Search - Wendy Carlos :: Rediscovering Lost Scores 1

Treasure Trove of Cinemagic

Robert Carlberg | Seattle | 06/07/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In between her pioneering classical transcriptions and her groundbreaking explorations of new timbres and tunings, Carlos was also called upon to score a few films. Of these only one, "A Clockwork Orange," has been adequately represented by an official soundtrack album and a second album of original music written for the movie. Her score for "Tron" wasn't released on CD by Disney until 2001, NINETEEN YEARS after the film. All of the other scores have been, lamentably, totally missing.



Until now.



Carlos is no stranger to neglect. She has had to single-handedly rescue her classical pieces from the dumpster, and most of the rest of her catalog never saw Original Master re-releases until she herself undertook the project. It seems her New England stubbornness is triggered by disrespect, which in a way is lucky because nobody does Wendy better than Wendy herself.



She's done it once again with these soundtrack albums, volumes 1 and 2. Most of her fans know she wrote a complete score for Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining," although only two short pieces made it to the soundtrack LP (which has never been reissued). Here she FINALLY shares the rest of her score (minus the two tracks in legal limbo), and they are just as wonderful as everyone suspected. Witty and urbane classical reworkings are interposed with original horror music of astonishing power. Of particular note is a track where she overdubs and treats Rachel Elkind's voice until it sounds like a swarm of bumblebees!



She's also discovered three more "Clockwork Orange" cues, which are a delightful addition to the existing canon.



Volume 2 includes additional music from "Tron" and her unreleased score to "Woundings," and both volumes include several shorter pieces for various independent films.



Overall these discs are everything you'd expect and hope for in documenting Carlos's cinematic career."

Fans of "The Shining" look no further...

B. Bowman | Jersey, United States | 01/06/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"As a longtime fan of Stanley Kubrick and "The Shining" this collection really piqued my interest. I have always thought that the score to "The Shining" was some of the eeriest and most effective music in cinema, and have kept my eye out for years for a soundtrack album. For fans of the movie this is as close as you're going to get to a legitimate soundtrack, but to echo the sentiments of other reviewers this disc does not contain a note for note recreation of the music used in the movie by Stanley Kubrick. Many of Wendy Carlos' ideas were used in snippets by Kubrick in the film, but no one piece was used in its entirety. In that respect, one might see this collection as a disappointment; I for one did not. The liner notes were written by Carlos and individually detail her ideas behind the soundscapes and the instruments she used in trying to meet Kubrick's vision for the movie. I found Carlos' breakdown of the instrumentation used as well as insights into her work with Kubrick to be fascinating, and her creativity in creating ambient music to be impressive. And while each track was not used in its entirety by Kubrick in the film, you do catch familiar passages here and there which were edited by Kubrick (and often reassembled) and used to great effect in the movie. For anyone interested in composing for film scores, this collection would be of great interest and is highly informative. For fans of "The Shining" like myself, it is also great to hear some haunting music that was not used in the film but is as equally creepy as what made the final cut. "A Ghost Piano" comes to mind in this respect. My only complaint with this collection is that Carlos' music from "The Shining" was not included on this disc in its entirety, and was split between this disc and Volume 2. I was not as interested in hearing outtakes from "A Clockwork Orange" or the music from Carlos' work on documentary films in the 70's for Unicef, which are included here. However, for fans of Wendy Carlos this collection will not disappoint as all the music on this collection has never before been available."