2001: A Space Odyssey - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1996 Reissue)
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Music CD Cover
Edition: Music CDAudio: English (Original Language); Russian (Original Language)
Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered, Soundtrack
CD Release Date: 1996-10-29
Music Label: Word Entertainment
Soundtracks:
- Overture: Atmospheres - Sudwesfunk Orchestra
- Also Sprach Zarathustra [Main Title from Thus Spake Zarathustra] - Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
- Requiem for Soprano, Mezzo Soprano, Two Mixed Choirs & Orchestra - Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
- Blue Danube [Excerpt] - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
- Lux Aeterna - Stuttgart Schola Cantorum
- Gayane Ballet Suite (Adiago) - Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra
- Jupiter and Beyond: Requiem for Soprano, Mezzo Soprano, Two Mixed Cho - Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Internationale Musikinstitut Darmstardt, Sudwesfunk Orchestra
- Also Sprach Zarathustra (Theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey) - Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
- Blue Danube (Reprise) - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
- Also Sprach Zarathustra (Theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey) - Sudwesfunk Orchestra
- Lux Aeterna - Stuttgart Schola Cantorum
- Adventures [Unaltered] - Internationale Musikinstitut Darmstardt
- Hal 9000 [Dialogue Montage]
Free Music Notes for 2001: A Space Odyssey - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1996 Reissue)
Free Music Review: Further Listening
Hit: 5 Stars
It's widely known that the original intention for the music in '2001' was to use a specially commissioned score by Alex North. However, Stanley Kubrick wasn't satisfied with the result and decided to use pieces of classical music instead. His choices of music might have been influenced by his collaborator, Arthur C Clarke, as Clarke was a classical music enthusiast. The music used was pretty diverse: from 19th century 'pop' (Blue Danube) to 20th century experimental stuff by Ligeti. It all worked in relation to the film, and the LP, released in 1969, was a big success. There are additional items on the CD which weren't on the LP; maybe the most interesting being a recording of the opening section of Also Sprach Zarathustra performed by the Sudwestfunk Orchestra which apparently was due to be used with the film. Kubrick however wanted the far more intense recording by Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic, a performance which was not credited on the original LP because Decca went all sniffy over associating their recording with a film soundtrack - a decision they regretted later when film and LP caught the imagination of many millions of people around the world. These two recordings of this now universally-known music give an excellent demonstration of the difference between a good performance (Sudwestfunk) and a great one (Vienna Philharmonic). I vividly remember being totally astounded by '2001' when I first saw it back in 1968. This unique masterpiece of the cinema has left an abiding impression and early on sowed the seeds of a passion for classical music and an interest in astronomy. The music very definitely suited the film - the opening of Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra could not have been a better choice as the 'main theme' and of course it was extensively used to accompany coverage of the actual first manned moon landing the year after the film's release. Apart from Also Sprach, the music which left a big impression on first seeing the film was Khachaturian's 'Adagio' from the Gayeneh ballet suite: this is used as we first see the spaceship 'Discovery' on its cold, lonely journey across the great gulf of space. I suppose that the most original-sounding piece is Ligeti's 'Requiem' (Kyrie section, which, having heard the whole work is by far the most interesting of the three). I went out and bought the soundtrack LP straight away and spent many hours listening to it; the music strongly evoking the episodes of the film and gradually growing on me purely as music as time went by. Some time afterwards, Polydor brought out a 'Volume 2' - nothing to do with the film, it was tagged with a line that it was "music inspired by the film" (!) Given that all the music on it was written many years before 2001 was made, this might have been a bit of a con, but it turned out to be music which was similar to the selection on the film's soundtrack; some of it was by the same composers and was in fact a very interesting compilation. Later, on finding out that Also Sprach was only the opening section of a symphonic poem which lasted for over half an hour, I bought the full work and was completely bowled over by what I heard. It's a massively powerful (and by turns meditative) orchestral tour-de-force which thoroughly deserves it's modern-day popularity - a truly inspired work of art. This and the other pieces on the soundtrack were for me a starting point for a veritable voyage of discovery through the world of classical music and other listeners might like to delve a little deeper and try some 'further listening' by way of other works which wouldn't have been inappropriate choices for the film:- Sibelius: Symphonies 4,5,6,7 + The Swan of Tuonela + Tapiola (all on 2 CDs: Berlin Philharmonic/Herbert von Karajan on the DG label ASIN B00000J9HE) Arthur C Clarke included a telling reference to Sibelius' 7th symphony in one of his short stories: the music score is one of a few artifacts buried in a time-capsule by the very last vestiges of human life as they prepare to be annihilated in a catastrophic ice-age. Gorecki: Symphony 3 (Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Antoni Wit on Naxos label). Bruckner: Symphony 9 (Berlin PO/Karajan - get the 1966 recording not the later one - DG label: ASIN B00000E4II ). Mahler: Symphony 2 (Vienna PO/Zubin Mehta, Decca label). Leifs: 'Hekla' and Requiem (Iceland Symphony Orchestra/En Shao - BIS label). Richard Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra (Berlin PO/Karajan - 1974 recording - DG label or Vienna PO/Karajan 1959 recording on Decca). If you're taken by Richard Strauss's tone-painting style then try his 'Alpine Symphony' and 'Death & Transfiguration'.
2001: A Space Odyssey - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1996 Reissue) Poster
This commemorative reissue of music from 2001: A Space Odyssey combines the Also sprach Zarathustra theme, various Johann and Richard Strauss segments, and a ballet suite by Aram Khachaturian--all of which prove how much Stanley Kubrick's film attempts to avoid the soundtrack clich?s of most science-fiction movies. Instead of the expected sci-fi effects, there is a more ironic application of music that would be otherwise incongruous to the celestial settings. Here, "The Blue Danube" complements scenes involving weightlessness and descending spacecraft, while Gyorgy Ligeti's creepy "monolith" music connotes Armageddon more than interplanetary exploration. The tracks play as they had appeared on the original soundtrack release back in the '60s, but there is also previously unreleased supplemental material and a dialogue montage entitled "HAL 9000." --Joseph LanzaMiscellaneous Music CDs
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