast by NYCB it delivered all its humour – Andrew Veyette excellent as the cigar chomping husband, Sterling Hyltin’s dizzy, Giselle hair had a life of its own.

So not wowed, but I do recognise the precision, crispness of attack and energy in these performances that I saw NYCB had rediscovered when seeing them on their home territory last year. As a troupe, they’re looking in better shape than in performances I’d seen in the earlier years this decade.