The exploration, combination, and interaction of newly discovered sounds and advanced playing techniques characterize the Watercolors series of Márton Illás. An approach that springs from the visual: like with a watercolour painting, it is all about subtle traces of colour, delicate structures and their superimposition, transparency, varying blended proportions, and the intensification of colours and shapes when the means are concentrated.

The point of departure for this series of works is Three Watercolors for solo clarinet (2014). As in all of the pieces from the Watercolours series, the formal and energetic focus is on the middle section, in the case of the quartet, the second piece. The first part explores the creation of basic elements, lines and surfaces. When this music comes to the fore in the second section, it does so with finely chiselled phrases, colourfully shaded, almost vocal gestures, noises, embedded in a large, overarching process. The third part creates a static field of a single, constantly changing microtonal chord, and the last section is a scramble of intertwining filigree lines that unfold in the foreground and background of the sounding structure.