‘Good morning, Herr Richard,’ Ulli said silently to Wagner’s bust. It had a noble mien – much idealised – and Ulli never failed to bid it good morning. Wagner’s operas brought the company coffers quantities of income: they owed the old codger a dreadful debt of thanks. And whatever you thought of the man, his unspeakable arrogance and the suspicion that every time he looked in a mirror he saw Nietzsche’s Superman, there was no getting away from the glory of his music. He had unveiled the libretto of Die Meistersinger to Willy and Ludwig’s grandfather downstairs in the same offices some 70 years earlier. The Strecker brothers, having inherited the family business, insisted that nothing in that historic space must be changed, so the Wagner Room kept its character: the fine-limbed wooden furniture, the graceful cornicing, and a very elderly piano – nobody dared to touch it now – on which Liszt and Wagner had both played. While other firms moved to Berlin to be at the centre of German cultural life, Schott’s stayed put, their location and history prime assets. Here in Mainz, Johannes Gutenberg had invented the modern process of printing: now the Streckers kept their products rolling off the presses not a mile away from that first machine. And Ulli, as general, all-round, right-hand editorial man, would make certain that everything was progressing smoothly and on time. Beauty, inspiration and order. Strange ideals, perhaps, at a time of fire – of the Reichstag, of books, of democracy itself – but ones only to be found in art.

‘Tough day ahead, Ulli,’ Wagner’s bust seemed to warn him this morning. ‘Hold on and keep your strength. You’re going to need it.’

Fräulein Kammerling tapped on his office door minutes later. ‘Dr Schultheiss, I have a call from Herr Doktor Professor Donald Tovey at Edinburgh University. He wanted Dr Strecker, but please could you speak to him?’ Willy was away in Munich, meeting another composer, Carl Orff.

‘Tovey? On the phone? Of course – please put him through.’

While he was Schott’s representative in London, before the Great War lobbed him into the indignity of the Alexandra Palace internment camp – which was not palatial at all – Willy Strecker served as Tovey’s unofficial concert agent and business manager, as well as his publisher. Schott still published his compositions.

Ulli listened as Tovey explained the developments at the d’Arányi and Fachiri family home, his incredulity growing with every word. A Schumann violin concerto? Messages from a glass game? The whole thing had to be a joke.

‘A Schumann concerto turning up would be astonishing, but who in the name of heaven is going to believe this? And from Joachim’s great-nieces? Professor Tovey, these ladies may be amazing musicians – I remember hearing Jelly play when I was a boy – but they are having you on.’