Waiting for the auditorium to fill, Anton sat back and gazed up at the rococo ceiling. He was grateful for the women’s talk because it gave him time to calm his nerves. Katrin seemed excited by the new experience, though, as a child of privilege, immediately at ease with it. Delphine was still being a professional companion, prompting responses from Katrin, even slipping into French at one point. And he, Anton, what was he? Alive, he thought: alive, at least. Drenched in the moment. He brought a sort of middle-class wariness. He was confident that he could rely on his good manners, but he was watchful, taking nothing as his due.

Schoenberg came up first. It was a string quartet – a strict form, Anton thought, that it would be hard to turn into an atonal mess. The players assembled downstage, in front of the space set up for the orchestra; the first violin raised his bow and they began. It seemed to Anton that the instruments were all playing a different piece. It was hard to settle into it; there were none of the repetitions of Mozart or Haydn that formed a reassuring progress with a conclusive ripple at the end of each section. In later movements, the cello groaned while the violins plinked and pirouetted; he had an image of a skylark, high up in the clouds, while on the ground beneath some low sounds were prophesying war.

He closed his eyes to concentrate better, but opened them again when to his amazement he heard a woman’s voice. A singer had joined the players and stood with her hands folded at the waist. This was not what he’d expected in a string quartet. Was it allowed? The soprano trilled indignantly, as if someone had made her an indecent proposal. It was hard to distinguish the words. Then she took on a religious air and Anton gathered that her character had been spared from death by some sexual or holy rapture.

The applause in the hall was polite.

Delphine was smiling. ‘At least no one’s walked out,’ she said. ‘That’s what normally happens with Schoenberg.’

‘Is it?’

‘Some places ask in advance if you’re a walker-out by nature, then they seat you in the aisle so as not to put off the performers.’

‘I hated it,’ said Katrin. ‘Especially the singer.’

Trying not to think how much the evening had cost him, Anton said, ‘I’m sure you’ll like the symphony more.’

The players had found their cramped places behind the music stands, whispering and smiling to one another as they shuffled in and sat. The conductor rapped his baton on the rail of the podium, raised his arms … and … well, the symphony was certainly much easier to lose oneself in, Anton thought. Was that a woodwind cuckoo, for instance, calling above the strings? Mahler liked to keep you on your toes, but, unlike Schoenberg, he didn’t try to knock you off your feet. He clearly had in mind a pattern whose shape would be revealed if you were prepared to go along with him. In the final movement, there was a teasing return to earlier themes, which then seemed to be left hanging; but underneath it all there was an architecture, whose grandeur was revealed at last.