György Ligeti became a classic of 20^th century Hungarian and universal music, a canonized master even in his own lifetime. However, the dynamism of his character and the fact that his oeuvre simply cannot be pigeonholed speak against any overly respectful gesture even on the centenary of his birth. This concert sets out to prove these assertions, the programme of which features stunning and astonishing Ligeti masterpieces complemented with homage compositions by György Kurtág, Péter Eötvös and László Vidovszky. “He wrote radical, middle class-outraging (or believed to be so) works and requiems. He wrote electronic music at a time when only very few believed in the technology, and he resurrected great Romantic musical forms and redefined the notion of piano music. […]. Today’s age can honour him as one of the forerunners of its huge and fragmented knowledge, who at the same time in every respect was the possessor and custodian of the indivisible old knowledge.” These words are taken from László Vidovszky’s Ligeti obituary of 2006 about his great contemporary, in whose honour Sarah Defrise renowned and adored worldwide as performer of Mysteries of the Macabre, arrives in Budapest.