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I was engrossed in the enfolding drama of the first Ashes test last week when the wife informed me that she would like to see a Russian pianist.

I wasn’t listening carefully at the time, and it was only when I overheard the office polymath talking excitedly about the upcoming performance of maestro Dmitry Shishkin in the Winter Symphonies at the Cape Town City Hall that I began to relax about the state of our marriage. We do, after all, live on the Atlantic seaboard.

My subconscious must have inadvertently mixed some metaphors.

I snapped up a pair of tickets immediately. Rachmaninov has been a playlist regular since Jeffrey Rush made David Helfgott shine. The frantic rambling over the black and white ivories of his Concerto No. 2 in a metaphor of a brisk stream running over river stones in a winding path is as catchy as the Back Street boys in their prime. It hangs around the back of your mind like a pleasing advertising ditty.

I began to wonder out loud why Dmitry was bothering to play in a provincial backwater in winter rather than the grand halls of Europe in summer, when the Polymath shot me a glace and I realized my geopolitical radar was askance.

Did he come on the Russian frigate as a cultural Trojan horse/attache to persuade irate liberal Capetonians that the Russians love their children too and as a tacit reminder of their credentials in the temporal arts? Or did he catch a ride back in Cyril’s jet after the highly publicized African peacekeeping mission?

The Cape Town City Hall is a credit to the city and those who guard it. It is an imposing edifice in the Edwardian style built from honey-coloured oolitic limestone and most famous as the soap box where Nelson Mandela spoke first of peace, democracy, and freedom for all only a few hours after being released from prison.

Cyril was aware of seizing an opportunity even in those days as he helpfully held the microphone for the great man, while capitalist South Africa exhaled a collective sigh of relief.

The hall has received a spit and a polish after it has doubled as the seat of the South African parliament since January 2022 when our own version of Guy Fawkes tried to burn down the houses of parliament in a visceral raising of the largest red flag since the Guptas landed at the Waterkloof Airforce base. Although we all pretended not to notice. We are too comfortable boiling in the post-colonial pot with the other frogs.

I have always found Capetonian cultural audiences fascinating. I eyed them up with amusement as I sipped on a glass of red on the upstairs balcony under the clock tower. It was a fine winter evening for a change, and I was in a good mood.

I had spent a decade in London in the Naughties and, I am an Anglophile, to an extent. This means I feel more comfortable when people wear uniforms to formal events. It makes me feel safe. I can’t understand how someone with the cultural pedigree to pay money to watch an orchestra play classical music could decide that jeans, vellies, a beanie and an electric blue K-Way puffer is an appropriate outfit to watch an orchestra dressed in tuxedos and formal equivalents in the most salubrious building in the city.

It would almost be better if everyone chose this uniform, but they don’t. This is a disparate bunch, and a stylist’s nightmare. They regard their right to dress badly and differently as a symbol of their individuality.

This crowd is the usual mix of stranded swallows, elderly queens, decrepit former ministers of the regime, university professors, and a growing band of indistinguishable intellectuals with a quantitative bent who code from home whenever the hell they feel like it in exchange for hard currency.

The outfits embraced the spectrum from dinner jackets complete with bow ties, faux leather trouser suits, crimplene dresses finished in gauze, bedazzled blouses, brown corduroy jackets with leather elbow patches, mauve fedoras,
lounge suits for the advocates, and even a few Eastern Cape Tuxedos for the Wasps – chino, light blue button down, navy blazer.

One gentleman stood out in a pair of tartan trews and a matching waistcoat in oranges and scarlets. He wore an olive-green smoking jacket, and his moustaches were waxed into upturned points at the ends. His silver-tipped stick was swung gaily to accentuate his points.

One thing the crowd had in common, besides the music of course, was a healthy thirst. The bars were packed, and most punters drank rather than sipped, as if they were taking medicine. This is not surprising.

The wine was young and astringent with young tannins. And God knows this world has so many problems that sometimes the only peace one can find these days lies at the bottom of the bottle. Particularly when one has ninety minutes of classical music ahead of you where you can feel the wine slowly take effect and then recede while the notes provide a pleasing overlay.

I was disappointed that none of the members of the ruling party had turned up, given their legacy of reciprocal support for Russia. At least some of the comrades from the Radical Economic Transformation Spetsnaz would have increased the price points of the haute couture on show. A thin layer of cultural aspiration would also help them lose the arriviste tags they have acquired since establishing themselves as the only local clientele for the section of the Waterfront reserved for brands from LVMH.

