(This is the second of two interviews Vera Lukomsky conducted with Sofia Gubaidulina while she was Annual Guest Composer during the festival of her music which took place at San Jose State University School of Music, California in April 1995. The first interview, ‘The Eucharist in my fantasy’, appeared in Tempo 206. In this second interview, recorded at Gubaidulina's hotel on 5 April 1995, she talks more about her technical procedures, especially regarding structural proportion. The interview took place in Russian and is here presented in Vera Lukomsky's English translation.)