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 (film) as a pessimistic account of human nature and humanity's future. The most extreme of these interpretations state that the fetus floating above the Earth will destroy it." Many of the cataclysmic interpretations of the film appeared inspired by Kubrick's direction of the Cold War film "Dr. Strangelove" just before "2001", which resulted in dark speculation about the use of nuclear weapons orbiting the Earth in "2001". These interpretations were challenged by Clarke, who said: "Many readers have interpreted the last paragraph of the book to mean that he (the fetus) destroyed Earth, perhaps for the purpose of creating a new