Within a fortnight of being awarded his conservatoire diploma, Myaskovsky travelled to Moscow to attend rehearsals for the premiere of Silence – the first performance of one of his larger-scale works. Once more, Krïzhanovsky had played a central role in events. Earlier in the year, he had been contacted by Konstantin Saradzhev, an Armenian violinist friendly with Glière since their student days at the Moscow Conservatoire. A pupil of the renowned virtuoso Jan Hřímalý, Saradzhev (1877–1954) graduated with a silver medal in 1898 and continued his training under Otakar Ševčik in Prague, but his interests increasingly turned to conducting. Between 1904 and 1908 he studied in Leipzig under Arthur Nikisch (1855–1922), one of the outstanding maestri of his generation. (Nikisch had strong professional ties to Russia and was a notable advocate of the music of Tchaikovsky.) On returning to Moscow, Saradzhev set out to establish himself as a prominent figure in the city's musical life. He made regular appearances as a soloist and chamber musician and won widespread respect for his efforts as chairman of the Orchestral Players’ Mutual Aid Society to improve musicians’ working conditions. In the same year, he was invited to form an orchestra and present a season of open-air summer concerts in Sokolniki, a district to the north-east of the city boasting an extensive municipal park that was a popular location for leisure outings. Although the venue was far from ideal, Saradzhev was determined to make the most of the opportunity: the concerts received complimentary notices and were well attended. A dapper man of diminutive stature, with a swarthy complexion and a shock of jet-black hair, Saradzhev's dandyish appearance belied a phenomenal capacity for hard work. When the invitation was renewed in 1910, he planned an ambitious series of thirty-one concerts over four months, in which he presented some fifty large-scale works and seventy-five shorter ones. Thirteen of these performances were premieres, reflecting his keen interest in modern music.

In preparation for a further season in 1911, he made a special trip to St Petersburg early in the New Year to consult Krïzhanovsky about works by younger local composers that he could consider programming. Krïzhanovsky introduced him to Myaskovsky, and he was sufficiently impressed by Silence as to give an undertaking to perform it at Sokolniki in May.