‘The d’Arányis are not Jewish,’ Raabe intervened, to Ulli’s surprise. ‘One quarter, perhaps, but that’s all.’

‘You know perfectly well that’s enough,’ snapped the supposed backstop.

‘They are devout Christians and the descendants of Hungarian aristocracy,’ Willy Strecker managed to add.

‘And of a Jewish fiddler,’ said Goebbels.

Ulli stewed. To think that a man who held such power was so pig-ignorant, so poisoned with state-approved madness, that he would dismiss Joachim, the greatest violinist of the 19th century, best friend of Brahms and Schumann, as ‘a Jewish fiddler’? Worse, he could not stand up and punch the living daylights out of him. He’d be shot. He understood now that nothing he and the Streckers did or said could change one cog in the wheel of Goebbels’s gravy train. At least Raabe had inadvertently saved Ulli’s skin, for now.

‘Enough.’ Goebbels detached himself from the table and began to pace the length of the room. ‘She can’t do it in any case. Professor Kulenkampff wants exclusivity. A nice, long year of it.’

Ulli diverted his gaze to the wooden table. Better not risk staring at the minister and his club foot. This was a man whose party wanted to sterilise or euthanize those who were crippled. Imagine his inner landscape. How he must hate himself.

‘As we all agree, Professor Kulenkampff is a fine violinist,’ Willy said. ‘Nevertheless, that’s a long time for one musician alone to perform such an important work. After the premiere there’ll be soloists, orchestras and conductors queuing up to programme it, coming to us for the parts. What are we to tell them? That we can’t help them because of Professor Kulenkampff? It would cause a great deal of bad feeling and would ultimately risk rebounding against the concerto and Professor Kulenkampff himself. So it’s hardly in his interests.’

‘German artists overseas will want to play it as well. We can’t exclude performances abroad,’ Ludwig added.

‘There’s another point, too, if I may,’ Ulli ventured, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘If the concerto is to replace the Mendelssohn in concert life, it needs to become well known rapidly, and though that will certainly happen if Professor Kulenkampff plays it, still it must be performed more times in more places than one violinist can manage, to increase the public’s familiarity. Professor Kulenkampff has a teaching post here in Berlin and is highly sought after. I was a student at his college myself, actually, while Professor Schünemann was its director.’

Raabe gave a brief nod. Goebbels paused in his tracks.