Pieces for solo instruments form a special part of Ligeti's oeuvre, as the composer experimented not only with orchestras and ensembles, but with each instrument until he found his own technical or compositional innovation. After a majestic opening with the Poème symphonique, string instruments will be represented by the solo cello sonata, which Tamás Zétényi also recorded for BMC Records. After much adversity, the sonata became a cornerstone of the cello repertoire. The first part, an imaginary dialogue, was written as a love gift and sunk into a drawer, while the brilliant second part was commissioned but essentially banned in Hungary; later, as a juvenile work, the composer himself tried to conceal the piece.

This time, the featured keyboard instrument is not the piano, but the harpsichord. Hungarian Rock, with its ironic and slightly Hungarian elements, is joined by Continuum, which, adapting certain orchestral textures to the harpsichord, displays a machine-like rhythm, as well as rapid succession of short pulses, able to create a sense of temporal blurring and continuity.

Pax et Bonum Chamber Choir, winner of the 2022 Kodály Zoltán Choir Competition, offers a selection of Ligeti’s vocal works. The programme is rounded off with an a cappella piece composed for this occasion by Máté Balogh, in which Renátó Fehér's “Hungarian gibberish” meets clusters so characteristic of Ligeti – harmonies made up of adjacent sounds, which cannot be deciphered from the classical harmonic world –, creating a kind of “meaningful nonsense”.