György Ligeti’s “Lux Aeterna”: The Ethereal Land of Micropolyphony
Lux Aeterna for sixteen-part mixed choir, written in 1966 by the Hungarian-Austrian avant-garde composer György Ligeti (1923-2006), is simultaneously haunting, mysterious, unsettling, and serenely beautiful. Unfolding gradually in shimmering layers of sound, it forces us to confront our perceptions of time and space. Its dimensions are cosmic. The term micropolyphony has been used to explain the clusters of sound which emerge and develop in Lux Aeterna and other music by Ligeti. It’s a word which might bring to …