"How can music express the unimaginable?" asked The Arts Desk this week.
In his article Graham Rickson expertly relates the varying efforts of film composers to capture 'the great beyond' of sci-fi.
Beginning with Haydn's opera Life On the Moon and stopping by way of Bernard Herrmann's use of the (Star Trek-famed) theremin on The Day The Earth Stood Still in 1951, he still finds time to dismiss Hans Zimmer's recent Interstellar score as overdone saying that Zimmer mistakes "high volume for gravitas".
So which came top of the list? His favourite soundtrack is "the one assembled by husband and wife team Louis and Bebe Barron for MGM's 1954 update of The Tempest, Forbidden Planet".