It is a measure of the respect and affection in which the late Gyorgy Ligeti was held that the QEH could be packed for this posthumous tribute.

There was little to sweeten the pill: three works of Ligeti's were interspersed with a distinctly audience-unfriendly one of Alexander Goehr's (Behold the Sun) and Oliver Knussen's dark-hued but moving requiem Songs for Sue, in memory of his former wife.

The concert was conducted by one of Ligeti's most fervent admirers, George Benjamin, who insisted on absolute silence before giving the upbeat for Ramifications.

This work hovers tremulously on the edge of the audible, creating net-like microtonal tissues out of fragile, evanescent sonorities. You have to have your ears peeled to pick up some of them - a point underlined in droll fashion by the conductor's continued beating for a full 15 seconds after the last audible note had died away.

Melodien (1971), is a far more mobile, kinetic work, the "melodies" of the title scurrying frantically about, but within a slow-moving framework of sustained vertical progressions.

With the virtuoso players of the London Sinfonietta, Benjamin wove together the active and the static, teasing out the micropolyphonic strands, fashioning a miraculous web of sound.

Knussen's trawl of suitable texts for his uxorial tribute yielded lines by Rilke, Auden and Antonio Machado, and verses by Emily Dickinson that uncannily invoke another beloved "Sue" - the poet's sister-inlaw.

The setting of the final lines "Sue - for evermore" is an inspired moment of catharsis, touchingly caught by soprano Claire Booth.

The abrasive timbral distortions in Ligeti's Piano Concerto were relished in this performance with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, which emphasised also the fantasy, even fun, of the Hungarian's creative impulse.