While at Cologne's Studio for Electronic Music of the West German Radio in 1957, Ligeti was exposed to a number of new musical styles and approaches—including novel approaches to voices and text setting—by the likes of Luciano Berio and John Cage. Revisiting his early fascination with language (as a child, he had invented an imaginary land called Kylwiria with its own language), Ligeti created the outlines of a new language using a "secret recipe," which involved associating particular vowel sounds with the notes of the chromatic scale. He first employed this new language in his Aventures (1962) for three singers (soprano, contralto, and baritone) and seven instrumentalists (flute, French horn, cello, bass, percussion, piano, and harpsichord). At that point Ligeti was unsure how long a piece in such an unusual style would be acceptable to an audience, so he ended Aventures rather abruptly. Later he revisited his work, and completed its sequel Nouvelles Aventures in 1965. It was first performed, under Andrzej Markowski's direction, in Hamburg on May 26, 1966, and both pieces were later championed by conductor Bruno Maderna.

There are no recognizable characters in either Aventures or its sequel. Ligeti uses a series of five emotional states—humorous, sentimental, erotic, etc.—and moves from one to another very quickly and abruptly. The various episodes of Nouvelles Aventures have descriptive titles, such as "Gossips" and "The Demonic Clocks." The latter employs what Ligeti has called his "meccanico" style, in which different rhythms and speeds are heard simultaneously. There is also a "Grand Hysterical Scene" which, however brief, pays tribute to the familiar mad scenes from operas like Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. And all sorts of odd sounds punctuate the "action," such as the ripping of paper and silk, a carpet being beaten, and the destruction of bottles and a pile of dishes.

Nouvelles Aventures is in two sections. The texture of the first is very fragmentary. Short, abrupt interjections from the singers are heard, with a variety of grunts, panting, whispering and so on mixed in. The second section is much faster in tempo, though similar in approach at first. Then a slow quasi-chorale is heard, interrupted violently by shouting and short interjections from the instrumentalists. One hears laughing, whispering, glass breaking, and all kinds of mysterious rustlings. The listener doesn't quite know whether to cower in fright or laugh out loud. Perhaps both responses are equally appropriate.

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