''Lux Æterna'' (, ; "eternal light") is an orchestral composition by

Clint Mansell Clinton Darryl Mansell (; born 7 January 1963) is an English musician, singer, and composer, born in Coventry. He served as the lead singer and multi-instrumentalist of alt-rock band Pop Will Eat Itself before embarking on a career as a film s ...

. Performed by the

Kronos Quartet The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classic ...

, it forms a

leitmotif A leitmotif or leitmotiv () is a "short, recurring musical phrase" associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical concepts of ''idée fixe'' or ''motto-theme''. The spelling ''leitmotif'' is an anglici ...

in the 2000 film ''

Requiem for a Dream ''Requiem for a Dream'' is a 2000 American psychological drama film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher McDonald and Marlon Wayans. It is based on the 1978 novel of the same name ...

'', and is the

penult Penult is a linguistics term for the second to last syllable of a word. It is an abbreviation of ''penultimate'', which describes the next-to-last item in a series. The penult follows the antepenult and precedes the ultima. For example, the main ...

imate piece in the movie's soundtrack. A re-orchestrated version of the composition, titled "Requiem for a Tower", was created for the trailer of '' The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers'' in 2002.

In popular culture

Both "Lux Aeterna" and the re-orchestrated version, "Requiem for a Tower" that was created for the trailer of '' The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers'', have been used in multiple forms of media, including the film trailers for ''

The Da Vinci Code ''The Da Vinci Code'' is a 2003 mystery thriller novel by Dan Brown. It is Brown's second novel to include the character Robert Langdon: the first was his 2000 novel ''Angels & Demons''. ''The Da Vinci Code'' follows symbologist Robert Langdon ...

'', '' I Am Legend'', ''

Sunshine Sunlight is a portion of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun, in particular infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. On Earth, sunlight is scattered and filtered through Earth's atmosphere, and is obvious as daylight when th ...

'' and ''

Babylon A.D. ''Babylon A.D.'' is a 2008 science fiction action film based on the 1999 novel ''Babylon Babies'' by Maurice Georges Dantec. The film was directed by Mathieu Kassovitz and stars Vin Diesel in the lead role, Mélanie Thierry, Michelle Yeoh, Lambe ...

''; trailers for the video games ''

Assassin's Creed ''Assassin's Creed'' is an open-world, action-adventure, and stealth game franchise published by Ubisoft and developed mainly by its studio Ubisoft Montreal using the game engine Anvil and its more advanced derivatives. Created by Patrice D ...

'' and '' Lord of the Rings: Return of the King''; advertising campaigns for such products as

Canon PowerShot The PowerShot products is a line of consumer and prosumer grade digital cameras, launched by Canon in 1996. () In 1996 a model of PowerShot was introduced to the market, The Powershot 600. The production of The PowerShort came shortly after Cano ...

cameras,

Molson Canadian Molson Canadian is a brand of 5% abv lager beer (4% in Ireland) brewed by Molson Brewing, the Canadian division of Molson Coors Brewing Company. The beer was introduced in 1959. Awards Molson Canadian has won several beer industry awards, inclu ...

and Canadian wireless carrier

Telus Telus Communications Inc. (TCI) is the wholly owned principal subsidiary of Telus Corporation, a Canadian national telecommunications company that provides a wide range of telecommunications products and services including internet access, voi ...

; and on television such as in the series ''

So You Think You Can Dance ''So You Think You Can Dance'' is a franchise of reality television shows in which contestants compete in dance. The first series of the franchise, created by '' Idols'' producers Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe, premiered in July 2005 and has ...

'' as well as a promo spot the series ''

Flash Forward A flashforward (also spelled flash-forward, and more formally known as prolepsis) is a scene that temporarily takes the narrative forward in time from the current point of the story in literature, film, television and other media. Flashforwards a ...

''.

Requiem for a Tower

A re-orchestrated version of "Lux Aeterna", titled "Requiem for a Tower", was arranged by composers Simone Benyacar, Dan Nielsen and

Veigar Margeirsson Veigar Margeirsson (born 1972) is a film score composer from Iceland. He composed the original score for Eric Schaeffer's 2004 film ''Mind the Gap''. He was also one of the composers who arranged and orchestrated Clint Mansell's Lux Aeterna fr ...

for the trailer of '' The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers''. "Requiem for a Tower" features a

choir A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which ...

and full

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

. Although never intended for release, after considerable demand by fans the re-recording(s) were made available as part of the ''Requiem for a Tower'' album release from

Corner Stone Cues Corner Stone Cues (CSC) is a label and music production house based in Los Angeles. It is best known for debut release and title song “ Requiem for a Tower” featured in the trailer for '' The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers''. “ Requiem for ...

. While the release was originally made physically, production was discontinued indefinitely with increased digital sales of the album on major electronic music distributors

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...

and

Amazon MP3 Amazon Music (previously Amazon MP3) is a music streaming platform and online music store operated by Amazon. Launched in public beta on September 25, 2007, in January 2008 it became the first music store to sell music without digital rights man ...

Corner Stone Cues release

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lux Aeterna Songs written for films 2000 songs Compositions by Clint Mansell Requiem for a Dream