Celestial Soundtracks: Hollywood and the Music of György Ligeti
Marcel Antonisse, György Ligeti, 1984
There are some pieces of music that sound as if they've come from another planet. Pieces so strange that you’d think “that couldn't possibly have been written by a human.” György Ligeti's Atmosphères is one of those pieces, an orchestral work from 1961 that – when I first encountered it – sounded like nothing I'd ever heard.
With this piece, we really get the sense that we’re hearing something astronomical unfold. Just listen to the first chord: a dense wall of orchestral sound, like a cloudy nebula, emerges. This unusual sound has been called micropolyphony and it’s the result of dozens of independent voices, densely packed together, moving chromatically. Then, about two minutes into Atmosphères, following an unsettling harmony, we hear an incredible effect: a bright brass chord which rises and falls from the hazy orchestral texture. It sounds as if a fiery comet just shot past us, before disappearing into space.
What I think is so interesting about Ligeti's music is that, despite how clearly innovative it is, a vast number of people have listened to it before (and probably don’t know who composed it). The reason for this is the Hollywood director Stanley Kubrick. Ligeti’s music clearly had an effect on Kubrick, who decided to use it in his 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
According to Hollywood legend, Kubrick had asked the film composer Alex North to write a soundtrack for 2001 but decided in post-production that he wouldn’t use any of North’s music. Instead, Kubrick chose a selection of classical pieces (including four by Ligeti) that he thought perfectly conveyed the mystery and otherworldliness of the film – unfortunately he never asked Ligeti’s permission to use his music. When the composer heard about this, he was outraged (though not as outraged as North) and decided he’d take a stopwatch to the Vienna premiere of 2001 and discover how much of his music had been used (it was over half an hour’s worth!).
Luckily, Ligeti’s relationship with cinema improved and his music would be used again in Kubrick’s The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut, as well as Scorsese’s Shutter Island. If Atmosphères captivated you, I would recommend listening to Ligeti’s Lux Aeterna and Lontano which are similarly masterful, evocative pieces that have appeared in films.
To better grasp the music, however, we should understand Ligeti’s life. He was born in Romania in 1923 but, after moving to Hungary, found himself restricted by a Soviet regime that despised “modern” music. In 1956, he fled to Vienna, leaving many of his works behind. Yet, even in Vienna, he would denounce the European avant-garde for being too rigid and dogmatic and would sometimes poke fun at them through music. For instance, his Aventures (probably the strangest music in 2001) and Nouvelles Aventures feature peculiar vocalisations, accompanied by crashing tea services and the tearing up of newspapers. Ultimately, what we get with Ligeti is not only a highly distinctive musical voice but a brilliant sense of humour and a restless creativity resisting all limitations.