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Ad Astra (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Soundtrack album by Max Richter
Released	October 18, 2019
Recorded	July 2019
Studio	AIR (London) Babelsberg Studio (Berlin) Synchron Stage Vienna (Vienna, Austria)
Genre	Film score
Length	126:47
Label	Deutsche Grammophon
Producer	Max Richter
Max Richter chronology
Mary Queen of Scots (2018) Ad Astra (2019) My Brilliant Friend season 2 (2020)
Singles from Ad Astra (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
"To the Stars" Released: September 20, 2019

Ad Astra (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack to the 2019 psychological science fiction film Ad Astra directed by James Gray and starring Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler and Donald Sutherland. The film's soundtrack consisted of 29 tracks which consisted of music composed by Max Richter and additional music contributed by Lorne Balfe and Nils Frahm. The soundtrack was released digitally through Deutsche Grammophon on October 18, 2019. The album was nominated for Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.

Development

In December 2018, it was announced that Max Richter would compose the film's score. The film's plot mirrors 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) which Richter shared a personal connection with (he watched the film first as a teenager) and the score had been constructed owing to his admiration for Kubrick's choice of classical music. Richter described that the film consists of two films—a psychological drama revolving around the father-son relationship and the adventure in space—which he liked on the way it superimposed on top of one another that eventually described the musical language. Richter's musical themes for the father-son relationship consisted of traditional instrumentation, while the space portions would consist of epic orchestral and electronic music; however, he thought "What about the big-picture music, what about the physics, and, you know, all of that science?" This resulted him to research about the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes which resulted him to contact the faculties and students of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Iowa which got data that the Voyager probes recorded on their journey.

The students measured the plasma wave data recorded and transformed it into musical sounds, to utilize it like "a location-recording approach to the electronic music so that when Brad's character goes past a planet, you're actually hearing data collected there, transformed into music." He eventually built computer-modeled instruments out of that data to manipulate and transform the data into actual sounds and then play it into actual instrumentation so that the music is literally embedded in space. Most of them had been made with old mood synths from the late 1960s to channelize the spirit of György Ligeti's work in 2001. To find the balance between the emotional relationship between the father and son and being a space drama, he had "to tow the line between punchy sounds and these tender, introspective moments, where the music has to symbolize and elevate all that isolation Brad is feeling".

Richter employed numerous sounds that evoke traditional religious music, choral writing and glassy, high-frequency tones transcending in some way and evoke the colors. The reverberation is a digital model of the Notre-Dame de Paris, which he described it as "a virtual cathedral that all the music is being played through". For two of the themes: "Encounter" and "Forced Entry" he put guitar pedals on the orchestra to provide gritty energy, and besides the planetary instruments made from the Voyager data, he used a Moog System 55 synthesizer to provide an analog sound.

Richter recorded the score at the AIR Studios in London, while the orchestra and choir were recorded the Synchron Stage Vienna. Lorne Balfe was brought in during post-production to provide additional music for the film, along with Nils Frahm. Balfe eventually liked the film because of the protagonist where he could relate as a father and son.

Release

On September 20, 2019, in conjunction with the film's release, a single "To the Stars" was released for digital download. Nearly a month after the film's release, Deutsche Grammophon released the 29-track album consisting of 20 tracks from Richter's score, where eight tracks were composed by Balfe and one by Frahm.

Reception

Zanobard Reviews assigned 8 (out of 10) and wrote that "Max Richter and Lorne Balfe have created a breathtakingly atmospheric musical world for Ad Astra—one that makes you feel as if you're floating amongst the stars." A review from The Film Scorer wrote "Though both inhabit the sphere of spacey ambience, Richter opts for a more minimalist approach (which proves the stronger, more engaging portion) while Balfe rounds out the score with a bit more variety, tension, and danger. Together they create a powerfully meditative score that manages to capture both the literal imagery onscreen as well as McBride's ever-present ruminations." Adrian Barr of Backseat Mafia wrote "Ad Astra is an impressive piece of work that tells a story on its own, so immerse yourself and experience its ethereal journey, across vast solar systems to the edge of new worlds." David Edelstein of Vulture wrote "The composer Max Richter's usual ambient wash is cut with ethereal harps and plinks from the piano's highest keys, while sudden silences reverberate with dread." Moira McDonald of The Seattle Times called it as "an insistently throbbing soundtrack contrasting with that curiously flat blue silence of space." Michael Craig of The Glasgow Guardian wrote "a worthy successor to the minimalist style pioneered by the likes of Philip Glass and Steven Reich".

