Ligetis Lux Aeterna: evolving sound, evolving life

Tom Kelly
Music, Time, and Place II
SP16 01
May 16th, 2016

!1

Ligetis Lux Aeterna: evolving sound, evolving life

Tom Kelly
All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oysters autobiography. - Fellini

Gyrgi Ligetis biographical accounts shaped his opposition to conventions he deemed

oppressive: authoritarian political regime, religious dogmatism, and compositional techniques

such as integral serialism. For Ligeti they are one in the same, and his journey in the pursuit of
new structuresboth in musical and extra-musical sensesnot only liberated him on
geographical, social/political, and compositional planes, but lead to his unexpected ascent to
fame and international recognition. This paper references pertinent biographical information to
Ligeti while focusing on his evolution toward Lux Aeterna: the most succinct example of Ligetis
micropolyphonic technique, and how the pieces compositional specifics and resulting sound
embody a significant thread in the evolution and emancipation of the composer.

As all art is inherently autobiographicalbecause we can only speak in relation to the

experiences we have had, as a sponge can only release the water it has absorbedit is of utmost
importance that we consider a brief summation of Ligetis biography parallel to musical analysis
as a contextual reference to and representation of his music, Lux Aeterna specifically.

Early Life and World War II

The fact that Ligeti is known for his work with (rather than around) the intrinsic makeup of

his musical materials makes it interesting that he was largely unknown internationally until the
release of 2001, and more importantly that his very own personal identity was obscured from
him by outside forces from an early age, continuing through his migration to western Europe.

!2

Born in 1923 to a family of Hungarian Jews in Dicsszentmrton (Trnveni)a region of

northern Transylvania which Hungary had recently ceded to Romania for WWI reparations
this area, along with many others in the newly annexed territory, remained populated by a
number of Hungarians as anti-Semitic laws began to pass in Hungary.1

In 1929, the Ligetis had moved from Trnveni to Cluja more populated Romanian

city where banking work awaited his father, Sndorand Gyrgy was sent to a Romanian gradeschool. He did not understand the Romanian language at all, and because of this displacement
and because Hungarian and Romanian cultures are different from and were sometimes hostile
toward each other at the timeLigeti experienced discrimination from both Romanians (for
being Hungarian) and Hungarians (for being a Jew) in his early life, particularly as Hitler came
into power.2

By 1940 Hitler forced Romania to return the land awarded to them through the WWI

reparations, and once again Ligeti was living and going to school within Hungarian borders
this was an abrupt and immediate change. At this point in his adolescence (16 years) he began to
carry a composition sketchbook and composed in his free time, while also learning French and
German on top of Romanian. His initial aspirations laid in the Sciences, but in 1941 he was
denied admittance to the natural sciences program at Kolozsvr (Hungarian Cluj) based on the
restriction that only one Jew could be admitted into the program per year, and that applicant had
already been chosen. He then decided to submit his original scores for entrance to The
Kolozsvr Conservatory, and gained admittance to their composition program.3
1

Richard Steinitz, Gyrgy Ligeti: Music of the Imagination (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2003), 3-5, 10.
Steinitzs text is a definitive source for biographical information and is frequently cited here. Footnotes attributed to
Steinitz which appear at the end of paragraphs denote the paraphrasing of his text throughout the entire paragraph.
2

Ibid., 10.

Ibid., 12, 17.

