The work composed for clarinet, viola and piano was premiered in Budapest on October 8, 1990 (clarinet Tihanyi Gellért, viola Zoltán Gál, piano Márta Kurtág). The unusual instrumentation is identical to Schumann's Märchenerzählungen Op. 132. Composed as the first of the work's movements, the relatively short piece is reminiscent of E. T. A. Hoffmann and Schumann's Kapellmeister Kreisler with its strange figures. In the later Presto movement, we find certain Schumann references from the world of Fantasiestücke. Kurtág combined these two works with other Schumann associations (Davidsbündler-Tänze) into a new composition, in which the elegiac Eusebius (movement II) and the passionate Florestan (movement III) appear. The old Kreisler movement was placed at the beginning of the work, the Presto piece In der Nacht forms the fifth movement of the work. The heaviest and most demanding in its composition, the VI., Adagio movement (Abschied) is subtitled: Meister Raro entdeckt Guillaume de Machaut. (BMC CD 048)