Requiem (Ligeti)

Ligeti was commissioned to write a work in 1961 for a series of new-music concerts on Swedish Radio. It was he who suggested a Requiem, and had initially intended to set the full text of the Requiem mass. However he ultimately decided that to set around half the text met his structural needs. He scored the work for large choral forces, featuring two mixed choirs and soprano and mezzo-soprano soloists. To the orchestral forces he added a harpsichord and celesta. Ligeti spent nine months working on the six-minute Kyrie section alone, which featured the most complex polyphony he had ever attempted, featuring twenty vocal lines, although as Harold Kaufmann notes, "it refers back... to the classical vocal polyphony of the old masters".[2] In particular, it drew for inspiration from the work of Ockeghem, "refracted and multiplied through the technique of micropolyphony."[3]

The work was first performed on 14 March 1965 in Stockholm, with the soloists Liliana Poli, Barbro Ericson and the Choir and Orchestra of Swedish Radio under Michael Gielen.[4] During rehearsals, Ligeti was sent a telegram from the chorus master who entreated him to come at once to Stockholm as they were all "terrified" of the piece.[5] The same soloists and conductor were joined by the Choir of Bavarian Radio and the Orchestra of Hesse Radio, Frankfurt, for the first recording, made in November 1968. A second recording was made in 2003 with soloists, London Voices and the Berliner Philharmoniker under Jonathan Nott. A further recording has been made by the WDR Symphony Orchestra under Peter Eötvös.

Ligeti's Requiem achieved almost instant fame (for a modern classical work) from its use by Stanley Kubrick in his 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, although the soundtrack only uses the climax of the Kyrie section. The piece was not specially recorded for the film, but according to conductor Francis Travis came from a live performance he directed in 1967.[6]