When Ligeti taught composition at the University of Stockholm in the 1960s, he met his famous Swedish fellow composer Hilding Rosenberg (1892-1985). Ligeti wrote this musical greeting on the occasion of Rosenberg's 90th birthday.
The little piece is easy to play, composed in an extremely instrument-related manner and sounds really good. It shows that Ligeti, like Bach, Schumann and Bartok, was able to write easily playable and at the same time tonally convincing music in his personal style. Whether at an audition in a music school class or (as an encore) at a concert, it is impossible to resist the immediate charm of this composition.