Arnold Bax on “the London concertgoer”: as relayed by the great Dr Erik Chisholm. We’ve all been there.

No longer a churchgoer, he salves his conscience by going instead to Bach, and seeks to do his duty by his God in undergoing four Brandenburg concertos in succession without an anaesthetic. And when the final pedal-point mercifully arrives, he experiences the same smug self-complacency and sense of thankful deliverance his father felt when the Scottish divine pronounced.