Answers there are to be had, but transient answers only: in terms of goodness of fit, in terms of what this means to me today, of what I have learnt today. Nothing, then, can be further than music at its best from polemic, or propaganda, or sentimentality. It is a structure both of logical rigor and multiple probabilities, near-infinite possibilities. It is a game and it is nothing but itself.

As a baby I fell asleep hearing my father play Schubert and Schumann or Brahms’s Paganini Variations on the family’s upright piano. This was one of the defining experiences of my life.

The other thing about being a writer on music is that you get to interview the people you’ve wanted to meet for fifteen years. And it does beat working for a living.