Excerpts from Close Encounters of the Third Kind: John Williams and the Theology of Sound
John Williams and the Theology of Sound: Selected Excerpts from Close Encounters of the Third Kind
A symbolic and musical reading of John Williams’ symphonic suite from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, interpreted as an implicit theology of sound, creation, incarnation and cosmic order.
Abstract
The symphonic suite drawn from John Williams’ Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) does not merely represent a thematic synthesis of the film score. It may be understood as a symbolic architecture of creation.
If Steven Spielberg offers a scientific reading of extraterrestrial otherness, Williams constructs an additional dimension: an implicit musical theology in which sound becomes a metaphor for Genesis, incarnation and cosmic order.
Through the use of pure intervallic structures, modal references and proportions belonging to the natural harmonic series, the suite suggests an esoteric narration of existence as emanation from the Principle.
1. Sonic Nothingness and Genesis: From Cluster to Logos
The opening of the suite is characterized by an additive stratification of divided strings, generating progressive clusters. This indeterminate texture, deprived of any perceptible tonal centre, symbolically represents the biblical tohu va-bohu: primordial chaos, the cosmic darkness preceding creation.
The orchestral crescendo leads to a powerful tutti in C major, marked by a forceful sforzatissimo. This gesture may be interpreted as a sonic metaphor for the Big Bang, but also, from a theological perspective, as the moment of Fiat Lux.
The passage from cluster to tonal chord is equivalent to the transformation of chaos into order.
The C major chord is reinforced by two fundamental intervallic pillars:
Fifth 3:2 → foundation of cosmic order and primary structure of the harmonic series
According to the Pythagorean conception, the universe is number and proportion. Williams constructs creation not through destabilizing chromaticism, but through pure relationships.
2. The Primordial Waters and Cosmological Separation
Ascending and descending figurations subsequently emerge, evoking sonic waves. Williams uses melodic arcs close to the Hebrew Ahavah Rabbah scale, often associated with klezmer tradition and Jewish spirituality.
The reference to Genesis is evident: the separation of the waters.
The orchestration is highly symbolic:
Bass clarinet
Cellos and violas in unison with double reeds
Double basses harmonized in thirds
The low register produces a dark and undefined timbral colour, evoking marine depths. The ear naturally associates low frequencies with darkness and formless matter.
A new orchestral tutti in C major emerges as the manifestation of the ordering Principle. The separation between heaven and sea is depicted through slow additive ascending glissandi in the strings and brass, producing a genuine spatial division of sound.
Additive orchestral runs simulate the movement of primordial waves.
Progressive ascending gestures portray the continuous motion of the waters.
The separation between heaven and sea is expressed through broad ascending glissandi, creating an audible representation of cosmological division.
3. Time, the Stars and Cyclical Order
High-register melodic lines resume diatonic movements built upon fragments of the Ahavah Rabbah scale, while in the lower register an octatonic ostinato represents the persistent movement of the sea.
The glockenspiel, placed at the highest register, symbolises the stars. Beneath it, the uninterrupted ostinato of the strings suggests the alternation of day and night and, consequently, the birth of cyclical time and the changing of the seasons.
At this point we can clearly perceive the sea described by an additive octatonic ostinato in the strings, while above it the brass constructs a static additive cluster, creating a form of free audiovisual counterpoint with an almost anempathetic character.
Williams appears to emphasise the immobility of the heavens in contrast with the incessant activity of the sea, whose perpetual motion is entrusted to the string ostinato.
A massive orchestral rise follows, culminating in a full orchestral climax. Suddenly, the orchestra stops. Out of the silence emerges an extremely slow descending glissando in the strings, evoking the biblical moment in which the Creator withdraws the waters so that dry land may appear.
The oceans retreat through a long descending glissando, allowing the earth to emerge.
It is precisely here that the earth appears. The first primitive forms of life are suggested by a fragmented oboe melody, immediately answered by a second fragmented line in the flute.
Delicate string pizzicati punctuate these gestures, musically portraying the first fragile manifestations of life upon the newly created world. Rather than depicting fully developed organisms, Williams paints a sonic image of creation still in its earliest evolutionary stage.
