VIENNA, June 13 (UPI) -- Musical composer Gyorgy Ligeti, whose work was used in the film "2001: A Space Odyssey, is dead at 83.
He died of unknown causes in Vienna on Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.
The composer had been in poor health for much of his life and suffered from a combination of diseases.
"I don't like the idea of lists," said Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Los Angeles Philharmonic's music director, who conducted Ligeti's "Requiem" at Walt Disney Concert Hall last month. "But yesterday I would have said that Ligeti qualified as one of the very, very few best living composers."
He also noted how Ligeti's works can "go through the full scale of incredible complexity and amazing simplicity and everything in between."
Ligeti is survived by his wife, Vera; and his son Lukas, a percussionist and composer in New York.