!3

As the war continued, Ligeti aggressively studied both music and (privately) mathematics,

and began to rely on performance-enhancing drugs to maintain his pace. This eventually
resulted in a mental breakdown, and he was sent occasionally to Budapest to undergo psychiatric
treatment. By January of 1944 Ligeti was summoned by the Hungarian government to work in a
labor camp at Szeged, and by the summer of the same year, some 250,000-300,000 Hungarian
Jews had been exterminated by Nazi forces at Auschwitz. Ligeti narrowly escaped certain
execution by the SS, and learned that his father, younger brother Gbor, and extended family
had died in the concentration camps. Only his mother, Ilona survived, her training as a doctor
proving useful to the Nazis. 4

Ligeti escaped both German and Soviet captivity through a series of chance

circumstances, and walked back to his familys home in Kolozsvr, now under Russian control.
He arrived to find that strangers now lived where he and his family used to, and his entire family
was eradicated aside from his mother who was nowhere to be found. Ligeti began to compose
again, many of these works dedicated to Brigitte Lw, his soon to be first wife. Romania then
became allied to Russia, and Hungarian Kolozsvr once again became Romanian Cluj. It was
not long before the Romanian army summoned Ligeti to fight against Hungary/Germany, but
during this service he suffered from pleurisy and spent three months in the hospital. By the time
he recovered, the war was over and he applied to the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest.5

Ligetis early accounts set into motion a pattern which shows itself frequentlysometimes

as a cruel and unwelcome agent of change and sometimes as a metaphorical guiding light. That
structure has the power to govern ones understanding of and relationship to personal identity is

4
5

Ibid., 18-20.

Ibid., 20-21. A full account of Ligetis wartime experiences and series of escapes can be read in the Love and
survival subsection of Chapter One.

!4

a theme that not only asserts itself in Ligetis physical life, but finds its way into Lux Aeterna and is
expressed through his hallmark, micropolyphony.

Micropolyphony

Micropolyphony (microcanon 6)a technique developed and coined by Ligetiwas at the

forefront of his development in the 1960s and 1970s and is utilized extensively in Lux Aeterna.
While Steinitzs text provides substantial biographical information through first-hand dialog with
the composer, his explanation of micropolyphony is also clear and valuable here:
Micropolyphony is a microscopic counterpoint, an internally animated yet dense texture in
which large numbers of instruments play slightly different variations of the same line. At its core
can be a three- or four-part counterpoint of different melodies, but with each multiplied by a
dozen or more variants of itself, resulting in an intricately complex web.7

Ligetis often-cited explanation of the technique:

you cannot actually hear the polyphony, the canon. You hear a kind of impenetrable texture,
something like a very densely woven cobweb. I have retained melodic lines in the process of
composition, they are governed by rules as strict as Palestrina's or those of the Flemish school,
but the rules of this polyphony are worked out by me. The polyphonic structure does not come
through, you cannot hear it; it remains hidden in a microscopic, underwater world, to us
inaudible. I call it micropolyphony (such a beautiful word!)8

As seen in Fig.1, Lux Aeternafor sixteen acapella vocalistsbegins with eight soloists

(four sopranos and four altos), each singing a unison F at rhythmically displaced intervals. One
layer of Ligetis methodical precision is presented by the pattern of beat subdivisions in each
voicea defining characteristic that is one layer of the soloists individuality: [Soprano 1-4: beat

Ligeti uses the term micropolyphony, while microcanon was coined by Jane Piper Clendinning. See Structural
Factors in the Microcanonic Compositions of Gyrgy Ligeti." in Concert Music, Rock, and Jazz Since 1945: Essays and
Analytical Studies, eds. Elizabeth West Marvin and Richard Hermann (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press,
1995) 229-256.
7
8

Ibid., 103.

Jonathan W. Bernard. 1994. Voice Leading as a Spatial Function in the Music of Ligeti. Music Analysis 13 (2/3).
Wiley: 22753. doi:10.2307/854260.

!5

divisions by triplets, quintuplets, semiquavers, and triplets again, respectively]; [Alto 1-4: beat
divisions by quintuplets, semiquavers, triplets, and quintuplets again, respectively.]

