DUNE

The music for the 2021 American film Dune was composed, orchestrated, conducted and produced by Hans Zimmer. From the beginning, director Denis Villeneuve had hoped to reunite with Zimmer for the film, based on their shared passion for the novel. Though initially approached by longtime collaborator Christopher Nolan to compose for his then-upcoming film Tenet, Zimmer ultimately chose to work on Dune, as the book was a "favourite" of his during his childhood and teen years. He last collaborated with Villeneuve, and editor Joe Walker, on Blade Runner 2049. In March 2019, Warner Bros. announced that the composer would be scoring the film.

Zimmer and Villeneuve both "agreed that the music would need to have a spirituality to it...a sanctified quality...that would elevate the soul and have the effect that only sacred music can", with the latter saying "I believe that is fully present in Hans' score". Zimmer approached the composition with a "fresh" perspective, "just from the book", having never seen the 1984 film adaptation by David Lynch. He built around the concept of Dune being a different civilization, and invented instruments to accompany that feeling. According to Villeneuve, the former spent "months and months creating new instruments, defining, creating, and seeking new sounds, pushing the envelope". Zimmer augmented human voices "to sound eerie and other-worldly" for the score, and based it on mainly female voices due to the shared sentiment between himself and Villeneuve that the "power of the human voice" remains constant in any civilization, and that "the female characters in the film drive the story".

WaterTower Music announced three soundtrack albums for the film: The Dune Sketchbook (Music from the Soundtrack), Dune (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), and The Art and Soul of Dune. The first two were released on September 3 and 17 respectively. The third is slated for release on October 22. All of the music released so far is also available in full on the label's official YouTube channel.

 

"ECLIPSE"

Villeneuve chose British rock band Pink Floyd's "Eclipse", from their 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon, as the "key musical element" in the film's theatrical trailer released on September 9, 2020. Zimmer subsequently rearranged the track and recorded a cover version performed by a 32-piece ensemble of session singers from Los Angeles. Variety called the choice a "surprising" one, given that "trailers are not usually scored by the film's actual composer, much less a specially tailored cover of a classic rock song".

Following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Zimmer told the publication in a June 2020 interview that "Working remotely is horrible, but I've done it. And if we have to do it like this, we'll do it like this." Recording sessions for the track were conducted in full compliance with Covid-19 protocols at the composer's Remote Control Productions studio in Santa Monica. Zimmer joined in remotely via FaceTime. Under the direction of Edie Lehmann Boddicker, the singers gathered four at a time, in "separate cubicles, divided by glass", over the course of eight sessions held earlier in the summer. Twelve performed the lyric lines, while the full group performed the choral parts. The entire song was recorded, but only thirteen lines were used in the three-minute long trailer. Boddicker commented that "[Zimmer] wanted to pay homage to the original, very back-phrased sound, a little spaced-out, so the vocals would not sound urgent. There's a kind of joy happening in the track, a lot of hopefulness. It's not despondent, just very peaceful and sounding not of this planet."

Zimmer's version—it spans a runtime of one minute and 36 seconds—was released as a digital single on October 9. It has not been included on either soundtrack album released so far.