In 1996, Sofia Gubaidulina turned for inspiration to Gallow Songs published in 1905 by Christian Morgenstern, a German poet known for his grotesque humour. The song cycle for mezzosoprano, performed with solo by Klára Csordás, signals a major meeting between poet and composer, perhaps because the Tatar-Russian composer who is in her late eighties came into very close contact with the nonsense genre during the Soviet era and the greater part of her life. Péter Eötvös’s composition Shadows (1996) was written for amplified flute, clarinet and chamber ensemble, and the individual instruments and groups of instruments do in fact form a ‘shadow’ embracing the centrally positioned flautist and clarinettist, Orsolya Kaczander and Csaba Klenyán, respectively. The concert programme concludes with the 2008 version of the Serei work Stets blickend in die Höh (‘Looking up, steadily’) scored for cor anglais and chamber ensemble, evoking a line in Goethe’s West-Eastern Diwan. This serene and translucent composition was inspired by a photo of a solar eclipse.