In 1964, filmmaker Stanley Kubrick set his sights on making a film that would explore man's relationship with the Universe. Four years later, "2001: A Space Odyssey" was released to mixed reviews: "Monumentally unimaginative," wrote one critic. Another, on the other hand, noted that it was "a magnificent success on a cosmic scale." With some derision, a third noted: a work "somewhere between hypnotic and dull." Today, fifty years after its premiere, critics agree with the popular opinion of its time: a work of genius.
In this popular enchantment, the soundtrack played a very prominent role. At first, Kubrick opted for original music, but halfway through opted for pre-existing music: some very well-known, some known in certain circles, and some completely unknown. To this last category belongs the work Lux Aeterna, incorporated by Kubrick into the soundtrack without asking permission from the author, the Hungarian composer György Ligeti.
Kubrick incorporated no more and no less than four works by Ligeti into the film without canceling rights. Ligeti learned of this through a friend who suggested he go to see the movie with a stopwatch. He found that a good half hour of the film contained his music. But he didn't make a fuss. He simply sued the filmmaker, demanding compensation for one dollar. We ignore how the conflict ended. We only hope that in their subsequent work together (The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut) Kubrick had learned to behave.
György Ligeti (1923 - 2006)
Born in Hungary in 1923, a survivor of concentration camps, Ligeti was part of the great Hungarian exodus of 1956, settling in Germany where he was able to soak up the burgeoning development of contemporary music. He quickly joined the avant-garde, and soon began to produce works captivating for their boldness and complexity, often within very free rhythmic frameworks. From 1960 onwards, the warm reception to several of his works transformed him into one of the prominent authors of the European avant-garde. After all, then, Ligeti was not so unknown when Kubrick took the liberty of borrowing his works without permission.
Lux Aeterna, for a mixed choir
This mysterious and rather gloomy but very beautiful work is written for a mixed choir of 16 voices a cappella, that is to say, without accompaniment. The words, in Latin, are taken from the traditional Requiem Mass of the Catholic liturgy. Composed in 1966 using the technique known as "sound mass", introduced by Ligeti in the sixties, it results in a body of sound that dispenses with rhythm and melody, using harmony to produce variations of vocal timbres in time.
At just over eight minutes long, it seems to suggest, with its whispering texture, a universal presence capable of permeating everything. This is what the voices emanating from the monolith, in the famous scene of Kubrick's film, arouse.
The rendition is by the Taipei Chamber Singers, conducted by its director Chen Yun-Hung.
