Track Listing

1. Title Music From A Clockwork Orange - Walter Carlos
2. The Thieving Magpie (Abridged) - A Clockwork Orange ST
3. Theme from A Clockwork Orange (Beethoviana) - Walter Carlos
4. Ninth Symphony, Second Movement (Abridged) - A Clockwork Orange ST D
5. March From A Clockwork Orange (Ninth Symphony, Fourth Movement, Abridged) - Walter Carlos
6. William Tell Overture (Abridged) - Walter Carlos
7. Pomp and Circumstance March No.1 - Stanley Kubrick
8. Pomp And Circumstance March No.4 (Abridged) - Stanley Kubrick
9. Timesteps (Excerpt) - Walter Carlos Listen Listen
10. Overture To The Sun - Terry Tucker
11. I Want To Marry A Lighthouse Keeper - Ericka Eigen
12. William Tell Overture (Abridged) - A Clockwork Orange ST
13. Suicide Scherzo (Ninth Symphony, Second Movement, Abridged) - Walter Carlos
14. Ninth Symphony, Fourth Movement (Abridged) - A Clockwork Orange ST
15. Singin' in the Rain - Gene Kelly

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4456 in Music
• Released on: 1990-10-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack

Amazon.com
Stanley Kubrick's demanding perfectionism in all aspects of the filmmaking process has led to some of the most memorable soundtracks of the modern era. Kubrick's taste for the classics led to his scrapping Alex North's original score for 2001: A Space Odyssey in lieu of the "temporary" tracks he had used for editing, turning Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra into an unlikely 20th-century pop icon. For his 1971 adaptation of Anthony Burgess's cautionary future-shocker, Kubrick once again turned to the classics. Malcolm McDowell's protagonist Droog Alex's taste for Beethoven is given a nice tweaking by Moog pioneer Walter (now Wendy) Carlos's synthesized take on the glorious Ninth Symphony. Some have complained that the now-primitive electronics involved give it a dated feel. Disturbingly--and effectively--other-worldly is more like it. Kubrick also imbues repertory standards by Rossini and Elgar with dark, frequently hilarious irony, and makes Gene Kelly's sunny reading of "Singin' In The Rain" the underscore to an all-too-accurate prediction of societal nightmares to come. --Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews

timeless
I bought the CD to replace the vinyl and am glad I did. At the end of the day, I just really want to marry a lighthouse keeper and keep him company. "Won't that be okay?"

Prisoner 6 double-five 3-2-1
The soundtrack album of CLOCKWORK ORANGE, even with it's simple (and supposedly) outdated Wendy Carlos recordings, holds up far better than the actual film has over these 36 years. This story takes place in the 1990s, and we all know that today's world is nothing like Anthony Burgess' dismal and nightmarish vision . . . don't we?

Most of the CLOCKWORK ORANGE soundtrack's classical selections are by Herbert Von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. These spirited Beethoven and Rossini interpretations remain some of the very best ever recorded.

The excerpt of Wendy's "Timesteps" is the most compelling piece here. In the film, this stark aural collage is background to Alex's behavior modification. In order to shorten his prison sentence, the violent sociopath is made chemically ill while forced to view scenes of rapine and bloodshed. His sickness can only be arrested by replacing his natural criminal urges with passive thoughts.

It's hard to listen to "Overture To The Sun" without recalling the spotlighted naked girl who tempts an on-exhibit Alex into a state of unwellness that he likens to "wanting to snuff it." His freedom to choose brutality has been taken from him forcefully, through violent reprogramming. The subsequent events that precipitate Alex's restoration into a fully non-functional member of society beset him in a fashion ironically similar to the chaos he once left in his violent wake.

The stark images and perversities of this movie tend to stay with a person. Perhaps watching Kubrick's CLOCKWORK ORANGE has in some way "programmed" the viewer, too, by desensitizing us to the madness that is all around. Maybe this film holds up better than I thought. I must have a glass of choko moloko and reconsider . . .

Kubrick At His Best
This is a fantastic Kubrick movie. Based on a novel of equal respect, this movie details troubled youth, violence, and sex in a modern-yet-more-so world. The slang of the young men in the movie is a mixture of British and Russian slang terminology created by the book's author. A must-see for the Kubrick fan out there.