I was a pre-teen when Francis Farmer Presents was on the air. It's hard, very hard, to imagine now, in this day of instant communications and text-messaging; but it was true: I first heard the utterly fantastic and soul-wrenching music of Wagner's "Thus Spake Zarathustra" which was to become the theme music for '2001-A Space Oddysey' by Stanley Kubrick. It was during the post-commercial break, when they displayed a black and white still shot of some still-life for 6 or 7 seconds or so, and played a snatch of that music, that was to signify that you were watching 'Francis Farmer Presents" , and that the movie was about to resume. That music captivated me; it struck a deep chord for many years, until, when approching my High School in 1969, at the Band Room entrance, I heard that very same music blare out from the open windows into the open campus space. I stood, transfixed;"Yes, I thought: that was the same music I remembered', and later learned, it was from a new Science Fiction Movie called '2001-A Space Odyssey". It still remains to me one of the most significant pieces of music of our time.
Review of Frances Farmer Presents
