Music was full of prodigies: tiny infants picking out chord sequences, concert performers under ten years old, composers who wrote great works in their teens. And here he was, over eighteen and still a student. He wanted to blurt out that he had started late, that his family had been too poor to think of music lessons, that he had come to music only when he found that, almost against his will, melodies arose in his head to go with poetry that he was reading.

He couldn’t say any of that. Instead, to hide his self-consciousness, and with “Erstarrung” still in his head, he began to play the restless, uneasy triplets of the song’s introduction.

“I’ve heard that a couple of times,” said the voice behind him. “But it’s a man’s song. Do you know ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’?”

“ ‘Margaret at the spinning-wheel’?” Drake was much more comfortable with the English translation. He paused for a moment, then began to play a steady, pulsing figure.

“That’s it,” the girl said at once. “Did you know that Schubert wrote it when he was only seventeen?”

“I know.” It was a possible criticism, making the point that Drake was a lot older than seventeen and had done nothing. But before he could say more she went on: “It’s a little bit high for me. But I can handle it. Start over.”

After the four brief figures of the introduction she began to sing, “Mein Ruh ist hin, mein Herz ist schwer.” “My peace is gone, my heart is heavy.” Drake, understanding the German words only vaguely but feeling the strong musical rapport between them, put all his mind into his playing, sensing and adapting to her vocal line.

They performed the whole song. After the final slowing chords on the piano there was total silence. He turned and found a smile on her face that matched his own delight. Before they could speak, a sound came from the doorway: four steady hand claps.