![]() ![]() You simply cannot hear these Ligeti pieces without seeing Bowman’s journey in your mind. Whatever the original composers intentions were, in the 20th and 21st centuries, the pieces used in this movie are now associated with it forever. Even The Simpsons used “The Blue Danube” for a space docking scene (Homer and a potato chip) in an homage to 2001. They have all become intertwined with the film forever. These are challenging pieces of music, but not difficult to enjoy. It is over only when Zarathustra speaks again, and humanity has taken its next giant leap. The film at this point became its most experimental: impressionist images and obscure dissonant music put many viewers off balance as they struggled to comprehend just what the hell was going on. David Bowman experienced great terror as he plunged inside it, and this is the music that accompanied his long trip into the beyond. Once again, we must face the Monolith and what it means. Mankind meets its future on “Jupiter and Beyond”, a combination of three Ligeti pieces. The coldness of space is easy to feel from inside their stark white starship, and Khachaturian painting the tone. Astronauts David Bowman and Frank Poole seem disconnected from their humanity the music has more feelings than they do. Khachaturian’s “Gayane Ballet Suite” is a somber piece, depicting the boredom and routine of interplanetary space flight. It is mildly disconcerting, as is what Floyd’s team finds. Floyd’s trip across the lunar surface to meet the Monolith. Ligeti returns, as he must, with “Lux Aeterna”. But space is a cold deadly place, hostile to almost all known life. This complex docking maneuver requires no dialogue, just Strauss. A shuttle docks with a spinning space station spinning of course to create artificial gravity that humans need to survive long-term in space. The brilliance of the “Blue Danube” in the film is how Kubrick managed to capture the dance-like coordinated movements of objects in space. “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”)Īfter the chaos of “Requiem” and “Atmospheres”, Strauss’ “Blue Danube” offers a warm respite. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.” 2. “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. Clarke’s “third law” states “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” and that describes one aspect of the Monolith in 2001. The Monolith is a tool of our growth as a race and a stark warning that there are things beyond that our science is not equipped to explain. In the film, this unsettling music appears when we encounter the enigmatic Monolith. Voices sing, each one in their own world, but joining together to join a coherent piece. Unease returns with the bee-like swarms of “Requiem” also by Ligeti. The music implies great revelation, standing on the cusp of universal breakthrough. The conflicting (and conspiring) tones of “Atmospheres” is supplanted by the main title, “Also Sprach Zarathustra”. Ligeti’s dissonant “Atmospheres” delivers an uneasy feeling after all we humans know nothing of what is really out there. This fine release enables the listener to delve deeper and unlock even more of the secrets of the universe. The same could be said of the soundtrack, reissued on CD by Rhino with four supplementary bonus tracks. The film was fiercely different, free of cliches and intensely determined not to dumb things down. Nothing North could come up with satisfied the fussy director as much as the classical pieces, so that is what was used on the final film. Stanley had been editing the film to a temporary score of classical music. Kubrick initially contacted Spartacus composer Alex North. Music (or even lack thereof) would be required to tell the audio story. No thruster sounds, no pinging space radar. Clarke sat down to write the “proverbial good science fiction movie”, they strove for a depth and realism that had yet to be attempted. Stanley Kubrick changed the sci-fi playing field with 2001: A Space Odyssey. Hosted by Vinyl Connection, it’s the inaugural…Ģ001: A Space Odyssey – Original motion picture soundtrack (originally 1968, 1996 Rhino remaster) ![]()
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