There was also a poor showing from the Southern Suburbs.

Absolutely no-one wore a Barbour jacket,  Todd’s, or a pastel cashmere sweater. Perhaps they are already in Greece? Could they be making a statement against Russia? Or maybe there was a big dinner party in Constantia that evening? I met a fellow called Algernon in the wine queue and a lady with a bull ring in her nose topped up my claret. It was that sort of event. I was almost put out when the bell rang for us to take our seats.

The upgrade of the hall had extended to the interior. Half of the height of the walls are paneled in gleaming oak while the remainder is freshly painted in the theme of a wedding cake.

We were seated in the third row of the stalls with a fine view of the front of the orchestra. It was a full house and the cheap seats between the orchestra and the organ were filled with the motley dressed audience who had done their best to ruin my backdrop. I ignored them and focused on the music to come.

White-haired patricians looked down their noses at the plebians from the boxes. I hadn’t noticed them earlier, but they were suitably dressed, as you would expect. After all, they were funding the show – at least those of them who were left behind to look after the dogs while the rest of the family was in Vienna seeing the real thing.

The orchestra warmed up in that odd fashion where French horns parp randomly while violinists test out their tuning in sporadic squeals. We broke into enthusiastic applause when the conductor appeared from stage left. His formerly black shirt had faded into dark grey. I am not sure if this seasoned look was intentionally curated to accentuate his experience or whether he is so consumed by the music that the colour of his shirt is a trifle. He sported an appropriate mop of grey hair in an Einstein style.

This all added to his credibility.

The orchestra responded to his commands with feeling and soon we were transported into that dreamy state between meditation and sleep where it becomes difficult to remember things to write about other than the quality
of the salve.

Our hors d’oeuvres were Ravel – For a Dead Princess and some Beethoven. And when they came to an end, I couldn’t understand why we don’t come every Thursday. After all, my doctor has prescribed meditation, and this is the most palatable form.

A shining black Grand Steinway was in its place in the center of the stage when we returned from the interval. Its key lid stood open like the bonnet of a broken-down limousine, and it became obvious why I had been able to buy tickets in the second row a week before. We had an excellent view of Dmitry’s shining dress shoes, the key lid, and the top of his immaculate hairdo. We couldn’t see his fingers at all, although I know from YouTube that they are long and strong.

He had made his entrance earlier in a calculated rush. A slim figure of medium build, taking quick sure-footed steps. He wore a tailored tuxedo with an open-necked dress shirt. His ears were slightly above average which I assumed would be handy. And he looked more like Vasilios than Dmitry.

He began hammering the keys immediately with purposeful efficiency. It was clear, even from where we were sitting, that he had comfortably done his ten thousand hours. The first violinist watched his hands like an aging schoolmistress would her star pupil. With awe and marvel. As did the patricians from the boxes on the left side of the hall which in this case, was the right side.

The emotion that he and old Rachmaninov got out of an inanimate object made of wood and a few strings is hardly fathomable. The masterpiece goes around the houses a bit with several banging crescendo’s which then meander away on other paths while maintaining a sound musical arc and pulling our emotions along for the ride.

Rachmaninov’s piano concerto No. 2 does go on for a while. A beginner in the classical music listening business may well be justified in demanding what Dmitry was still banging on about after thirty-five minutes, and this piece involves a lot of banging. But it is amongst the best kind of banging. While I would have preferred to watch those strong fingers sail over the keys, I made do with watching his feet, which did very little actually.

Once I was bored watching his feet, I began to watch the motley crowd. Most of them appeared to be entranced. Some bobbed their heads with their eyes closed while one gentleman conducted the orchestra himself as he would do in the shower almost like a spectator at Lords would keep his own scorecard. A slow realization enveloped me about this so-called motley crowd.

Does it really matter what someone chooses to wear to the Symphony when it is clear they are in harmony with it? As Rodriguez said, “A monkey in silk is a monkey no less.”

It all ended too soon. And then there was a stirring ovation when even the elderly somehow leveraged themselves onto their feet to give this lad a decent send-off. He played two or three encores and then it was over, and we left the hall exhilarated with the crowd chatting as excitedly about the performance as if the Springboks had beaten the Lions again.