Fanfare from Also sprach Zarathustra

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Fanfare from Also sprach Zarathustra

It took a rare kind of imagination to think of the introduction to Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra - a tone poem inspired by nothing more exciting than the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche - as the ideal soundtrack for the opening sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey. In fact, Stanley Kubrick chose this and the other items of music in the film - by Johann Strauss, Aram Khachaturian and György Ligeti as well as Richard Strauss - only as timing tracks eventually to be replaced by a specially written score by Alex North. In the end, however, Kubrick found that he liked his temporary tracks so much that he couldn’t bear to lose them. Disappointed though North might have been, it is highly unlikely that he or any other composer could have devised better music than, say, The Blue Danube waltz to reflect the weightless descent of the spacecraft Discovery or the visionary fanfare at the beginning of Also sprach Zarathustra to accompany the majestic image of the sun rising above the Earth as seen from space.

R.A.