Fig.1: mm.1-4; Methodical rhythmic displacement using varied beat subdivisions produces slight variants of the same
canon, creating a micropolyphonic (microcanonic) web.9

The result is characteristic of the Ligeti sound and effectively diffuses any semblance of

individual identity between the soloists. Ligetis consideration of dynamics aides this process as
the piece does not exceed the p dynamic, and the soloists are instructed to enter as imperceptibly
as possible. Whether consciously or unconsciously a commentary on his life experiencethough
this author leans toward the former and believes the latter is in any event inescapableLigeti
blurs his intricately constructed lines by placing them on top of each other, crafting a new
structure whose sum is a wholly different experience from its parts.

Gyrgy Ligeti, 1968. Lux aeterna, for sixteen-part mixed choir a cappella. Frankfurt: H. Litolff.

!6

Thoughts with regard to Ligetis intent have been addressed by previous authors, all of

which recognizing the probability of Ligetis incredible story as influence for his compositions, as
well as the dangerous potential to re-write history.10 Might the micropolyphonic diffusion be a
representation of all those souls lost to the ideological rule of a tyrannical empire? A reflection
of the composers existential struggle with himself ? With life itself ? Perhaps, but also of note:
the temporal setting of its composition suggests it is a piece both of remembrance and of silent
protest against a new type of oppressive political regime.

Continuing After the War

Though Budapest lay in ruins and Ligeti was living on scraps of food left over from the

occupying Russian military, artistic energy had been revived with a force. This would only last a
short period of time, as over the course of 1948 what was once a leftist, idealist party and a
contributing factor of a multi-party governing system, was quickly turning into another fascist
political regime in Communism under Stalin. By February of the same year, individualism in
composition vanished almost as soon as it had risen again with the Zhdanov Resolutionbarring
music from any western influenceand soon the Communist party closed the Hungarian
borders and furthered its systematic despotism.11

Around this time a watershed event solidified Ligetis desire to compose a requiem, of

which the Lux Aeterna is part of in the Roman Catholic practice. As president of the students
union at the Budapest Music Academy, party officials solicited Gyrgy for the names of nine
10

Steinitz., xv. See also Jane Piper Clendinning. 2004. Review of Gyrgy Ligeti: Music of the Imagination. Notes 60 (3).
Music Library Association: 67476. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4487206; and Arnold Whittlall. 2003. Review of
Gyrgy Ligeti: Music of the Imagination. Gyrgy Ligeti: Style, Ideas, Poetics. Tempo 57. (224). Cambridge University Press:
62-65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3878589.
11

Steinitz., 23, 24, 26.

!7

Catholic musicians (Catholics had recently come under party attack), going as far as attempting
to seduce him with a beautiful girl in an effort to extract the information from him. Ligeti did
not submit, and immediately told his Catholic friend Jnos Bartos to alert all of the Catholics in
the school. He stepped down as president the very next day and had powerful words to say in
retrospect of this catalyst moment:12
you have to stand by those who are discriminated against, who are declared enemies. So I
became part of that group, without becoming a Catholic. This left a deep impression on me, and
I thus started writing a requiem which was related to everybody, Jews and Catholics , all the
tens of thousands of people who vanished in Hungary . I was part of a kind of private
resistance movement, and this was where my urge to compose a requiem originated.13

Ligeti began to dissociate with Socialist Realism, and accepted a scholarship to study

Romanian Folk music in Cluj. This provided (legal) freedom of movement between Budapest
and Cluj, but his time as an ethnomusicologist was never fully-formed nor far-reaching. His
interest lay in composition, and in order to continue doing this he took a teaching position at the
Franz Liszt Academy with the help of friend and mentor Zoltn Kodly. Ligeti spent the years
leading up to Stalins death in 1954 gaining popularity as a teacher and composing music for
public performance, much of which reimagined folk music of the past. At the same time he
composed experimental works in private, storing them in his desk drawer, hidden from the public
and party officials. The extremes of this duality expanded and eventually pushed him toward his
escape from the Iron Curtain.14

12

Wolfgang Marx, The Concept of Death in Gyrgy Ligetis uvre, in Gyrgy Ligeti: Of Foreign Lands and Strange
Sounds 2011, eds. Louise Duchesneau and Wolfgang Marx (Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: The Boydell Press, 2011), 73.
13

Ibid., 73.