Track listing

Accolades

References

1. "Max Richter Scoring James Gray's Ad Astra". Film Music Reporter. December 6, 2018. Archived from the original on August 15, 2019. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
2. Parisi, Paula (December 13, 2018). "Composer Max Richter On Musically Time-Traveling from 'Mary Queen of Scots' to Brad Pitt's Futuristic 'Ad Astra'". Billboard. Archived from the original on August 11, 2023. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
3. ^ Lemmon, Kyle (October 29, 2019). "Interview: Max Richter on His Ad Astra Score and its So-Called Planetary Instruments". Slant Magazine. Archived from the original on October 30, 2019. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
4. ^ Hobbs, Thomas (July 22, 2020). "Know The Score: Max Richter on 2001: A Space Odyssey". Little White Lies. Archived from the original on September 24, 2023. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
5. Chitwood, Adam (October 24, 2019). "Composer Lorne Balfe on Gemini Man, His Dark Materials and Bad Boys 3". Collider. Archived from the original on August 10, 2020. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
6. "James Gray's 'Ad Astra' to Feature Music by Lorne Balfe". Film Music Reporter. August 23, 2019. Archived from the original on August 27, 2019. Retrieved September 19, 2019.
7. Bhavani, Divya Kala (October 17, 2019). "Interview with multi-award nominated British composer Lorne Balfe on 'Gemini Man' and 'His Dark Materials'". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Archived from the original on February 7, 2020. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
8. Kenneally, Cerys (September 24, 2019). "Max Richter shares new song "To The Stars" from Ad Astra soundtrack". The Line of Best Fit. Archived from the original on September 24, 2019. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
9. Daly, Rhian (September 23, 2019). "Max Richter shares sweeping new song from 'Ad Astra' soundtrack". NME. Archived from the original on July 29, 2020. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
10. "Ad Astra: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Max Richter)". Deutsche Grammophon. Archived from the original on October 22, 2020. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
11. Kelly, Sharon (October 23, 2019). "Max Richter Releases 'Ad Astra' Soundtrack". uDiscover Music. Archived from the original on August 8, 2022. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
12. Zanobard (October 21, 2019). "Ad Astra – Soundtrack Review". Zanobard Reviews. Archived from the original on September 27, 2020. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
13. "Space-Worshiping Minimalism – Max Richter and Lorne Balfe's 'Ad Astra'". The Film Scorer. July 10, 2021. Archived from the original on July 10, 2021. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
14. Barr, Adrian (January 2, 2020). "New Music: Max Richter – 'AD ASTRA' soundtrack". Backseat Mafia. Archived from the original on June 1, 2023. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
15. Edelstein, David (September 20, 2019). "Ad Astra Is Mostly Brad Pitt and Nothing But". Vulture. Archived from the original on September 27, 2019. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
16. McDonald, Moira (September 18, 2019). "Ad Astra review: an intriguing space odyssey with Brad Pitt". The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on September 27, 2019. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
17. Graig, Michael (October 9, 2019). "Review: Ad Astra – a film lost in space". The Glasgow Guardian. Archived from the original on September 18, 2020. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
18. "Marriage Story Leads 2019 Florida Film Critics Awards Nominations" (Press release). Florida Film Critics Circle. December 19, 2019. Archived from the original on October 26, 2020. Retrieved December 25, 2022.
19. William, Chris (November 24, 2020). "Grammy Awards Nominations 2021: The Complete List". Variety. Archived from the original on January 16, 2021. Retrieved November 24, 2020.
20. "2019 StLFCA Annual Award Winners". St. Louis Film Critics Association. December 15, 2019. Archived from the original on May 4, 2016. Retrieved December 16, 2019.

• 2019 soundtrack albums
• Max Richter albums
• Deutsche Grammophon soundtracks