Posted
by
Leonard Pierce
It’s no surprise that the soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick’s highly controversial adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ sci-fi masterpiece A Clockwork Orange would prove to be almost as great a firestarter as the movie itself. After all, music plays a huge – and hugely divisive – role in the movie: music is all that the nihilistic, savage street thug Alex DeLarge truly loves; music is what makes one of his most vicious attacks so unbearable, as he brutally attacks an innocent while crooning the main theme from the classic musical Singin’ in the Rain; and music is what makes his brainwashing ‘treatment’ at the hands of the government so objectionable, as the Ludovico Technique not only robs him of his ability to do violence, but fills him with nausea when he hears the gorgeous strains of Beethoven’s 9th.
What was a bit surprising is the reason that the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange was so controversial. Despite the intense public reaction, the real stumbling block in the release of the album was due to a number of legal impediments and a not-insignificant amount of money it took to secure the rights to Gene Kelly’s rendition of “Singin’ in the Rain”. But that isn’t what set many critics off. Instead, it was the classical score by composer Wendy (formerly Walter, a fact that had already, er, engendered some controversy) Carlos that put up many critics’ hackles: she arranged and performed a number of significant pieces of classical music, including Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” and others, using a then-new electronic organ known as the Moog synthesizer. A number of traditionalists attacked Carlos for bastardizing the classics, and for using what was referred to in one review as “circus music” to interpret the divine odes of Purcell and Rossini. It wasn’t a controversy that was new to Carlos, who had, for some time, issued her Switched-On series under her pre-sexual-reassignment-surgery name of Walter Carlos because the classical establishment was uncomfortable with female composers, let alone ones who had once been men. But even leaving those dated and debased criticisms aside, critics were cheating themselves and listeners out of some terrific music by decrying the Clockwork Orange OST: in addition to Carlos’ “Timesteps” (an extended piece based on the original Burgess novel that she’d begun work on even before she knew there was a movie in the works), there are very worthwhile tracks on the album by other early pioneers of avant-garde and electronic music, including Terry Riley and Tangerine Dream.
BEST TRACKS: Wendy Carlos’ contemplative, clever “Timesteps”, released on the original soundtrack album in a grievously abbreviated four-minute version but restored in 1998 on the Complete Original Score reissue in its full 14-minute glory; the eerie Moog rendition of the Second Movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, retitled here the “Suicide Scherzo” to reflect events in the plot; and the jarring yet utterly charming ditty “I Want to Marry a Lighthouse Keeper” by Erika Eigen.
About Leonard Pierce
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