The science fiction writer and futurist Arthur C. Clarke has died at the age of ninety in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Although Clarke had no active role in the world of classical music, he was connected to one of the great misadventures in the history of film music.

As Richard Steinitz explains in “György Ligeti: Music of the Imagination,” Stanley Kubrick had engaged a leading Hollywood professional, Alex North, to compose a score for “2001: A Space Odyssey”—Kubrick's 1968 film based on Clarke’s novel—encouraging North to imitate some music by the great Ligeti. But Kubrick was dissatisfied with North’s score and used pre-recorded music instead, which not only included large extracts from Ligeti’s Requiem, “Lux Aeterna,” and “Atmosphères” but also Johann Strauss II’s “Blue Danube Waltz” and Richard Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” Kubrick’s use of classical music was breathtakingly original: the “stargate” sequence near the end—nothing more than a mosaic of brilliant colors rushing past—would have been completely ineffective without Ligeti’s dazzling sounds.

When Ligeti attended the Vienna premiere of the film and realized that the music had been used without his permission, he was understandably shocked. (He eventually received a modest payment from MGM, and substantial royalty payments.) But by acknowledging Ligeti’s work in the final credits, Kubrick made the composer world-famous. When the director later used Ligeti’s music in “The Shining” and in “Eyes Wide Shut,” he sought permission from Ligeti and paid the composer well. According to Steinitz, “in Kubrick, Ligeti recognized a willingness to explore and take risks, a tireless concern for detail and obsessive pursuit of perfection similar to his own.” When “Eyes Wide Shut” was premiered in Germany, Ligeti accompanied Kubrick’s widow.—Russell Platt