“I am mainly fascinated by sound and its endless properties,” stated Sofia Gubaidulina when she visited Hungary in 2005. The Impromptu, composed in 1996–97, is a salute to the memory of Schubert; essentially as it is a double concerto for flute, violin and strings. From 1979 onwards, Alfred Schnittke gradually turned to the world of the transcendental, adopting the Roman Catholic faith in 1982. This transcendence is strongly discernible in his Violin Concerto No. 4, dedicated to Gidon Kremer in recognition of the violinist’s performances of Schnittke’s works. The work contains three slow movements, thus placing a far greater emphasis on intense introspection than on virtuosity. Shostakovich’s symphony subtitled “The Year 1905” was premièred in Moscow in 1957. “War has brought much new misery and much new devastation… I would gladly write a work to commemorate every victim, but this is impossible, and so I offer my music to them all,” wrote the composer. The work refers to the events of the Revolution of 1905, but some observers have also made a connection to the Hungarian Uprising of 1956.

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