Modern is not an absolute category. An idea born today may be irremediably old-fashioned and dated, while an old one can be thrillingly inspirational and fresh. There are new compositions that gather dust particularly fast, and there are centuries-old works that sound as if they were written yesterday. Produced by Dénes Várjon and Izabella Simon, this four-part chamber festival presents the compositions of old ages in the close proximity of today’s music, initiating a dialogue that shows them as if they were indeed contemporaneous, an experience that is guaranteed to take place by a host of first-rate performers.

The concert centres around the piano sonatas of two composers who can justly be called cultic: the Russian Galina Ustvolskaya, a pupil of Shostakovich, and the Ukrainian Valentin Silvestrov. One of the most accomplished interpreters of the work of these composers, who followed their own paths with an obstinacy that paid little regard to modernity and other isms, is Alexei Lubimov. A few years ago, Lubimov presented Silvestrov’s Sonata No. 2 (1975) at the Arcus Temporum Festival of Pannonhalma. It is with a surprising intensity that the piece confronts what were the progressive composition techniques and tones of the seventies with nostalgic gestures, a longing for the past. A puzzling, mysterious composition.