Hungarian composers in the past very rarely reflected on György Ligeti’s oeuvre. Concentrating on their own struggles with musical modernism and avant-garde after 1956, they considered Ligeti one of the most important Hungarian composers of their time, but didn’t really understand his concepts and techniques. My study aims at interpreting this misunderstanding through the analysis of orchestral works by Ligeti’s best Hungarian friend, András Szőllősy (1921–2007). For contemporary Hungarian musicians and critics, Szőllősy’s compositions represented the counterpart of the great émigré’s life work.