By seven o'clock the orchestra has arrived, no thin five-piece affair, but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos, and low and high drums.
The flutes sink into a dreamy melody, soon to be joined by the oboes and tremolando strings, the melody gyrating somnabulistically and evanescing pp after eight bars.
" Well, this is a bad night altogether for them that have done well in their time; and if I were ever such a dab at the hautboy or tenor viol, I shouldn't have the heart to play tunes upon 'em now."
His first love was certainly music, for when he left Oxford, where he read politics, philosophy and economics, he went to the Paris Conservatoire and became a professional oboist.