Immediately after the composition of the Gulyás cycle, Kurtág seems to have run into a second period of uncertainty as to how to proceed: this time understandably, since the Bornemisza cycle must have completely exhausted the obvious possibilities of what had started as a reductive language of bold, succinct gestures. True, the cycle had developed ways of expressive extension, but they were mostly sui generis, closely involved with the special qualities of Bornemisza's sermons. To have continued that line without self-repetition would perhaps have been impossible. The one obvious gain from the work, apart from the music itself of course, was the discovery of Kurtág's affinity with the voice and his evolution of a superbly versatile repertoire of vocal techniques and treatments.