After 1953, György Kurtág spent two happy years with the opera company of the Debrecen Theater as a repetiteur, and under the direction of Tamás Blum, he got to know the mechanism of music theater. The result of these years was the Viola Concerto, the premiere of which was also conducted by Tamás Blum. In 1955, the composer won his music academy diploma and the Erkel prize at the same time with the concerto. Since this is Kurtág's only traditional, i.e. post-Bartók style, orchestral work, its popularity remains unbroken to this day. (The composer withdrew the second movement of the two-movement concerto in 1999, since then only the first movement can be performed under the title Movement).