2001: A Space Odyssey (soundtrack) Like North's score, Cordell's work was recorded at the now demolished Anvil, Denham studios. "2001" is particularly remembered for using pieces of Johann Strauss II's best-known waltz, "The Blue Danube", during the extended space-station docking and Lunar landing sequences. This is the result of the association that Kubrick made between the spinning motion of the satellites and the dancers of waltzes. It also makes use of the opening from the Richard Strauss tone poem "Also sprach Zarathustra" performed by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan. The use of Strauss's "Zarathustra" may be a reference to the theme of
2001: A Space Odyssey (soundtrack) It is subsequently heard when an ape first learns to use a tool, and when Bowman is transformed into the Star-Child at the end of the film. "Zarathustra" thus acts as a bookend for the beginning and end of the film, and as a motif signifying evolutionary transformations, first from ape to man, then from man to Star-Child. This piece was originally inspired by the philosopher Nietzsche's book of the same name which alludes briefly to the relationship of ape to man and man to Superman. "The Blue Danube" appears in two intricate and extended space travel sequences as well