Today is the anniversary of the birth of György Ligeti, one of the 20th century’s true innovators in music.

There are many longer pieces we could have chosen to mark this, but here are two shorter works that illustrate the range of his creativity. First up is Hungarian Rock, a short piece for harpsichord, which pushes the boundaries of what the instrument is capable of:

From the keyboard we turn to the choir, and the remarkable Lux Aeterna, which had such an effect on film director Stanley Kubrick that he used it in 2001: A Space Odyssey:

To discover more about Ligeti, head to read Tom Service’s guide to his music