György Ligeti’s études for piano occupy an important place in his musical universe. Three outstanding performers of modern works, László Borbély, Gábor Csalog and János Palojtay will present a whole evening of piano music, compositions that test the boundaries of both performance on, and composition for, the instrument, Musica ricercata, which was written in the 1950s, and selected pieces of the series of études begun in the 1980s. It was a ‘new concept of rhythmic articulation,’ said Ligeti, that informed his effort when composing the first series of the études. He wanted to create complex rhythmic surfaces in which the listener could notice the simultaneous presence of different tempos and different metrical processes – an illusion that is exceptionally challenging for any performer to create. After the concert music historian Zoltán Farkas talks to the performing artists.