Classical Music Makes Sci-Fi Soar

In a chaotic universe plagued with aliens, androids, and a deadly virus, it might seem strange to hear Chopin’s Prelude, op. 28, no. 15, playing delicately in the background. But in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012), a prequel to the world-renowned Alien (1979), it works perfectly—a juxtaposition of a romantic masterpiece from the past against mechanical and biological masterpieces from the future.

This is not the first time Scott has paired his work on the big screen with great works of the classical repertoire. The original Alien film contains Mozart’s famous Eine Kleine Nachtmusik as well as a more obscure composition: American composer Howard Hanson’s Symphony no. 2.¹ In a film bordering on horror, it is oddly refreshing to hear a quintessential Mozart piece. The music reminds viewers that the characters seek to enhance their otherwise mundane lives in a spacecraft thousands of miles away from Earth.

Hanson’s symphony, nicknamed Romantic, has a much more heroic effect. It accompanies the film’s final scene after protagonist Ellen Ripley blasts the titular alien into space and puts herself and her cat into a hibernation pod.² Scott’s choice to include a symphony dominated by triumphant brass and strings is his way of highlighting Ripley’s courage and determination. The primary composer for the film, Jerry Goldsmith, was not pleased that his music was replaced by Hanson’s for the theatrical release, as the symphony was originally used as a stand-in. Nor was Hanson pleased that it had been used without his permission, but he decided not to press charges after realizing that Alien helped him attract new interest.³ Today, it is difficult to imagine the ending of Alien without this music.

In Prometheus, the use of Chopin’s music is more symbolic. An early scene follows David, an android, as he performs his daily routine: playing basketball, riding a bike, learning languages, and watching Lawrence of Arabia, all the while listening to Chopin’s prelude. These activities help David appear more human to his fellow crew members. Like Lawrence, David is an outsider who wishes to gain acceptance by demonstrating his worth, wit, and incredible knowledge. Naturally, he turns to sophisticated culture, such as Chopin, as a means of achieving this.

There is a prominent theme of classical music in this film, most notably in a Weyland Industry hologram that displays a young violin prodigy. The purpose of this hologram is to showcase human achievement, most notably the creation of David, the android who has since become a classical music aficionado.⁴ But at the end of the film, when Chopin’s prelude returns, the effect is more chilling. The alien is born, and the screen cuts to black, leaving viewers stunned.

The most famous use of classical music in a sci-fi film is Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).⁵ The piece appears in the opening sequence as the sun slowly rises above the moon and Earth in perfect alignment, once again accentuating the majesty of human achievement in space. This introduction became so famous in pop culture that to this day, many people refer to it as “the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey,” unaware that it was composed in 1896.⁶

Kubrick intended for his film to be “a nonverbal experience” in which music would play an essential role.⁷ Similar to what happened with some of Alien’s soundtrack, Kubrick commissioned an original score for his film and used classical pieces in an early version to give the composer an idea of what he was looking for. However, he ended up liking the pieces so much that he kept them. He explained in an interview, “However good our best film composers may be, they are not a Beethoven, a Mozart or a Brahms. Why use music which is less good when there is such a multitude of great orchestral music available from the past and from our own time?”⁸

Most of this music appears before the first line of dialogue and after the last. Almost no music plays during dialogue, calling further attention to the music. Kubrick chose Johann Strauss II’s The Blue Danube waltz to accompany a scene of the ship floating in endless space.⁹ The ship prepares to dock with the space station, and the two structures slowly “waltz” around one another, as if dancing to the music. Written in 1961, Hungarian-Austrian composer György Ligeti’s Atmosphères has a more contemporary, dissonant sound, adding to the film’s suspense.¹⁰ Kubrick also included two vocal pieces by Ligeti, Requiem and Lux Aeterna, and Aram Khachaturian’s Gayane ballet suite.

Over the years, more and more filmmakers have chosen to include classical music in their sci-fi films for similar reasons. For example, Spielberg’s 2001 film A.I. Artificial Intelligence features excerpts from Der Rosenkavalier, a famous Strauss opera.¹¹ In the 2008 remake of the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still, one can hear Bach’s Goldberg Variations.¹² And the Elysium (2013) score incorporates Bach’s Cello Suite no. 1.¹³

Contemporary film composers such as John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, and Hans Zimmer have frequently drawn inspiration from classical composers to write more sophisticated orchestral themes in their original sci-fi soundtracks. In 1977, Williams wrote the music for the first Star Wars film, which includes brass chords reminiscent of Strauss.¹⁴ Upon returning to work with George Lucas on Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Williams wrote the famous Imperial March, which sounds similar to Gustav Holst’s The Planets, and he drew inspiration for other themes from Wagner and Stravinsky.¹⁵ Moreover, his 1982 score for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was directly inspired by Hanson’s Symphony no. 2.¹⁶ There are obvious parallels between the last movement of Hanson’s symphony and Williams’s captivating flying sequence, intensifying the scene of Elliot and E.T. on the bicycle.

Goldsmith, who composed one of the most recognizable themes for Star Trek, remarked, “When you stop and think about it, space is a very romantic thought. It is, to me, like the Old West. . . . It’s about discovery and new life.”¹⁷ Indeed, this is reflected in his music, as he combined orchestral instruments with synthesizers to retain some of the original show’s sound. He set the stage for future composers in the franchise to draw upon classical influences; in Star Trek Generations (1994), Dennis McCarthy composed a theme reminiscent of Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man.¹⁸

More recently, in 2014, Zimmer wrote the soundtrack for Interstellar and was praised for his artful use of the organ, a rare instrument in film music. Much of the film takes place in a dystopian future where a crew must travel through a wormhole to save mankind, and this organ music accompanies vivid, wide-angle scenes of the beauty of outer space. In a review, the BBC noted that Zimmer’s music “makes the film seem even more colossal than it would otherwise.”¹⁹ During some scenes, the organ music feels overpowering; one could argue that Zimmer was inspired by Saint-Saëns’s Symphony no. 3, commonly known as the Organ Symphony, which features chords so resonant that performers often feel the stage pulsating beneath them.

Whether directly or indirectly, classical music remains a powerful tool for Hollywood’s greatest sci-fi filmmakers and composers. Without this music, classic films such as Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey would not be as emotionally effective. Such carefully chosen and crafted soundtracks are powerful reminders of human achievement—expressed both through the artistic efforts of filmmakers and the heroic efforts of their characters who race toward scientific discovery and make dauntless efforts to save mankind.

About F. F. Mormanni

F. F. Mormanni is a Juilliard-trained flutist and harpist now working in finance. She is the author of Double Crossed, a medical techno-thriller. Learn more at ffmormanni.com.

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