Mahler's Music in "2001: A Space Odyssey"?

[James Meckley]

As you may know, April 2018 is the 50th anniversary of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. To mark the occasion, author Michael Benson has published Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece, an extensive and fascinating account of the film's creation. According to Benson, before he settled on Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra for use at several critical points in the film, Kubrick and his musical adviser Frank Cordell gave very serious consideration to using one or more sections of Gustav Mahler's Third Symphony! Unfortunately, no details are given as to which sections, but it can make for interesting speculation. Also considered—less seriously— were portions of Vaughan Williams's Sinfonia Antartica.

James

[John Kim]

That is astonishing!

I am sure the opening pages would have been quoted by Kubrick.

John

[waderice]

Alex North's original score as he composed it for the movie is worth hearing, if you can find a copy of the CD of it somewhere.  It was recorded by his fellow film composer and friend, Jerry Goldsmith.

Wade

[AZContrabassoon]

Alex North's original score as he composed it for the movie is worth hearing, if you can find a copy of the CD of it somewhere.  It was recorded by his fellow film composer and friend, Jerry Goldsmith.

Wade

Worth hearing, yes. But it becomes painfully evident that Kubrick's decision to reject it was absolutely correct. North was a good composer, but no Strauss (Richard or Johann), Ligeti, Khachaturian. Kubrick was apparently quite well versed in orchestral music and I think his selections were perfect. He insisted that the only Also Sprach recording he would use was the Karajan/VPO version.

[James Meckley]

[Kubrick] insisted that the only Also Sprach recording he would use was the Karajan/VPO version.

John Culshaw covers this odd transaction in his autobiography, Putting the Record Straight. When Kubrick approached Decca about using the Karajan/VPO recording of Zarathustra, Decca agreed but stipulated that "no credit should be given to either Decca or Karajan in the film itself, which meant that other companies were able to reap the benefit by rushing out recordings of Zarathustra as soon as the film became a success. Karajan was understandably furious and threatened to sue both Decca and MGM, but Decca managed to soothe him by one means or another." Apparently, Decca didn't want their recording of Zarathustra "cheapened" by association with a science fiction movie. Remarkably, when MGM released the official soundtrack recording of 2001, they used Karl Böhm's Berlin Philharmonic recording of Zarathustra rather than the one actually in the film.

Kubrick treated Alex North rather badly throughout the whole process. He pressed him very hard and set unreasonable deadlines for the production of the score in the first place—to the point that North suffered a physical collapse—and then didn't have the courage to tell him he wasn't going to use his score until the film was about to be released.

There are two recordings of the North score floating around: the one by Goldsmith Wade mentioned, and an earlier one conducted by composer Henry Brant, the man who orchestrated it all for North in the first place.

James