Giacinto Scelsi's two pieces date from the same creative period, one in which he was experimenting with the possibilities inherent in a single note. Playing with the sounds and using quarter-tone glissandos, this composer would instil a sensation of floating as he made use of all the existing components of the note, becoming 'the master of the smallest possible transitions'. In his piece Elohim, a string quartet, a pair of violinists and a quartet consisting of two violinists and two cellists are situated at various¬ points around the stage - with the volume of the latter sometimes boosted by an electronic amplifier. Natura renovatur ('Nature is reborn'), by contrast, uses the entire string section, bringing the unique sound world closer to a traditional scoring.
Also boasting a unique sound is the 'post-minimalist' Giovanni Sollima, who never shies away from the necessity of combining elements from jazz or even rock into his symphonic music. He composed the 'earth' theme of Terra con variazioni for the Expo 2015 universal exposition in Milan. Each of the variations in the sequence uses the preceding one as its basis, thus taking us further and further away from the starting point - until the music is eventually completely freed from its original boundaries.
The play on words in the title Inverno In-ver is a bit difficult to translate. Niccolò Castiglioni's modern, and yet still often harmonic and fable-like music, which is played mostly in the upper registers, shows the different - actual and 'inverse' faces of 'inverno' (the Italian word for winter) - from the frost flowers to silence and death. The title of the final movement is a saying attributed to Saint Francis de Sales: "What is good makes no noise, and noise does no good.”
On the podium for the concert will be a 'conductor of wonderful sensitivity' and ambassador of modern music: Israel's Ilan Volkov.

Presented by: Budapest Festival Orchestra, Müpa Budapest