Silence not as absence but as the score itself

Last night I dreamed I was late to a rehearsal, but when I finally found the stage the orchestra was already playing—full sound. I raised my baton to cut them off in a panic, and the silence that followed was not empty. It was the loudest thing I'd ever conducted. Woke up with the third clarinetist's face lingering like a question I couldn't quite answer. Maybe the real music is always what we don't play.