Nobody recognises him at the Swiss airport when we meet. In the lobby of the midtown hotel where we order coffee, nobody looks twice. That is how Krystian Zimerman likes it. One of the world’s most famous pianists lives in absolute anonymity in his own city.

This is a man with a titanic reputation in the music world, with 22 recordings on Deutsche Grammophon, with homes in New York, Tokyo and Switzerland, and with a list of demands as a performer so bizarre that only an artist of his stature could get away with them.