This composition for solo violin (originally for Yehudi Menuhin) and string orchestra was written in 1987, and its Italian title is also that of one of Russian director, Andrei Tarkovskij's films. The piece is not descriptive of the film's narrative but of a quiet, elegiac mood with images of mist and rain. A muted, somber, chorale-like opening introduces the violin solo's melody which is built from an ascending line repeated and varied several times and balanced by a mid-range warm tone full of remorse. Suddenly, the unaccompanied violin bursts into harsh multiple stops, a moment of anger perhaps. The lyrical, nostalgic tone returns, the violin's line evolves into a crest of emphatic ascent and descent. The music becomes more active, a discourse and searching, interrupted by bizarre and sudden recollections. High harmonics on the solo violin evoke empathy from other solo strings. The initial music is repeated with the shifting harmonics underpinning the violin ascents, until the music seems to achieve a sort of peaceful equilibrium with its final sustained chord leaving the solo violin on a high plateau.

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