14

Steinitz., 27, 30, 36.

!8

Everlasting Light

To consider Lux Aeterna as an extension of Ligetis Requiem (as it was technically written as

a separate work), it is necessary to examine its text in order to gain insight regarding its
connection to Ligeti the silent activist and humanitarian in the shadow of Communism. The
text of the liturgical Lux Aeterna is compelling on multiple levelsboth in its surface content
and in the way which Ligeti utilizes the text to generate form throughout the composition. Below
is the standard phrase structure in Latin and its English translation:

Latin

English translation

Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine,

cum sanctis tuis in aeternum,
quia pius es.

May everlasting light shine upon them, O Lord,

with thy saints in eternity,
for thou art merciful.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,

et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Grant them eternal rest, O Lord,

and may everlasting light shine upon them.

It is compelling to visualize a text setting abundant in reverence for the other, which

undoubtedly Ligeti possesses based on his account of the Music Academy incident and selfproclaimed status as a religious non-practitioner. The smooth, amorphous motion of the pieces
overall aesthetic can be attributed to the effect of microcanon as described previously, but two
other details of the texts application conjure up images of that which is fragile, vulnerable, and
hidden. First, as shown in Fig.2, Ligeti instructs all note entrances to be very gentle, or
performers should enter imperceptibly. While servicing the image of everlasting light, it
appears there is a narrative connotation to this decision. Second, Fig.2 shows Ligetis decision to
negate sibilant and plosive sounds as the piece progresses, and it is easy to imagine both cause
and purpose in this decision: during the composition of Lux Aeterna and other major works of the
60s, Ligetis interest in electronic music led him to pursue studio techniques in orchestral settings.

!9

Both methods further obscure individual identity within the already dense texture, underscore the
importance of motion hidden from sight, and not only accurately depict the works title
(translated as Eternal Light) as its combinatorial, never-ending note streams float through the
aether, but personifies continuously evolving streams of sound (beams of light) as a reflection of
those unjustly lost who were once living, breathing human beings. The fact alone that Lux is a
composition for the living, breathing choir, and expresses a quiet, delicate evolution lends
gravitational weight to its context in the biography of Ligeti.

Fig.2: mm.99-103 Performance instructions 15

Silent escape and evolving past Serialism

Massive resistance to Communism led to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, during

which time around 200,000 Hungarians fled to Austria. Ligeti and his second wife, Vera,
attempted to stow away with other refugees in a train headed from Budapest to just outside of the
15

Gyrgy Ligeti, 1968. Lux aeterna, for sixteen-part mixed choir a cappella. Frankfurt: H. Litolff.

!10

Austrian border and would cross the border on foot. The train was stopped short of its
destination and was surrounded by Russian military police, but Ligeti and Vera managed to
sneak away into the city of Srvr and found refuge. The next day they hid underneath sacks of
mail on a mail train which delivered them 60km from the Austrian border. From there the two
travelled by night, crossing mud pits which used to be minefields, until they finally made it to new
freedom in Vienna.16

Ligeti remained in Vienna for only a few weeks before leaving for Cologne by train as a

refugee, pursuing a four-month scholarship and intent on integrating himself into the inner circle
of Karlheinz Stockhausen. The Stockhausens took him in for a period of six weeks, during
which time Ligeti was immersed in a creative community that spanned artistic mediums.17 If
late-1950s Cologne was an epicenter of the post-war western avant-garde, Stockhausen was one
of its torch bearers, and the WDR studio was one of its temples.

Though barely able to support himself, Ligeti relished in the experience of new ideas.

