After the month I spent in hospital, I am now ensconced in my dacha, but I go in to the city to attend rehearsals of my Fifteenth Symphony, which Maksim is doing very well. The première is on 8 January, and if Maksim is on form, as I hope he will be, the symphony should sound as it was intended to. / Today we had three rehearsals in the recording studio; from 5 January on the rehearsals move to the Great Hall [of the Conservatoire]. Everything has been sounding wonderful in the studio, and now after a break the orchestra will have to adapt to a new acoustic. Studio and Great Hall- two big differences, as they say in Odessa. / Maksim has made great strides recently. He has become a real conductor, and in five years’ time he will achieve even more: he will be older, more experienced, wiser. << less