Alex North's soundtrack for 2001 A Space Odyssey vs. the Kubrick choices

Like the film or not, one of the most memorable aspects of Kubrick's singular film is the use of previous recordings of both famous and not so famous classical recordings: Thus Spoke Zaruthustra, The Blue Danube and the otherworldly music of Gyorgy Ligeti.

It's well-known that Kubrick had commissioned a score from composer Alex North who Kubrick had worked with when he directed Spartacus. North was a successful and established Hollywood composer. When Kubrick heard North's completed score, he decided that the "temporary" music tracks he'd used during the editing process worked better and he decided to leave them in. Kubrick never informed North of his decision and the composer was devastated when he went to see the film in a theatre and his music was nowhere to be heard.

Composer Jerry Goldsmith championed North's score and saw to it that it got heard. Goldsmith liked North's work much more than what Kubrick did and did everything he could to help North's score get recognition.

Since I'm assuming most of you have heard the iconic music tracks from the released film, I thought it might be interesting for everyone to hear what North composed in sync with Kubrick's images so that you could form your own opinion.

2001 Main Titles and Dawn of Man sequence by Alex North

Main Titles Again but with Alex North Space Ballet

Alex North 2001 tracks for Monolith Scene and Star Child Sequence

Win or Fail?

 

I was surprised at how dated this made the movie feel. It sounds like a score from the 60's-70s. I think the classical score gave it a timeless quality. North's score also makes the effects feel slow. Now this might just be from knowing the film and its music tied together. Its hard to try to forget the soundtrack and view this with fresh eyes. However it is an interesting experiment.

 

ugh

 

"Ugh" is probably a direct quote of what Kubrick said when he listened to North's score.


Kubrick is fortunate he had the clout at that point to tell the studio "no" despite all the money they had spent on North and the recording sessions. It sounds like an expensive score.

 

I like parts of it. The main titles are very sweeping and epic, but the docking sequence music didn't fit and the Monolith music sounded like a bad Star Trek episode. I also like the moonshuttle music. Very operatic.

Overall, though Kubrick's temptrack was perfect for 2001, but it would be interesting to hearn North's main theme laid over Star Wars' opening crawl or the throne room scene at the end of Ep.IV. It would probably be a perfect match.

 

After listening to the tracks several times, my main reaction is that North's score sounds quite a bit like his Spartacus score, which is probably a main reason Kubrick didn't use it.

 

This whole issue of North's score vs. Kubrick's choices would be interesting to extend to other films. For example,
Howard Shore wrote a score for Peter Jackson's King Kong which was discarded for a new one. I'd love to hear what
Shore composed to try and determine why Jackson discarded it. Especially since Jackson seemed please with Shore's
work for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.