His sustenance came instead from a lack of censorship and the freedom from ideological doctrine
that defined his life up until that point. Being denied connection to the avant-garde for so long,
Ligeti took to 12-tone composition, but only for a brief spell. Naturally, he took issue with some
glaring factors embedded within the serialist practice, notably its rejection of the past and its
adherence to strict guidelines (his critique of Boulezs Structures 1a is infamous). His experiences
in Hungary certainly inform this perspective, and though Ligeti mostly rejected serialism
(Webern as an exception), he recognized he could still learn from its principles and practitioners
while forging a way of his own.18
16

Steinitz., 70-71.

17

Ibid., 75-76.

18

Ibid., 76.

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This new direction was toward a music which conventional rhythm and tonality did not

apply, in ways which integral serialism could not accurately approach. Rather, it delved into the
realm of sonic formations which behaved more like clouds of textural mass. His study of
electronic studio processes with Stockhausen and Koenig led to early electronic pieces such as
Artikulation and Glissandi, and he began regular involvement at the Darmstadt Summer Courses.
Finally Ligeti was able to hear what the world was up to, while simultaneously crafting a new
image of sound based on principles he learned in his time at WDR. 19

Texture as Form in Lux Aeterna

In the section entitled Everlasting Light, I mention Lux as taking on a form which is the

result of Ligetis choices in phrase structure. His separations place emphasis on select words and
lines, to which varied approaches to texture and density are coupled.

Ligetis phrase structure:

Lux aeterna (luceat eis,)

Domine
Cum sanctis tuis in aeternum, quia pius es.
Requiem aeternam dona eis
Domine
et lux perpetua luceat eis

to which Jan Jarvlepp applies an in-depth and compelling model for texture and density
analysis:

19

Ibid., 82.

!12

Fig.3: A model for textural and

density analysis delineates formal design in
Lux Aeterna. 20

In Fig.3 Jarvlepp exposes

Ligetis text painting as it emphasizes

particular instances of text to create structural blocks.21 These blocks differ in their polyphonic
and homophonic makeup and are at times nested within each other to create lush moments of
climax, thus shaping the form of the piece. Fig.3 illustrates the relationships between text,
texture, density, and form in Ligetis approach. While Apparitions and Atmospheres brought the
advent of the Ligeti Sound, surely Lux Aeterna is its streamlined refinement.

The depiction of Jarvlepps model lends itself to a visualization reminiscent of modern

DAWsa format which reimagines a workflow rooted in the history of tape-splicing. As Ligeti
deals with slowly morphing timbre and texture in Lux, it is easy to imagine that the electronic
music techniques (e.g. filtering) he acquired at WDR under Stockhausens tutelage have been
applied to the context of a mixed choir. Because of this, Lux Aeterna carries not only previously
discussed social implications for Ligeti, but is an historical trail marker in its creative application
of technological advancements.
20

Jan Jarvlepp, Pitch and Texture Analysis of Ligetis Lux Aeterna ex tempore, accessed May 15, 2016,
http://www.ex-tempore.org/jarvlepp/jarvlepp.htm. While this paper references Jarvlepps model and analysis, it
does not attempt to chart new analytical territory itself necessarily. Rather, its goal is in connecting Luxs
compositional elements with Ligetis biography.
21

Ibid.

!13

A spectral analysis of the Daniel Reuss/Capella Amsterdam recording22 was used in

conjunction with the Jarvlepp model/analysis for reinforcement and further insight. Fig.4 shows
heightened activity at ca. 200, 500, and 740 most notably, and provides a new visualization
for these moments which correspond to mm.24, 61, and 94 in Ligetis score, respectively.
Beginning at m.24 the sounding A5 in the soprano becomes gradually reinforced in octaves by
the entire choir (Sop-Alt-Ten) until its abrupt ending at rehearsal B, ca. 315. Fig.4 shows the
acoustic energy at the octaves, this particular moment triggering the entrance of the tenors and is
set to the text, shine upon them.

