Interstellar - How Hans Zimmer Creates the Sound of Space

Wind. Air. Dust. And out of this white noise, a sustained high C, played by the organ, appears. Followed, eventually, by a simple, reaching melody, that moves between major and minor modes. The musical language of Interstellar is, within seconds, cemented. Characterised by widely spaced chords, an incredibly slow harmonic rhythm, and searching, often stepwise melodies. It feels timeless, taken out of time, adding a degree of separation from the place where the story begins, in the dust on Earth. The music is, in many ways, a foreshadowing of what's to come. But how does Hans Zimmer continue what he's set up? How does he capture the immensity of the journey that Cooper will undertake, whilst, at the same time, realising the emotional core of the film in music? Or, in other words, how does he capture the sound of space? Because what is space, if not the emptiness, the distance in between things, and people? Hans Zimmer's score for Interstellar is unique in his output. Paired back, sensitive, and introspective, but also monumental and concrete when it needs to be. His musical language is surprisingly restrained and often unchanging. Only three ideas are used for the construction of the majority of the score, with one of these, which I'll call Cooper and Murph's theme, providing the material for most of the music for the film. But there is subtle and deliberate development of ideas throughout, and in particular for the other two main musical themes, the reaching melody we heard at the beginning, as well as the music based around the C major Lydian scale. When the gravitational anomaly first appears in Cooper's house, centred around Murph's bedroom, we hear, for the first time, this C Lydian idea. Pulsating string harmonic and woodwind chords, built around a C major chord with an added F sharp, ebb in and out of the texture, with occasional G and D sharps thrown into the mix. As Cooper enters Murph's room, a drawn out melody in the strings softly enters. This is the beginning of an idea that won't see its resolution until the end of the film, a melodic line that feels stretched out, not thin, but suspended. The line moves chromatically around an F sharp, G and A flat, and suggests something hidden, hidden in the gaps between the notes. This idea will then reappear every time something new is revealed. It's associated with the unknown, but also with that feeling that comes with discovery, a feeling that is simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying. This is the thing that drives Murph to find out more about her ghost, that drives Cooper to investigate the anomalies. It's the thing that unites them, but it's also the thing that will rip them apart. Cooper's leaving is inevitable. He, like the music at the beginning of the film, seems out of place and time, and whether it's out of self-preservation or genuine altruism, he feels he has to leave. And as he does, Zimmer brings back the first melodic idea we heard in the film. The organ resumes a C dominant pedal, on top of which we hear the stay theme. The melody moves between F major and F minor, adding uncertainty and tension to the music, and underneath this we begin to hear a slowly ascending scale in the organ, starting on a C. The strings take over the melody and the ascending line moves into the brass. The music becomes busier, with low timpani strikes and increasingly faster subdivisions in the organ. And finally, the full brass is added. Strings sing out the theme, on top of the now declamatory horn counter-subject, as well as a more aggressive rising scale in brass and strings. The music has become simultaneously a statement of the sheering pain of separation and abandonment, as well as the excitement and thrill of the journey that lies ahead. This moment marks the beginning of a new chapter in the story, and with it comes a new approach to sound design. Out of the wall of noise that accompanied Cooper's leaving, we hear for the first time in the film complete silence. The unnerving cold and empty silence of space that will be a prominent feature of the sound world for the remainder of the film. Alongside this, we get new musical material. Collegno strings, ticking clocks, hushed tremolo chords, and a texture that mimics the harsh edges of this new unforgiving world. But we also get a return to the music of Once on board the Endurance, the C Lydian chords return, accompanied again by the long, melodic string line. But this time, the harsh chromaticism of the music has diminished, and in its place we find more notes that fit within the diatonic scale, placed on top of broken chords in the organ which mark out simple tonal harmony. It's turned into a A slowed down, weightless dance that is a clear reference to the use of the blue danube waltz in 2001 A Space Odyssey. The harmony underneath sits on a G dominant 7th chord, with the melody continuing to meander chromatically around the scale, until it lands eventually back in C major, with the melody resolving in a very classical way, far in unprepared dissonance from the sharpened 4th to the 5th. This music has basically become a very long, drawn out series of perfect cadences, utilising the immense energy that exists between dominant and tonic chords. Although it might seem as though the C major music has resolved here, what it's really doing is setting up the parameters for the music that will follow. Surges of C major based chords in the organ and