Spätlese, we replied, but she contradicted us, she really loved the subscription concerts; they were what my mother called classical harmony and she believed in classical harmony. She may not have been religious, but she did believe in classical harmony, in the dominant and subdominant; my mother loved it when we sang quodlibets together; although he came after Brahms, my mother thought that Hindemith was the only composer more skilled in the use of counterpoint; she loathed atonal counterpoint, it hurts my ears, she said, and was happy that the concerts were balanced and that the modern pieces were short, whereas I always felt the modern element of the subscription concerts was a bit pathetic in its balance-inducing brevity. I find classical harmony, with its dominants and subdominants, extremely suspect, I said; I had the suspicion that composers merely stuffed everything into this harmony; those poor voices, I said to my mother, they’re being forcibly stuffed into the harmony; but my mother shouted out, no way, harmony’s got nothing to do with force, and she talked of coherence and consonance, which didn’t exist in twelve-tone music; I said, twelve-tone music equals pure control. My mother tried to get me to appreciate the Schubert songs, but without success; her attempts to push Schubert on me were in vain. I already knew that Schubert used enharmonic modulations, yet my mother never once succeeded in getting me to like the Schubert songs or even appreciate them. No sooner had my mother sat at the piano and started to sing a Schubert song from Winterreise than the hairs on my arms, indeed all over my body, would stand on end, because my mother could only sing Schubert songs with a broken voice, on the verge of crying; no sooner had she sat at the piano and started playing Schubert songs than tears would appear, which I called my mother’s Schubert tears; maybe it wasn’t the Schubert songs but the Schubert tears which made the hairs on my arms stand on end, I used to think, and that evening I was relieved she didn’t go to the piano. Having said that at some point it had to stop, however, she didn’t know what would happen if it did stop, because until that evening she’d always thought it had to go on. My brother, meanwhile, was happy that these subscription concerts were going to stop; the concerts were pure torment for him, he said; we had to sit still and the top button of his shirt tormented him, and the music went straight over his head. We’d always go to the concerts very well dressed, the four of us in our best clothes; my father never failed to point out that my mother didn’t have any best clothes, only rejects, which spoiled his mood; in this spoiled mood he would look at my brother and me to see whether we, at least, were sufficiently well dressed, then he’d say to my brother, no, you can’t leave your top button open, do your button up, and if my brother said, but it itches and scratches, he’d say, those are just your tics, for my brother was sensitive about certain things, one of which was itchy and scratchy closed collars. As soon as he was made to fasten the top button on his shirt my brother would start twisting and stretching his neck this way and that; my father, with his mood already spoiled by the rejects my mother had put on, never failed to notice if my brother tried to slip into the concert with his top button undone; he didn’t have a chance, my brother, he had to fasten his top button immediately, because open collars look sloppy; and if my father’s mood was particularly spoiled, he really gave my brother what for, and he’d be forced to wear a tie or bow tie over the fastened button; from that moment all music went straight over his head and his tics wouldn’t leave him alone the entire evening; he’d sit in the concert and twist and stretch his head this way and that because of the torment; my father, who couldn’t show his despair and bitter disappointment at a subscription concert, felt humiliated, for everybody could see how my brother was afflicted by his tics. Over time my brother started to have difficulties swallowing; as soon as he fastened his top button he could hardly swallow a single mouthful without making a peculiar guttural sound with his throat. This noise could drive my father up the wall; in our family my brother was likened to Christian Buddenbrook; leave him, my mother begged, when my brother’s coughs and throat-clearing got my father’s goat, as he put it, but my father couldn’t leave him; I don’t want a Christian Buddenbrook in my family, he said, and wouldn’t tolerate it; my brother didn’t want to be a Christian Buddenbrook, either, he merely didn’t want to fasten his top button. This is how odd habits start, my father said; there was no question of leaving his top button undone. My father was convinced that this is how it all started, and that with his shirt collar open my brother was even more like that oddball Christian Buddenbrook. Music thus went over my brother’s head and he was delighted when Mum said, at some point it has to stop, although she meant Wagner and the martinis rather than the concerts. All the same I asked my mother, why do the subscription concerts have to stop, if you like them so much; this was a highly insubordinate question, and suddenly we felt light-headed from the