Fig.4: Spectral analysis of Lux Aeterna and referenced measure numbers

In Fig.3, the area of maximum density' [3A, 3BC; m.61 in Ligetis score] is of particular

interest and is the main climactic point of the piece. Here we see the only point in which all

22

Gyrgy Ligeti, Lux Aeterna, Capella Amsterdam, conducted by Daniel Reuss, Ligeti: Lux Aeterna, Harmonia
Mundi HMC901985, 2009, compact disc, accessed May 15, 2016. TIDAL.

!14

sections of the choir sound simultaneously, creating the densest instance of the micropolyphonic
webthe basses and tenors singing a deep with thy saints in eternity, for thou art merciful
creating a low, vast, and spacious texturea bed for the soaring soprano melody (a sounding G5)
and altos, who sing the contrasting overlay grant them eternal rest. Fig.4 shows the increased
acoustic energy.

The highest pitch of the piece is a sounding B5 in sopranos 1-3 at m.94. Jarvlepps

analysis of this moment as text painting is compelling, as luceat (let shine) is again set with a
sustained high pitch, suggesting a development of the high-A setting of m.24.23 Combined with
the two previously mention points of ascension, a trichord cluster of major second intervals
results.

These few examples show Ligeti the contrapuntist and progressive technologistwhose

interests lay in the animation of movement within sound masseshad not just successfully, but
meaningfully found a new compositional plane of existence, while adopting guiding principles
both new and old that did not succumb to the directive of the 20th-century serialist avant-garde.

International recognition and 2001

The Ligeti Sound of the 1960s did not go unheard in the western world. His initial

works at the turn of the decade (larger in scale than Lux and also containing micropolyphony):
Apparitions, Atmospheres, and most notably Requiem, gained considerable attention in Europe, and
these pieces would go on to define his style for the better part of the next two decades. After the
premier of Requiem, Ligeti received a commission for a choral work that would become Lux
Aeterna. Steinitz points out that Lux was Ligetis most seamless and unruffled piece and the

23

Jarvlepp., http://www.ex-tempore.org/jarvlepp/jarvlepp.htm.

!15

fact that it enters as imperceptibly as it fades (almost a half minute of rest is notated at its end)
hints at the composers inevitable continuation into the realm of infinite space with his next piece,
Lontano.24 Categorized as sister pieces by the composer, it was not long after its premier that
Ligeti received a phone call from a friend, congratulating him on his music making it to the big
screen.25

As the story goes, Stanley Kubrick used major portions of Atmospheres, Requiem, and

Aventures, and smaller portions of Lux Aeterna as a temp score for his new film, 2001: A Space
Odyssey. Composer Alex North was hired to compose in the style, but inevitably Ligetis sound
could not be replicated. Kubrick, adopting the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk in his quest for pure
cinema,26 might be artistically justified in his usage of Ligetis music without permission, once
stating, One man writes a novel. One man writes a symphony. It is essential for one man to
make a film.27 After the dust of a six-year legal dispute settled, Ligeti received only a meager
sum of money for the use of his music in 2001, but was instantly catapulted to international
fame.28

Once again outside forces over which Ligeti had no control dictated his motionthis

time in the creative senseabsorbing the material which he birthed as an antithesis to

subjugation and stricture, for the purpose of an artistic ideal that is quite notably German. But
Kubricks appropriation might also be seen as a micropolyphony of its own, methodically

24

Steinitz., 152. The quotation in this paragraph is found on the same page.

25

Ibid., 161.

26

Ciarn Crilly, Ligetis Music and the Films of Stanley Kubrick, in Gyrgy Ligeti: Of Foreign Lands and Strange Sounds
2011, ed. Louise Duchesneau and Wolfgang Marx (Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: The Boydell Press, 2011), 249-250.
27

Ibid., 249. Quotation cited to Garan Holcombe, Stanley Kubrick: The Legacy of a Cinematic Legend, California
Literary Review, http://www.calitreview.com/essays/stanley_kubrick5008.htm. Link unavailable at the time of this
writing.
28

Steinitz., 162-163.

