Ligeti: "Lux aeterna"

Gyorgy Ligeti: "Lux aeterna" (1966) for sixteen solo voices

Category:

Music

Tags:

• modern
• atonal
• microtonal
• polyphonic
• texture
• 2001
• Space
• Odyssey
• Kubrick
• science
• fiction

[halloerde]

I think you are right about the tension. First, one has to wipe Kubrick's images away. Ligeti was a Hungarian Jew who lost his mother to the Holocaust. I don't hear Sirens here, but a promise of Eternal Rest, with the evil distortions of the 20th century distorting. How does one resolve that gap; believing in beauty, but experiencing brutality? The man was a classicist in many ways, and poses a challenge, which he leaves to others to answer: how do we regain that lost innocence, and beauty?

[aimeeelulu]

sorry, but i have to admit that i'm kinda scared by this piece. maybe that's part of the beauty that everyone else sees in this piece, cause it's not easy to compose a piece that can give me this many shivers.

[Transformers2themax]

Don't over-analyze. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the film, it's my favorite film, Kubrick's my favorite filmmaker, and I'm an aspiring filmmaker who analyzes this stuff as well...but analyzing the music? It's just supposed to add tension to the scene. Why do folks believe that when music is playing in a film, it's present in the story? It's just adding to the experience. There are no aliens humming this. The whole idea of extraterrestrial life is supposed to be unknown.

[o0POSH0o]

Genius...... sheer genius.

[DafniElissa]

@TheKaifercat davvero...

[banger11001]

so ein bullshit ey.. unfassbar !

so Vorkriegs-Minimal ..

[TheKaifercat]

questi fanno i filosofi loro kubrick ed odissea nello spazio..... e non hanno capito che Ligeti è un mostro e che semplicemente sentendo il pezzo a occhi chiusi si può vedere molto più che in qualsiasi film...

[sErgEantaEgis12]

@TheBestCommenterEVER I like your analysis. I always tought of Requiem and Lux Aeterna at the moments when they find the monoliths to actually be the shouts of cheering aliens. The ones who built the monoliths. They are joyful that human beings found their creations, but they are so alien and unfathomable that what is actually shouts of joy appears as a music of madness.

[smlhgfaz]

i find this horrible haha

[TheBestCommenterEVER]

the beauty of this piece to me and especially why it worked so well in 2001 is because it has that siren allure, and at the same time has an incredibly frightening and confusing underlying tension. like the monolith they find on the moon directs them to the next monolith, following yet having no clue what they will learn, where they will end up, what any of it means but simply being pulled to the next one. like any technological advancement. just learning and chugging along.