“Sign” is a central concept in György Kurtág’s oeuvre. “I think I drew inspiration from Paul Klee’s painting Zeichen in Gelb,” he said in an interview. “I realized that I, too, give such signs, and that is how the title of the viola piece (Op. 5) came about. But the sketches in my notebook from my Paris period were also signs.” The concept of sign also appears in the works of Hölderlin, who was extremely important to Kurtág. Dietrich Eberhard Sattler, the editor of Hölderlin’s works, mentioned to the composer in a private conversation that Hölderlin differed from all other German poets because he saw himself as a sign. In the second version of his poem Mnemosyne, he writes: “Ein Zeichen sind wir, deutungslos” (We are a sign, without meaning). The six viola pieces written in 1961 are precursors to all his later solo instrumental works; some movements were later incorporated into the series titled “Signs, Games, Messages,” and versions for other instruments also exist. The individual movements are prime examples of Kurtág’s economical style.