!16

layering materials of distinctive individuality in their own right on top of each other in the
creation of his grand cinematic experience, effectively lending unintended support to Ligetis
message in ways neither director nor composer could predict. As the wake of both the film and
Ligetis work extends decades, the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

Synthesis, emancipation, and evolution

All things converging toward singularity, a web of connections between 2001 and Lux

Aeterna reveal themselves and make for relevant social commentary. A vital comparison lays in
both artists desire to challenge common practice approaches to creating within their respective
fields, as to provoke a re-invented experience of art. As such, it is remarkable to consider
Kubricks re-arrangement of traditional sound hierarchy in his film, placing music instead of
dialog at the forefront of its narrative development.29 Is there a music more representative of
dethroning the immediacy of the spoken word, than one in which micropolyphony for the
human voice is a primary compositional device?

Consider the following quote by Ligeti:

The technical process of composition is like letting a crystal form in a supersaturated solution. The
crystal is potentially there in the solution but becomes visible only at the moment of crystallisation.
In much the same way you could say that there is [in my music] a state of supersaturated polyphony,
with all the 'crystal culture' in it, but you cannot discern it. My aim was to arrest the process, to fix
the supersaturated solution just at the moment before crystallisation.30

and Kubricks technique of capturing chemical reactions on glass slides via slit scan
photographygenerat[ing] much of the Star Gate sequence imagery.31 That these techniques

29

Crilly., 250.

30

Jonathan W. Bernard. 1987. Inaudible Structures, Audible Music: Ligeti's Problem, and His Solution. Music
Analysis 6 (3). Wiley: 20736. doi:10.2307/854203.
31

Crilly., 251.

!17

happened to coalesce in the same creative space is a product of what some might attribute to
cosmic design.

The sociopolitical ramifications of Ligetis music as an integral element in the success of

2001 are monumental for his story. His creative involvement in one of the most influential works
of American cinemaregardless of the nature of the engagementdoes reinforce Ligetis
personal liberation, considering humanitys evolution as the prime allegorical subject matter of a
science fiction movie set in space and released during the Cold War.

Kubrick is quoted saying:

We are semicivilized, capable of cooperation and affection, but needing some sort of
transfiguration into a higher form of life. Man is really in a very unstable condition.32

and said of the experience of the film:

[its] music often determines [its] images33
which

conjures the images of evolution from Ligetis life. From childhood Hungary to the

atrocities of World War II; from Socialist Realism in Budapest to the avant-garde in Colonge;
and from ideological suppression to creative emancipation, Lux Aeterna in its precious, evolving
threads of memoriam is the product of Ligetis evolution itself. It calls for compassion,
acceptance, co-habitation, and above all else, rest. Rest from unnecessary hatred, unnecessary
destruction, and poses the question: how will we choose to evolve, and how will we choose to
harness the power that we create?

It seems appropriate that with the release of 2001 Ligetis tale reaches its climactic ascent,

as the once composer of pieces for the bottom drawer is finally given his due, by process of

32

William Kloman. 1968. In 2001, Will Love Be a Seven-Letter Word?. Film Review. The New York Times on the
Web. http://partners.nytimes.com/library/film/041468kubrick-2001.html, accessed May 16, 2016.
33

Crilly., 253.

!18

evolution brought on (however ironically) by external forces. To those lost in Hungary and at
Auschwitz and elsewhere; to those who lived and died in the shadow of a dominating ideology; to
those who have been forever silencedthe faint glimmers of their voices are heard from afar.
For once in his life Ligeti is served by structure, and in its service the star-child of Hungary is
finally realized.

Bibliography
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2003.

Discography
Ligeti, Gyrgy. Lux Aeterna. Capella Amsterdam. Conducted by Daniel Reuss. Ligeti: Lux

Aeterna. Harmonia Mundi HMC901985. 2009, compact disc. Accessed May 15, 2016.

TIDAL.