The music happened pretty much by accident.

Kubrick had commissioned a 2001 score from his regular composer, Alex North -- who worked on both Spartacus and Dr Strangelove -- but the director used classical music on the sets and during editing, only as guides.

When MGM, concerned about this high-profile project, harangued the filmmaker for some footage, he slapped together a quick showreel cut to a classical soundtrack.

The results were extraordinary, and Kubrick decided to go with the classical compositions -- 'However good our best film composers may be, they are not a Beethoven, a Mozart or a Brahms,' he later said in an interview -- except he forgot to tell North his music wasn't going to be used, a fact the composer only learnt when he saw the film days before its release.

A film made with infinitesimal precision, 2001 was always meant to be a visually striking, aurally operatic experience, one that eschewed conformity towards narrative technique. Written by Kubrick himself with sci-fi great Arthur C Clarke -- based on the latter's novel, itself written following ideas and conversations with the director -- this is, quite simply, the most influential science-fiction film of all time.

An alarming tale of extraterrestrial life and artificial intelligence cloaked in a spellbinding array of special effects and music, 2001 has perplexed as many as it has enchanted. The film initially opened to a ridiculously polarised critical response, but over the years it is widely acknowledged that the film is indeed a visionary one, and its impact on cinema -- and, indeed, science-fiction itself -- cannot be denied at all.

Kubrick, cautious about how he wanted audiences to consume the 2001 experience, specifically ordered not just a point of intermission, but -- after having gotten intermission music separately composed -- demanded that theatres be plunged into darkness right before the film's restart.

Instead of trying to vainly extrapolate on 2001's immense audiovisual appeal, here's a spectacular clip that would have made composer Johann Strauss proud.

Click here for video.

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