Lux Aeterna (György Ligeti)  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Shop


Featured:

Lux Aeterna is a piece for 16 solo singers, written by György Ligeti in 1966. It is most famous for its use in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The text (in Latin) is from the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass: Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine, cum sanctis tuis in aeternum, quia pius es. Requiem aeternum dona eis, Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis, which means "May everlasting light shine upon them, O Lord, with thy saints in eternity, for thou art merciful. Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and may everlasting light shine upon them."

The piece features many of Ligeti's characteristic styles, including:

  • Micropolyphony, which Ligeti describes as "The complex polyphony of the individual parts[,] embodied in a harmonic-musical flow in which the harmonies do not change suddenly, but merge into one another; one clearly discernible interval combination is gradually blurred, and from this cloudiness it is possible to discern a new interval combination taking shape."
  • Cluster chords, where every note within a given interval is sung simultaneously
  • A focus on timbre instead of melody, harmony, or rhythm




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Lux Aeterna (György Ligeti)" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

Personal tools