His tone is flat, matter-of-fact. The paranormal seems to run parallel in his perception with the normal. He is, by any measure, hypersensitive. I am tempted to ascribe his ESP to Scriabin mysticism, a theory that Elisha is quick to dismiss when I ask him, in front of TV cameras, if he grew up with the ancestor's portrait on the table as he ate breakfast. "There are two answers to that question," he replies. "I knew about him and I didn't know. It was all so long ago. What did it have to do with me?"

We are about to find out. Few in the shoe factory have heard him play before. He strides into the room, sits at the Steinway grand, adjusts the stool and pitches head-first into a set of Chopin mazurkas — literally head-first, so close is his focus on the keyboard, shutting out the audience which is barely a forearm's-length away. He is, as they say in sports commentary, in the zone.

The mazurkas, which sounded winsome and playful at Rubinstein's hands, turn dark and ominous, as deadly serious as life itself. When the set ends, Elisha barely acknowledges the applause before addressing a Schumann sequence, followed, without interruption, by the Liszt Funérailles. As that sombre piece nears fade-out, a muezzin shouts the call for evening prayers from the Turkish mosque just across the concrete wall. Most artists would flinch at the interruption. Elisha is so deep in the zone that his face remains impassive as he drives the piece to its climactic hush. 

I cannot compare him to any pianist you will recognise. At once captivating and withholding, he makes no obvious attempt to engage the audience and yet grips the attention throughout. He imposes no flashiness on the music, yet his interpretation is altogether personal and, in places, profound. He plays, it appears, for himself, without regard for applause. The sole analogy that springs to mind, watching him coiled at the keyboard, immersed in his work, is with Paul Scholes, the ultra-shy former Manchester United midfielder who, when he scored a goal, would appear embarrassed by the fuss, eager to disappear. Elisha Abas represents a similar form of ferocious, virtuosic reticence. Called back for encores, he pauses to address the audience. The pause is a long one. Finally he says, "Good evening." And that's it.