Ligeti, Gyorgy

(1923– )

   STANLEY KUBRICK used music by Ligeti in three films, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY,THE SHINING, and EYES WIDE SHUT. Born in Hungary, Ligeti was a leading figure in the eastern European avant-garde. His characteristic sound consists of dense, polytonal tone clusters which transform gradually into increasingly sinister textures and colors. His Atmospheres (1961) is heard during the “Jupiter” sequence in 2001. Although a great variety of instruments are used, the densely interlocking textures submerge the individual voices in a haunting, emotionally charged sound space (Ligeti himself called the work a “musical hallucination”). Elsewhere in 2001, when the black monolith appears to the apes, an excerpt from Ligeti’s Requiem (1963–1965), the “Kyrie,” is heard. Again, the wash of sound submerges voices and individual instruments into a soundspace that seems at once primordial and contemporary. In The Shining, Ligeti’s Lux Aeterna (1966), for a capella voices, and Lontano (1967), for orchestra, lend their sonic ambiguities to the hauntings in and outside the Overlook Hotel. In Eyes Wide Shut, selections from Ligeti’s Musica Riservata No. 2 (1953) provide a haunting theme as performed on solo piano by Dominic Harlan.

   References

   ■ Burbank, Richard, Twentieth Century Music (New York: Facts On File, 1984).