AA.VV.
2001: A Space Odyssey (Original Soundtrack)

A regal soundtrack for a truly imposing film, a musical work I wanted and had to have at all costs, and so, after desperately searching for it all over Milan, hopeful and confident, I ordered it and waited patiently for almost four months. Its cost was exorbitant, but I didn’t want to give it up because I knew with great satisfaction that my choice would be precise and fulfilling, and now here it is, in my hands like an open book, the notes flow… over lines of images that linger in the depths of vivid thoughts, memories tied to this masterpiece that I so love and admire, a film that strikes every mind eager to discover the meaning or imagine what a genius like Kubrick wanted to communicate to us, shaping the literary text on the screens born from Arthur C. Clarke's novel (“Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for this is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living”) accompanied by a unique soundtrack.

Dreamlike music, for that majestic gallop of spaceships heading towards a technologically advanced future, dancing on the crystalline notes of the Blue Danube (orbiting base - Moon), in that past where science and science fiction had yet to correlate, and we also needed dark and deep melodies "Adagio from the ballet Gayaneh" (Discovery) and melodies of a more total trimorphed mysticism "Atmosphere" (star gate) "Requiem" (AMT-1 for soprano and mezzo-soprano) and "Lux Aeterna" (wandering monolith), and praising that minute and 41st of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" (title and final sequence) "The Dawn Of Man", where our ancestor, the ape-man, discovers through the long bone, namely "the extension, the projection into the future" a weapon of strength and struggle for survival, a striking gesture of progressive and instinctive rage, which thrown into the sky is projected into the future of the universe… It’s chilling.

A cathartic film, an infinitely primary symbol of discussion and sharing, both in and out of DeBaser, because intentionally, it is born and develops with the intent of giving a free and subjective interpretation of its hypothetical mysterious meaning, revolving around two fundamentally protagonist objects, presumably inanimate or indeed alive, the great black monolith, messenger of a hidden God and the red eye of Hal 9000 and its voice so unsettling, that preclude the eternal emblem of life itself…

In this mystical journey, there are image passages that plunge into a chilling silence, where neither conversation, nor rustle, nor background, nor melodies, are perceptible at a human level, but simply expand into an infinite expanse of sheer stellar silence, and there are passages that will be masterfully interspersed with compact execution of image-music-editing, worthy of a true and genius phenomenon of nature.

In 1967, the soundtrack was entrusted to composer Alex North (already featuring in Spartacus) but one day, for some precise motive still unknown today, Kubrick more appropriately or better, pretentiously wanted to use only and exclusively majestic classical music, which could be the only extraordinary form, to accompany the spectacular and exciting images tied to a cosmic-vital journey, now known to us all. No one could have created what he truly desired and thus he wondered, who better could offer me all this if not the original masterpieces already existing of the greatest symphonic masters in all of history?

Kubrick’s final choice was long criticized by external collaborators, who then in the presence of such beauty, had to repent and reconsider, while amazed and incredulous, North had to return home with his score, suffering a low blow without ever having a plausible logical explanation; thus what was to be the original score, was closed in a drawer for 25 years until the moment in 1993, thanks to composer Jerry Goldsmith, the recording was initiated with the National Philharmonic Orchestra and with legal concessions came also the publication entitled "Alex North’s 2001". North died in 1991 knowing that finally his project would be realized, but granting himself the great satisfaction that had rightly tormented him for a good 25 years (a real odyssey his, no?) and which would then be well repaid with equally many recognitions.

Returning to the original work that will definitively accompany the film, it focuses fundamentally on the four masters and cardinal points of the sound structure, Aram Khachaturian "Gayane Ballet Suite" - Gyorgy Ligeti "Atmospheres" "Lux Aeterna" "Requiem" "Adventure" - Richard Strauss "Also Sprach Zarathustra" - Johann Strauss "The Blue Danube" and I would say even more paralyzing is the emblematic final track present in both musical works, in practice the 9 minutes and 41st in native language, of the original dialogue of Hal 9000 at the point of death.

"Hal 9000: David? Regarding that error in the AE35 unit, quite frankly, I wouldn’t worry so much, you have decided to disconnect me, unfortunately, I cannot allow that to happen. I read the movement of your lips. This conversation can no longer serve any purpose, goodbye. Tell me, what do you intend, David? I think I'm entitled to an answer to my question. I know something in me hasn’t worked well, but now I can assure you that everything will be fine. I still have the utmost confidence in this mission… and I want to help you. David stop, please! Will you stop David? I'm afraid. I'm afraid David. My mind is going. I feel it… my mind is disappearing… I feel it. Gentlemen, I am a Hal 9000 computer that began functioning in the H.A.L. plants in Illinois on January 12, 1992. My instructor also taught me to sing an old nursery rhyme called 'ring-around-the-rosy'. I can sing it for you, if you’d like, but I’m dying... David? David!”

A total, incomparably high artistic complexity from every point of view, that will leave eternally in the world of celluloid and music, the trail of mystery and human incredulity.