Multi-award-winning composer Hans Zimmer has just released the highly-anticipated soundtrack to the long-awaited sequel of the 2021 blockbuster by Denis Villanueve, Dune.
Dune: Part Two‘s original score continues its predecessor’s tradition of featuring a blend of unconventional electronic synth usage and otherworldly instruments (some of which he built himself) –– which resulted in a retrofuturistic sound unlike anything he’s ever done. The original motion picture soundtrack to the upcoming film is also more expansive than its predecessor, with twenty-five tracks that run through a full duration of one hour and twenty-one minutes to accompany the visual feast that is to be expected in the upcoming film.
During the 2022 Academy Awards, Zimmer took home the Oscar for Best Original Score for his work on Dune: Part One. Though Zimmer is perhaps more recognized for his contributions to the world of film for his soundtracks to Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, Inception, and The Dark Knight Trilogy, the musical virtuoso previously mentioned that scoring the science-fiction blockbuster has always been his dream project. ‘Dune’ is one of my favorite books from my teenage years,” Zimmer said in a 2019 interview with The Playlist, also emphasizing that his work on creating solely originated from his love for and knowledge of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel. “[In making this], I was coming at this from a sort of fresh way –– just from the book.”
Yet with his passion for crafting the music for both Part One and Part Two of the film, the renowned composer was able to record and publish two complementary albums to the film, The Dune Sketchbook (Music From The Soundtrack) and The Art and Soul of Dune (Companion Book Music) –– with both of them receiving significant acclaim and recognition. Describing the music made for the films, Zimmer mentioned “As I worked, it became more and more abstract,” he says. “I never saw it as scenes. I saw everything as a totality. It’s an electronic score, not an orchestral one, but in a peculiar way it’s one of the more organic scores I’ve done.”
Dune: Part Two releases in the Philippines this Wednesday (February 28, 2024).
Listen to Hans Zimmer’s original score of Dune: Part Two out now via WaterTower Music & Warner Music Group below: