A great tragedy that you may or may not know:
At the premiere of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, a man named Alex North (who previously scored A Streetcar Named Desire and would go on to score Good Morning Vietnam; read his bio here) sat in the audience, horrified. It was not the image of apes huddled around a black monolith, nor HAL, nor the image of a gargantuan fetus confronting the Earth. It was Strauss’ “Also sprach Zarathustra” blaring from the speakers, bringing terrible revelation.
Not long before the premiere, Kubrick decided to scrap the original soundtrack in favor of the “guide pieces” originally used. The original soundtrack, composed for the sole purpose of the film, was by Alex North. North had not been told his score was being cut until he found out first-hand at the premiere. Interviewed by the French film critic Michel Ciment, Kubrick said, “However good our best film composers may be, they are not a Beethoven, a Mozart, or a Brahms.” Right or not, that’s very mean, Stanley.
So North’s original soundtrack has been lost to history, more or less, save a few CD and cassette issues. But now North is being given his due with a vinyl issue called Music for 2001: A Space Odyssey thanks to Mondo, a company that provides limited-edition movie posters and soundtrack reissues. There will be liner notes by Jon Burlingham and a number of scenes from the film screening with North’s score cued up on September 21 and 22 at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. How triumphant! Perhaps Alex has forgiven Stanley somewhere up there. Perhaps vinyl makes it all okay, even in death.
The vinyl edition will be available first at Fantastic Fest, but the press release said you should keep an eye on Mondo’s website. Check out some of the unused score below:
• Alex North: http://www.alexnorthmusic.com
• Mondo: http://www.mondotees.com/VINYL_c_19.html
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