“Oh, I don’t know—some Liszt thing, I think.”
“Classical?”
“S’pose so ... of course, nobody listens to pianoforte solos nowadays....”
“They’re too common, that’s what it is. Everybody strums on the piano, more or less.”
“I suppose you went to hear Razounov?”
“No, I couldn’t get a seat. The Hippodrome was full of people who went to see him do something eccentric.”
“Did he?”
“No, as it happened. A friend told me he just came on the platform, played like an angel for two hours, and went off again. Of course everybody was greatly disappointed.”
“Naturally....”
“Bockley isn’t a musical suburb. It doesn’t even think it is. Whereas Upton Rising thinks it is and isn’t.... I wish that pianoforte player of ours wouldn’t show so much of her red hair and try to look like a female Beethoven....”