We pull up a block away from the Free Trade Hall, a mock-Victorian mausoleum that no one could mistake for a house of pleasure. I purchase a pair of ten-pound stalls seats for the Manchester Chamber Society’s all-Mozart matinée. The bulk of the audience is already seated – several busloads of pensioners trawled in from care homes and day centres in a well-intentioned initiative to preserve them from turning into sodden lumps. Some of the women are dressed in worn finery; the men have barely bothered to climb out of carpet slippers. ‘What time does it start?’ quavers one chap, a former military man in blue blazer, stained grey trousers. ‘Will we be home in time for Coronation Street? Is it Corrie night tonight?’

A flock of students has been let in for free, but their gaiety is subdued by geriatric blankness and the hall’s inbuilt gloom. The orchestral musicians, drifting on to the stage in their English couldn’t-give-a-toss way, take one look at the audience and slump into their seats. The concert is conductorless, cheaper that way, and mortally clichéd. ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’ is followed by the clarinet concerto; tea interval, then the G minor symphony. I am grimly regretting having brought Dovidl to such a despondent event, but the instant the hackneyed music strikes up he leans forward to the limits of his seat, chasing the sounds with the ends of his nerves, inserting himself at the centre of the performance. In the clarinet concerto, I fear for one nasty moment that he is about to jump up and start conducting, so ragged is the ensemble. When it ends, amid shuffling applause, his face is suffused with pleasure, as if he has just consumed a gourmet meal, or made love. ‘We can go now,’ he grins, ‘it is not going to get any better.’

I apologise for the miserable experience. ‘On the contrary,’ he exclaims, ‘it has been wonderfully instructive. First, I have been relieved of the temptation ever to attempt Mozart again – it’s too subtle to be played with anything less than total conviction. Second, I have no urge to play with an orchestra.’

‘There are better bands,’ I protest, ‘and fine conductors for hire.’

‘Save your money.’ He laughs. ‘I intend to play solo Bach in the first half, like it or leave it. After the interval, I might try out some of my own compositions, variations on various themes by Hassidic masters. Something different, what do you think?’

‘Sounds good, cross-cultural sells well. Do we need a support act, a singer, a pianist?’

‘No, if they want Rapoport, they can have him neat, no ice.’

‘You’re sounding a little more enthused,’ I venture.

‘Why not?’ he responds, in the Jewish interrogative. ‘How many men of my age get to top the bill at the Royal Albert Hall?’

I mention Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie, Pablo Casals – pointlessly. He gives a blank look, as if he remembers none of them.