Atmosphères

Composed in 1961, Atmosphères was Ligeti’s decisive creative breakthrough into a new world of musical sound. Instead of functioning in terms of classical music’s standard procedures of melody, harmony and rhythm, Atmosphères consists almost entirely of slowly evolving tone clusters; sometimes very large and dense, these are played by a large orchestra of 89 instruments (with percussion omitted). Each player has an individual part whose chromatic material is similar to, but never exactly synchronised with, the other parts. The total effect is of a hanging tapestry of orchestral sonority, fluctuating internally within a static overall structure. Ligeti completed Atmosphères five years after he had emigrated from Soviet-controlled Hungary to live in Western Europe. The work was first performed at the Donaueschingen Festival in Germany in 1961, and confirmed Ligeti’s reputation as a leading avant-garde composer. The music was heard by millions of listeners across the world when Stanley Kubrick included it in the soundtrack of his 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.