Wendy Carlos was already famous for her album Switched-On Bach, an
electronic adaptation of some of the famous classical composer’s
works, before she began her collaboration with Kubrick. The sound
she produced playing Bach on her synthesizer was both classical
and futuristic, perfect for A Clockwork Orange. Carlos had
already begun composing a score to the novel when a friend sent her
a clipping from a London newspaper saying that Kubrick had begun
adapting it for film. Carlos continued to work on her musical composition,
and when she saw an article in The New York Times announcing
that Kubrick had finished shooting the film, she contacted him to
suggest that he use her music. Kubrick invited her to London, and
the two eventually collaborated on what became the score for the
film.
Carlos made electronic recordings of a number of famous
classical composers for A Clockwork Orange, including
Beethoven, Rossini, and Purcell, and Kubrick also included some
of Carlos’s original compositions in the score. Her adaptation of
the choral movement from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was the first
electronic “vocal” piece ever produced. In the film, works by these
composers accompany Alex’s violent rampages as well as his violent fantasies,
lending them an ecstatic and surreal quality that might well match
the way Alex feels during them. The film opens with Carlos’s own
composition, Timesteps, a slow, booming, otherworldly piece
that sets an ominous tone for the entire film.
Important to note is the fact that the music of A
Clockwork Orange is credited to “Walter Carlos,” even though
the composer later became “Wendy Carlos.”
