To find a sensitive musician and an agreeable companion with whom to travel was not easy. There was a pianist who knew violin repertoire: another, opera. Only two of them had played with a cello at all, but one of them had black teeth and a sour smell, and the other breathed with a wheeze that was audible when I played softly. I was impressed with one superb musician, but he wore two ties and on the Sunday we met insisted that it was Tuesday.