2001 Music

[Dave Monroe]

Deferential, glad to be of use.  Bugs me, though, that
I just didn't KNOW.  But do check out those online
liner notes.  Keeping in mind that Alex North was
commissioned to compose a score for the film ...

http://alexnorthmusic.com/default.html

http://www.varesesarabande.com/details.asp?pid=VSD%2D5400

... even though Kubrick had already selected the
existing pieces that he ultimately used ...

"There is a certain irony in Kubrick's decision to use
a composition of Aram Khachaturian's in 2001 in
preference to Alex North's music: North had scored
Spartacus, Kubrick's film of the epic story of
gladiator/slave rebellion that Khachaturian had
himself scored for ballet. Khachaturian worked on his
Spartacus music beginning as early as 1950, producing
three different versions -- the final one of which was
premiered in 1968, the same year that 2001 appeared. 

"Much earlier, Khachaturian had composed the popular
Gayane, a massive four-act ballet about crisis and
reconstruction on a Soviet collective farm, filled
with spirited Russian dances, of which the popular
concert piece 'Sabre Dance' is the best known.
Kubrick's use of the languid, melancholic Adagio from
Gayane to accompany the flight of Discovery toward
Jupiter is a stroke of genius. It amplifies the
monotony of the astronauts' existence aboard the ship
and adds an overtone of near-hopelessness. The crew
is, after all, not only in an empty and sterile
environment but also millions of miles from home (and,
as we later learn, doomed never to return)." 

http://www.rhino.com/features/liners/72562lin.html

Well worth reading through, not only notes on music,
but a nice discussion of the film itself.  A hell of a
package, all around.  Original cover art, great
documentation, sounds spectacular (can something SOUND
"spectacular"? hm ...), AND it features all of HAL's
dialogue.  Perfect for answering machines and other
sampling devices.  "Good morning, Dave" ...

By the way, do see ...

Wheat, Leonard F.  Kubrick's 2001: A Triple
   Allegory.  Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2000.

http://www.scarecrowpress.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=081083796X

The author's an economist of some sort and not exactly
conversant in the niceties of contemporary film
discourse, but he does make many interesting, not to
mention unique, observations.  Somethimes reads like a
less literate, and, certainly, less politicized
Charles Hollander, even.  As with "outsider art,"
"outsider criticism"?  Like this List, maybe ...

And definitely see as well Don Shay and Jody Duncan's
extensive "2001: A Time Capsule," in Cinefex 85 (April
2001) ...     

http://www.cinefex.com/backissues/issue85.html

http://www.cinefex.com/

An absolutely insane story for virtually each and
ev'ry shot in the film.  That nursing hominid alone
... and Kubrick's scheme for what amounted to a
pencil-and-graph-paper digital display transmitted by
voice over the phone (he refused to fly and wouldn't
go to Africa to film the first sequence of the
film--most of that was ultimnately done on a
soundstage) ... and ... but the film, of course,
really SHOULD have been rerealeased this year.  I'd
heard rumors ...

--- David Morris <fqmorris at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> That's it!  Thank you.  It is a beautiful and
> haunting composition.


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