2001: A Space Odyssey (soundtrack) mankind's eventual replacement by overmen ("Übermensch") in Nietzsche's work "Thus Spoke Zarathustra". "Gayane's Adagio" from Aram Khachaturian's "Gayane" ballet suite is heard during the sections that introduce Bowman and Poole aboard the "Discovery", conveying a somewhat lonely and mournful quality. In addition to the majestic yet fairly traditional compositions by the two Strausses and Khachaturian, Kubrick used four highly modernistic compositions by György Ligeti that employ micropolyphony, the use of sustained dissonant chords that shift slowly. This technique was pioneered in "Atmosphères", the only Ligeti piece heard in its entirety in the film. Ligeti admired Kubrick's film but, in addition
2001: A Space Odyssey (film) artist.") John Simon felt it was "a regrettable failure, although not a total one. This film is fascinating when it concentrates on apes or machines ... and dreadful when it deals with the in-betweens: humans ... "2001", for all its lively visual and mechanical spectacle, is a kind of space-"Spartacus" and, more pretentious still, a shaggy God story." Eminent historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. deemed the film "morally pretentious, intellectually obscure and inordinately long ... a film out of control". In a 2001 review the BBC said that its slow pacing often alienates modern audiences more than it did upon