2001: A Space Odyssey - Various Artists > Reviews > Powerful soundtrack in a league of its own

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Groundbreaking
Lyrics	Not applicable
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
Value for Money	Satisfactory

Advantages:	Iconic and legendary tracks, nice cover art
Disadvantages:	Some tracks are merely repetitions of earlier tracks

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The soundtrack to the film '2001: A Space Odyssey' is regarded in many different ways, just as the film itself is. Containing very little original material, but rather being an original combination of classical sounds, the soundtrack is powerful, harrowing and reminiscent of the images of the film. But it's likely that one will only appreciate it if also an appreciator of its accompanying movie.

The overall theme of the music is dark, atmospheric, eerie and intense. The initial overture delivers indistinct noises of the black chaos (i.e. black screen) it plays over, a kind of representation of the state of the universe in the beginning of time. This track is largely without a melody and is purely there for its atmosphere of positive foreboding. The "sister track" to the overtures would be the two "Requiem" tracks, voiced by the Vatican Choir. These tracks, one a more intense extension of the other, play as a crescendo of increasingly eerie chants. The sound of "Requiem" is completely unique both in its sheer quality, timbre, and atmosphere. This is the music that plays whenever the Monolith, a strange alien object, appears in the movie - it is music for an unknown power with an unknown purpose.

The title music for the film - also used as the music in the climax, and at the climax of the prelude - is Strauss's "Thus Spake Zarathustra", an incredibly powerful short piece that is iconic and unmistakable. Its use in '2001' has become legendary. Most famously the rising chords of the music play against the title screen, where the Sun appears to rise over the face of the Moon, with the Earth receding into the foreground. This image, combined with the music, is quite unforgettable, and inspires an incredible sense of universal grandeur.

The aggressive chords of "Zarathustra" play straight into the beautifully calm liquid waltz of the Blue Danube. This cut is of course parallel to the cinematically historic jump-cut in the film from the Dawn of Man (4 million B.C.) to colonised space (2001). Representing the harmony and elegance of space-travel, the use of the Blue Danube, of course originally referring to a river, presents a beautiful musical image of cosmic harmony.

The remaining tracks include a melancholy ballet, played over the introduction to the Jupiter mission, which resembles the solitary nature of space travel, "Lux Aeterna", an eerie track that builds up to the "Requiem", and a dialog montage involving the conscious computer HAL 9000, which contains some of the most interesting text of the film.

'2001: A Space Odyssey' was originally intended to use an original score produced by Alex North, but the director Stanley Kubrick opted for this purely classical soundtrack instead at the last minute. It was a stroke of genius; the North tracks are unoriginal and unimpressive, hardly standing out at all from the broth of science fiction soundtracks already made. However '2001' sets itself aside with this iconic mix of the eerie and elegant; though perhaps the atmosphere of the music is only truly appreciated in the context of the images it accompanies in the film.