Rediscovering Lost Scores 1

Wendy Carlos (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 24, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: East Side Digital
• ASIN: B0009G3C1O
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #75,475 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #10 in Music > Classical > Instruments > Electronic > Computer

Track Listings

1. Colorado - 'The Shining'

2. The Rocky Mountains - 'The Shining'

3. Chase Music - 'The Shining'

4. Nocturnal Valse Triste - 'The Shining'

5. Greetings Ghosties - 'The Shining'

6. Horror Show - 'The Shining'

7. A Haunted Waltz - 'The Shining'

8. Psychic Shout #237 - 'The Shining'

9. Danny - 'The Shining'

10. Heartbeats And Worry - 'The Shining'

11. Subliminal Ballroom - 'The Shining'

12. Thought Clusters - 'The Shining'

13. A Ghost Piano - 'The Shining'

14. Visitors - 'The Shining'

15. Dark Winds And Rustles - 'The Shining'

16. Bumps In The Wind - 'The Shining'

17. Setting With Medea - 'The Shining'

18. Two Polymoog Improvisations - 'The Shining'

19. Fanfare And Drunken 'Dies' - 'The Shining'

20. Clockworks (Bloody Elevators) - 'The Shining'

See all 32 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Treasure Trove of Cinemagic, June 6, 2005

By 

Robert Carlberg (Seattle) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rediscovering Lost Scores 1 (Audio CD)

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.

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The (second) soundtrack that never was..., August 12, 2005

By 

Christopher J. Brimelow (Sunnyvale, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rediscovering Lost Scores 1 (Audio CD)

Let me start out by saying that I (and probably most people) bought this for the Shining portion of music, and is what I am discussing here. Wendy's original score to the Shining was mostly left on the cutting room floor and only a few tracks made it into the final film. (The same happened to her Clockwork Orange soundtrack, although more of that was used.)

Once I heard that all of her original score to the Shining was being released I immediately became excited about the prospect of finally hearing the high-pitched music while Halloran "shines" on his bed, the long suite of twisted vocals and heartbeats as Jack yells at Wendy, dismantles the radio, etc. Upon receiving the CD I was a little disappointed, however.

There are basically 3 tracks on the CD that sound even remotely like her music in the movie:

*Track #2 ("Rock Mountains") - This is the music that can be heard while the family drives to the Overlook and continues throughout the Donna Party discussion. This track is a SHORTENED VERSION of the one heard in the film, but covers the main musical points.

*Track #10 ("Heartbeats & Worry") - This is SIMILAR to the music heard at various points throughout the film, (during Jack's "Shoveling out driveways" speech, Wendy trying to wake Danny up, Halloren on the plane, etc) but is much shorter and lacks many of the musical elements heard in the film. This track is the same general idea, and has some extra layers not heard in the film version.

*Track #21 ("Danny Bells Ascending") - This track also has ELEMENTS of the music heard in the scenes above, just without the heartbeats. (It also has some extra layers thrown in.)

That's about it from the movie. I kind of figured I would be disappointed because I usually am with any commercial releases of film scores. I always expect to get ALL the cues exactly as they appear in the movie, but this very rarely happens. Most soundtracks usually have certain cues omitted (usually my favorite ones) and they either join several cues into a suite of music or add extra stuff into the cues. Why they do this I'll never understand. In the case of the Shining, the music editor may have combined several different Carlos cues for the movie, but one thing I am certain - all of Wendy's music from the film is not on this CD. (I'm pretty sure they won't be on the second volume either, based on the samples I've heard.)

Another criticism I have is that I wish they released just the Shining music from both Volumes 1 and 2 as "Wendy Carlos's score to the Shining" (as they did with A Clockwork Orange), and put the UNICEF and Clockwork Orange stuff on a separate release.

Having said all that, the music on this CD is top notch, as is anything Wendy Carlos has done. I'm glad this stuff has finally seen the light of day! But if you're expecting a note-for-note version of the music from your favorite scenes in the film, you may be in for a disappointment...

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fans of "The Shining" look no further..., January 6, 2008

By 

B. Bowman "Double B" (Jersey, United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Rediscovering Lost Scores 1 (Audio CD)

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.