The two music-theatre pieces Aventures and Nouvelles Aventures (for vocal trio and instrumental ensemble) made Ligeti the inventor of ‘opera in the twilight zone of language’: in a virtuoso counterpoint of phonemes, bumpy breathing and sobs, the composer erases every need for text and fiction to create a universe of pure feelings, a scan of social well-being, funny and brutal, human to the border of the abysmal (in short, everything that appeals us).

Kagels’s Finale and an arrangement from Ligeti’s opera Le Grand Macabre (chamber music version) complete this performance and carefully make it heavier: the first of these works has a cruel punch line and the second reaches towards the frantic – one hears a coloratura soprano, nearly breathless, announce the apocalypse in endless post-rossinian vocalises.