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Silvestrov is so involved in his own music that even during the break he takes his old friend Lubimov by the hand and schlepps him to the piano, where he goes on to explain something in a very emotional manner. Lubimov has to repeat a few notes, then Silvestrov sits on the stool, playing, explaining and conducting at the same time. Lubimov seems to have understood and is now allowed to have his break. Unaware of the champagne-sipping, mini-sandwich munching crowd around him, the composer now does what a composer must do when in front of a piano: he starts to improvise, trying this and that figure. Nobody is realising what happens, nobody takes any notice of one of the greatest composers of our time at work (see photo).

One of the best-known compositions by Silvestrov is The Herald, composed in 1996 for his late wife Laryssa Bondarenko. Starting with the orchestra blowing meticulously like a little breeze, you might fear it could become very kitsch. But soon, hearing the ethereal beauty of the piano and the sensitive orchestration, the audience is drawn into an almost religious, meditative mood. Is this herald a time traveller, bringing glad tidings of a faded musical era? Or is he the angel of death showing us past and future, all in one? The composer plays cleverly with citations and metaphors, seducing us to take the music for a statement, but always ending as a question.

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