Gyorgy Ligeti's Lux Aeterna

Gyorgy Ligeti's 'Lux Aeterna', a choral composition of haunting beauty, is a testament to the power of human voice and depth of musical innovation. Composed in 1966, this piece for 16 solo singers is a marvel of polyphony, where individual lines of music interweave to create a tapestry of sound that suspends time itself.

The title, Latin for 'eternal light', hints at the work's ethereal quality. The Hungarian-Austrian composer achieves this through micropolyphony, a technique he pioneered, where closely spaced lines move at different speeds and in different directions, creating a shimmering cloud of sound. The effect is one of a continuous, flowing river of harmony that envelops the listener in a serene, complex soundscape.

'Lux Aeterna' gained widespread recognition after being featured in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, where its otherworldly sound perfectly complemented the visual odyssey through space. The piece invites introspection, and evokes a sense of the infinite, as if each note were a star in the vast expanse of the universe.


Ligeti's masterpiece is not just music, it's a meditation on the sublime and the transcendent. In it, Ligeti offers us a glimpse into the divine.