Music About Outer Space
In 1958, Karl-Birger Blomdahl composed an opera Aniara to a libretto by Erik Lindegren based on the poem Aniara by Harry Martinson, a tragedy set aboard a space ship.
The Japanese musician Isao Tomita has produced many albums with space-based themes, such as The Planets (1976), his version of Holst's suite; Kosmos (1978); Bermuda Triangle (1979); Dawn Chorus (Canon of the Three Stars) (1984); Space Walk - Impressions Of An Astronaut (compilation, 1984); Mind of the Universe - Live at Linz (1985); Back to the Earth - Live in New York (1988); and Nasca Fantasy (supporting Kodo, 1994).
The Vangelis album Albedo 0.39 (1976) is entirely devoted to space, while a segment of Heaven and Hell (1975) was used as the theme to the PBS television series Cosmos by Carl Sagan. His work Mythodea: Music for NASA's Mars Odyssey Mission is reflective of his interest in space exploration.
Mike Oldfield's 1994 album The Songs of Distant Earth was based on Arthur C. Clarke's SF novel Songs of Distant Earth. Pop songs also mention outer space, such as Chris de Burgh's "A Spaceman Came Travelling", the Bonzo Dog Band's "I'm the Urban Spaceman", David Bowie's "Space Oddity", Elton John's "Rocket Man", Major Tom by Peter Schilling, and Deep Purple's "Space Truckin'".
Several albums have featured music inspired by the Apollo space program. In 1983, Brian Eno with his brother Roger Eno and producer/recording artist Daniel Lanois, composed the score for the film For All Mankind, a documentary of NASA's Apollo program; an album of the music, Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks, was later released. On The Orb's 1991 two-disc debut album, Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, disc one of features an ambient musical simulation of the Apollo 11 moon journey, including excerpts of NASA recordings of the radio conversations between Mission Control and the astronauts in space.
The filk anthology albums Minus Ten and Counting (1983) and To Touch the Stars (2003) celebrate and promote the exploration of outer space.
Author and classical music critic David Hurwitz describes Joseph Haydn's choral and chamber orchestra piece, The Creation, composed in 1798, as space music, both in the sense of the sound of the music, ("a genuine piece of 'space music' featuring softly pulsating high violins and winds above low cellos and basses, with nothing at all in the middle ... The space music gradually drifts towards a return to the movement's opening gesture ... "); and in the manner of its composition, relating that Haydn conceived The Creation after discussing music and astronomy with William Herschel, oboist and astronomer (discoverer of the planet Uranus).
Another band to use space as musical inspiration is the Christian "Astro-Rock" group Brave Saint Saturn, whose three albums, So Far from Home, The Light of Things Hoped For, and Anti-Meridian, form a trilogy that chronicles the journey of the fictional spaceship, the USS Gloria, on a trip to survey the moons of Saturn. The music uses space narratives, lingo, samples and quotes to portray the journey.
Read more about this topic: Space-themed Music
Famous quotes containing the words outer space, music, outer and/or space:
“I know, it must have been my imagination, but it makes me realize how desperately alone the Earth is. Hanging in space like a speck of food floating in the ocean. Sooner or later to be swallowed up by some creature floating by.... Time will tell, Dr. Mason. We can only wait and wonder. Wonder how, wonder when.”
—Tom Graeff. Tom Graeff. Young astronomer, Teenagers from Outer Space, after just seeing the invading spaceship through his telescope, and dismissing it (1959)
“It was a poetic recreation to watch those distant sails steering for half-fabulous ports, whose very names are a mysterious music to our ears.... It is remarkable that men do not sail the sea with more expectation. Nothing was ever accomplished in a prosaic mood.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it, and a lethargy steals over all the finer nerves and faculties of the soul. She becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous, and indifferent.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“What a phenomenon it has been—science fiction, space fiction—exploding out of nowhere, unexpectedly of course, as always happens when the human mind is being forced to expand; this time starwards, galaxy-wise, and who knows where next.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)