4. Life and Transcendent Love
A slow descending glissando interrupts the previous orchestral flow. Delicate string pizzicati and fragmented dissonant woodwind figures emerge, portraying the appearance of the first forms of life.
Rather than depicting fully developed organisms, Williams deliberately evokes fragile, primitive and almost uncertain manifestations of existence. Life appears gradually, tentatively, as though consciousness itself were beginning to awaken.
Immediately afterwards a remarkably expansive lyrical theme emerges. Unlike the conventional romantic themes of Hollywood tradition, this melody is built upon unusually wide intervals:
Ninth
Tenth
This is not human romantic love. Williams avoids the descending octave and the paired sixths traditionally associated with cinematic love themes. Instead, these broad intervallic leaps evoke infinity itself.
The melody therefore becomes the musical representation of transcendent love: the love of a Creator contemplating His own creation.
Infinity is suggested not by harmonic complexity, but through intervallic expansion. Every melodic leap opens the listener toward an immeasurable sonic horizon.
5. The Five-Note Motif: An Initiatory Architecture
At measure 74 the famous five-note motif finally appears:
The celebrated five-note motif first appears at measure 74.
These five pitches may be interpreted symbolically as representing the five human senses, the channels through which humanity first encounters the unknown.
Structural Reading
The opening on the second degree immediately generates instability and expectation. Symbolically, the motif does not begin with certainty but with longing.
Second Degree (D)
Separation from Unity. The beginning of the human journey.
Third Degree (E)
Consciousness. Revelation. Definition of the major mode.
Tonic (C)
Origin. Principle. Absolute Unity.
Lower Octave
The vertical projection of identity. Humanity created in the image of its Creator.
Dominant (G)
Cosmic order and harmonic balance.
6. Harmonic Series and Sonic Cosmology
Williams' construction closely reflects the proportions of the natural harmonic series:
These are not arbitrary intervals. They are the very acoustic foundations upon which Western harmony has been built for centuries.
Consequently, the five-note motif is more than a memorable cinematic signal: it becomes a metaphor for the physical architecture of the universe itself.
7. A Kabbalistic Reading of the Five Notes
The succession may also be interpreted symbolically through the language of Jewish mysticism:
Read in this way, the motif becomes a journey of emanation and return. Creation proceeds outward from Unity and ultimately seeks reunion with its own source.
The numerical sum is equally significant:
Twelve months. Twelve zodiacal signs. Twelve hours of light and darkness. Twelve becomes the symbolic number of cosmic completeness.
8. Comparison with 2001: A Space Odyssey
Stanley Kubrick and John Williams offer two profoundly different musical conceptions of transcendence.
Kubrick frequently employs destabilising harmonic structures—most notably the tritone—as metaphors for evolutionary rupture, metaphysical uncertainty and the incomprehensibility of the unknown. His universe is one of tension, discontinuity and radical transformation.
Williams follows an almost opposite path. Throughout Close Encounters of the Third Kind, he deliberately avoids the tritone as a structural principle, favouring instead intervals derived from the natural harmonic series: octave, perfect fifth and major third. These relationships generate stability, proportion and acoustic purity.
Kubrick
Transcendence through rupture.
Evolution through shock.
Williams
Transcendence through harmony.
Creation through order.
Consequently, extraterrestrial contact is presented according to two opposing philosophical paradigms.
Kubrick portrays encounter as an event that destabilises human consciousness. Williams instead depicts encounter as the rediscovery of an order that has always existed within the architecture of the universe itself.
Conclusion
The symphonic suite from Close Encounters of the Third Kind should therefore not be understood merely as a concert adaptation of a celebrated film score.
It unfolds as a coherent symbolic narrative in which musical language itself becomes a theological discourse.
From Nothingness to Light.
From Chaos to Order.
From Duality to Consciousness.
From Unity to Incarnation.
From Creation to Cosmic Harmony.
The famous five-note motif is not simply an ingenious cinematic device for communicating with extraterrestrial intelligence. Within this symbolic interpretation, it becomes an archetypal musical formula capable of representing the emergence of existence itself.
Five notes contain an entire cosmology.
Spielberg shows humanity the Unknown.
John Williams reveals the Principle that precedes it.