orchestra overwhelm the sound world of the score at regular intervals, and as they get further away from home, the feelings of isolation and loneliness are made even more apparent by music that often implies a C major based tonality, but never fully realises it. When they come up on Saturn, we hear a stark Schubert-esque piano piece. It begins with a B natural, which leads not into an inversion of G major, but instead into a diminished chord, which resolves onto an unexpected C minor chord, then again onto another diminished chord via A flat major. This music is cold and dissonant, and unlike the weightless C major music we've just heard, the distance that separates the tonality from the underlying harmony feels empty here, not full of possibility, but of the space that separates Cooper from his family. It does eventually introduce the E natural of C major, as if we're about to reach a resolution, but B flats quickly disturb the C major tonality, taking us back instead to the music that accompanied Cooper's leaving. And underneath, a scalic idea, one of the counter-subjects in the stay theme, rises through the middle of the chords, starting on a C, but disappearing before it can complete its journey. This feeling of incompleteness and sparseness is characteristic of the most effective music in the film. When Cooper and Brand return from Miller's planet, due to time dilation caused by relativistic effects, 23 Earth years have passed. Cooper watches 23 years of messages from his family, and we hear the most honest version of Cooper and Murph's theme. This music is found in many different guises throughout the film, but somehow this version played by solo organ is the most transparent and tender. Inspired by the wholly minimalist music of composers like Arvo Pärt, the clean harmony and structure is revealing in its simplicity. Where the solo piano music that accompanied their approach to Saturn spoke of the emptiness and coldness of space, this music speaks of an emotional void instead of a physical one. As Cooper and Brand continue on their journey, the score starts to rely more heavily on this idea, but the music is often intercut with other material, creating a complex network of relationships between the music and the narrative. As events rapidly develop on Dr. Mann's planet, the music moves between several ideas in quick succession. First, the C Lydian music as Mann and Cooper set out. Then the more abstract, incidental music as we begin to learn of Mann's deception. And finally, the main theme as Cooper is left to die. Tension continues to rise as Mann fails to dock with the endurance, and to accompany Cooper and Brand's final effort to survive, collegno strings batter out an unwavering pulse, accompanied by thundering organ chords, whose harmonic language is taken from Cooper and Murph's theme. And as they dock successfully, we hear once again the surging dissonant chord based around a C major triad. Out of the noise, and marking the beginning of the resolution of all musical ideas in the film, the C Lydian music reappears underneath the descending sequence of thirds. Something is about to happen. As they then ignite the thrusters, trying to escape the pull of the black hole, the music abruptly shifts into a melody that we haven't heard since Cooper left his daughter behind all those years ago. The stay theme blazes out in the organ, strings and woodwind, alongside as before the horn counter melody. We are being taken back to the point of separation. Except this time, Cooper is returning. After a moment of stillness, he sacrifices himself, descending into the black hole. And out of the C major music that has accompanied so much of their journey, comes a Mahlerian resolution. Vast major chords underneath a soaring melody, like the death of a star, final and glorious. It lands, as you'd expect, on C major, but fails to stay in its home key, instead moving between different modes and eventually finishing on an expectant A minor chord. What happens next is the inevitable completion of the story and the music. This A minor music, which at the beginning felt out of place and out of time, now feels appropriate, even though throughout the course of the film it has changed so little. But that's the point. It's the music of the end, of the middle and the beginning, all at once, a timeless music. It's the way we experience the spherical nature of the story, and an embodiment of the immense force that brings people together, the love which binds Cooper to his daughter across space and time. Cooper has now realised the purpose and reason for everything that's happened, and as he does, and as the space between him and his daughter reduces to nothing, the music fades into a luminescent C major cluster chord, through which the organ plays an ascending line, finally completing the scale that was set up right at the beginning of the film, and as it rises to a solitary top C, it brings together all of the music that has come before it into a single point, all of space and time reduced into a singularity, taking us back to the place where it all began. Thank you so much for watching. Instellar is one of my favourite films of all time, so I'm so pleased to be able to make this video. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, do take a look at the other film score analyses on my channel. This is my 13th film analysed, so there's lots to catch up on. And of course, do consider subscribing if you haven't done so already. See you next time.