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Kim Jong Il's absence from the New York Philharmonic concert did not cause much comment, possibly because the American music and culture critics accompanying the orchestra were not familiar with the Stalinesque ways of Pyongyang. Surely no North Korean missed the point, which was that Kim did not see the visit as any breakthrough in his regime's relations with the US.

The Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, did not miss the point. She was quoted in The New York Times as saying: "The North Korean regime is still the North Korean regime...so I don't think we should get carried away with what listening to Dvorak is going to do in North Korea."

Nor were some members of the orchestra taken in. Dawn Hannay, a violist, told The Times she doubted the visit would be effective, despite the efforts of North Koreans to shine a favorable light on it. "There are a lot of us," she said, "who are not buying into this party line that music transcends the political and we are opening up North Korea with a single concert."