Lux Aeterna-Vocal Score

Written by the Hungarian-Austrian avant-garde composer György Ligeti, this simultaneously haunting, mysterious, unsettling, and serenely beautiful piece unfolds gradually in shimmering layers of sound and forces us to confront our perceptions of time and space. Without asking Ligeti’s permission, Stanley Kubrick used Lux Aeterna in the landmark 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick developed this distinctly “non-verbal” film around this piece, along with Ligeti’s Requiem and Atmosphères, creating its central enigmatic mood.