Also sprach Zarathustra

Lore & Background

The initial fanfare – titled 'Sonnenaufgang' ('Sunrise') in the composer's programme notes – became well and widely known after its repeated use as the main musical theme in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Thereafter, Eumir Deodato's hit jazz-funk adaptation of the piece won the 1974 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.

Architectural Design and Tonal Philosophy

The tone poem is organized into nine distinct movements separated by only three clear pauses, each drawing its name from a chapter of Nietzsche's philosophical novel. Strauss mapped these literary moments onto a large-scale symphonic architecture: an exposition built around "Of Joys and Passions" in C minor, a sprawling development section encompassing "Of Science and Learning" and "The Convalescent," a recapitulation anchored by "The Dance Song" with its prominent violin solo, and a coda in "Song of the Night Wanderer" that opens with twelve midnight strikes. A central compositional idea runs throughout: the opposition between C major, which Strauss associated with the universe, and B major, representing humanity.

Because these adjacent keys share no common sharps or flats—C major has none while B major carries five—they sound fundamentally dissimilar, creating a persistent harmonic tension. The work opens with a sustained double low C in the basses, contrabassoon, and organ, which blossoms into the brass fanfare and introduces the three-note "dawn" motif of C–G–C, drawn from the natural overtone series. The very first chromatic departure, an E-flat replacing the expected major third, signals that the piece will never fully resolve into pure diatonic territory.

From Concert Hall to Cinema Screen

Strauss himself led the world premiere on 27 November 1896 in Frankfurt, and the work's roughly thirty-three-minute duration made it a substantial addition to the late-Romantic concert repertoire. The French premiere followed on 22 January 1899, again under the composer's baton, with the Orchestre Lamoureux in Paris—a program that also featured Wagner's Lohengrin and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg alongside Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. Yet the piece's most enduring cultural footprint came decades later.

The opening "Sunrise" fanfare, originally titled "Sonnenaufgang" in Strauss's own programme notes, leapt into global consciousness when Stanley Kubrick chose it as the principal musical theme for his 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. That association made the brass gesture instantly recognizable to audiences who had never attended a classical concert. The work's crossover appeal continued when Brazilian musician Eumir Deodato reimagined the material as a jazz-funk arrangement that swept the 1974 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance, bridging the gap between the concert hall and the pop charts.

Orchestral Scale and Technical Challenges

The scoring demands one of the largest orchestras in the tone-poem repertoire. The woodwind section includes piccolo, three flutes (the third doubling piccolo), three oboes, an English horn, a clarinet in E-flat, two clarinets in B-flat, a bass clarinet, three bassoons, and a contrabassoon. The brass forces comprise six horns, four trumpets, three trombones, and two tubas, while the percussion roster spans timpani, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, glockenspiel, and a single bell tuned to low E. An organ is also required, and the string section calls for two harps, sixteen first violins, sixteen second violins, twelve violas, twelve cellos, and eight double basses.

The basses face a particularly demanding passage: at measure 223, in "Of Science and Learning," they must produce a contra B—the lowest note on a standard piano. This pitch is achievable only on a five-string bass or, less commonly, on a four-string instrument fitted with a low-B extension, making it one of the rarest requirements in orchestral literature. Earlier in the same section, an unusual fugue beginning at measure 201 in the cellos and basses cycles through all twelve chromatic notes, a display of contrapuntal density that tests the ensemble's precision.

The Unsolvable Riddle at the End

The final movement, "Song of the Night Wanderer," has generated two competing interpretations of what Strauss meant by the "world riddle." One reading identifies the riddle with the recurring fifth-and-octave motif (C–G–C), a gesture drawn from the overtone series that threads through the entire work. The other interpretation locates the riddle in the clashing keys of the closing bars themselves: high flutes, piccolos, and violins sustain a B major chord while the lower strings pluck a single C, leaving neither key firmly established as tonic. The melody refuses to land on a definitive resolution, and the harmonic progression remains deliberately unfinished.

As one critic put it, the tone poem ends enigmatically in two keys simultaneously—the Nature-motif plucked softly in its original C, and the woodwinds hovering in B major above. The unsolvable quality of this ending reflects Strauss's own relationship to Nietzsche's philosophy: the composer was not pacified by the philosopher's proposed answers. The piece thus closes not with triumph or closure but with a suspended question, the universe and humanity still in unresolved dialogue.

Reader's Guide

The piece is divided into nine sections played with only three definite pauses. Strauss named the sections after selected chapters of Friedrich Nietzsche's novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra: 'Sunrise', 'Of the Backworldsmen', 'Of the Great Longing', 'Of Joys and Passions', 'The Song of the Grave', 'Of Science and Learning', 'The Convalescent', 'The Dance Song', and 'Song of the Night Wanderer'.

The piece starts with a sustained double low C on the double basses, contrabassoon and church organ. This transforms into the brass fanfare of the Introduction and introduces the 'dawn' motif. The motif includes three notes, in intervals of a fifth and octave, as C–G–C. The ending of the composition leaves the piece half-resolved, with high flutes, piccolos and violins playing a B major chord, while the lower strings pluck a C.

Did You Know?

• Elvis Presley used the opening theme as entrance music during live performances from 1971-1977.
• As of January 10, 2026, the American band Phish has performed this theme 277 times since its live debut July 16, 1993.