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Arp's style is lavish, characterized by musical abandon coupled with outbursts of outstanding virtuosity, so the three allegro movements suited him well, for the young musician is never happier than when he can show his stuff on the cello. Arp's style stands in stark contrast with the other Julian's noble, reserved playing that usually comes with the quiet maturity of a much older musician. Arp is a flashier performer, throwing bits of himself into the work with great enthusiasm, but both young cellists are on equal footing when it comes to producing excellent music. 'It was very important to Boris to foster our individuality,' Arp explains. 'So he sought to work with our unique personal talents while also teaching us the basics of good cello. This is why we all sound different and have retained our very unique approach to the music.'

In fact, they sound different and yet alike, as though a different aspect of the master's playing has rubbed off on each of his students, but the tonal beauty is a common thread, as is the ability to become one with their instrument and enter fully into the work they perform. This particular Pergamenschikow trait of complete surrender into the music, of cello and cellist becoming one and building a bridge across time to unite with the composer who once created the work, is what also inspired the cellist Thomasz Wyorba of the Sinfonietta Cracovia to his haunting interpretation of Lutoslawski's funeral music. So whatever the Russian did in his lifetime must have rubbed off on those who were lucky enough to play with him, and even more so on the group of students with whom he spent a large proportion of his final years.

Pergamenschikow, common consensus would tell us, did not make mistakes in picking his students and so the example of the two Julians shows, aside from introducing us to two young men who are likely to become the new darlings of cello, that in mapping out one's career a young musician would be well advised to pick his teachers as carefully as his instrument. With the cool professionalism of an experienced musician, Arp negotiated his way through a young orchestra of 25-and-under musicians who did not always know how to react to the soloist in their midst, and he mastered the score well enough not only to play it by heart but to allow the excellent young conductor of the orchestra to concentrate on taking charge of his young musicians and leave the cellist to do his stuff. At the end, the young faces in the cello section of the orchestra looked on with a mix of admiration-driven envy and genuine awe when Arp answered the thundering applause that rewarded his performance with a magnificent solo cello segment that left no wishes open except for the wish to never end.