Music to make hydrogen bombs by

This was the biggest thermonuclear bomb ever detonated and the test programme was recorded for posterity in this film  released by RosAtom. 

It’s a lovely clean colour print and tech geeks can marvel at the analogue nature of the electro-mechanical technology. The full version on YT (which I've linked to at the end of the post) has captions translated from the Russian valiantly trying to de-fuse the notion that this is a bomb.

Nyet, komrads, is hydrogen charge, is device, clean hydrogen device...

Okay, is also 50 megaton bomb.

I expect every utterance of this piece has been carefully sculpted by the Politburo of the Cold War era. The narrator makes no mention of what’s meant to happen if it ever goes phoom in anger.

It’s the choice of music that caught my attention though; it’s completely at odds with the purpose of the bomb but perfectly aligned with the purpose of the film as a propaganda piece.

The producers selected music by Russian composers I expect but cannot confirm because I am an uncultured muzhik. (Try to ignore the narrator's dulcet tones.)

Not the soundtrack one might expect.

The Big Bang

The music for the aerial views of the detonation has an avant garde feel to it, science music; all oscillations, beeps, pings and warbles.
My tin ears can't tell if that's synthesised music or analogue.

Meanwhile the narrator continues his calm description of events

The flash from Tsar Bomba was visible 1000 kilometers away and the noise went five times round the globe and the whole event was recorded as 5 and change on the Richter scale.

I suspect the whole point of these calming, reassuring and sensible noises was to shape the emotional response of a very small audience, to soothe the nerves of anxious Commissars.

The film’s measured tones reassured them by defusing the emotional impact of the horrors this device could unleash during the Cold War and the political ramifications that might follow.

The West might not be best pleased if Tsar Bomba the 2nd used in anger leveled all of Paris. The mere existence of Tsar Bomba might also kick off another chapter in an increasingly expensive and pointless arms race with the West.

However the Hawks got to show their claws and the Doves sought to make sure they were never unsheathed again.

Tsar Bomba was the last of its ilk and instead of a crater the size of Paris, it left us with this disturbingly incongruous but lovely soundtrack.

Here's a full-length version complete with the translated subtitles.

Dropping in 3, 2, 1...