Post #1 Clockwork Orange Soundtrack(Wendy Carlos)

Options:
1. Mandala in the Clouds-Battlestar Galactica: Season 3 soundtrack
2. Dermott O'Dowd-Relaxing Celtic for Reading
3. Country Lane-A Clockwork Orange
4. Imagine-Lennon Legend: The Very Best of John Lennon
5. The Gardens-Amazing Grace(Original Soundtrack)

Well, random didn't give me any easy opportunities for my first choice, but Wendy Carlos' Clockwork Orange Soundtrack seems like a good piece to start out with.  I picked this one up after working on an exhibit on the history of electronic music and learning about Wendy Carlos' overall career.  I also came to it through a love of Beethoven and Movie Soundtracks, so it was a fairly natural choice to represent early electronic music in my Super Eclectic Music Collection(SEMC).

The first track, Timesteps, is a long composition, showcasing the many different moods Carlos was able to capture using only electronic instrumentation.  But it's the second track, March from a Clockwork Orange that is where my interest really lies.  This march is an early electronic music version of the Choral finale of Beethoven's 9th.  The Choral Finale is one of my favorite pieces of music ever.  EVER.  But I also love adaptations(surprise, surprise, the folklorist loves different versions of the same thing) and Carlos's adaptation stretches the medium so well.  She uses the most amazing voice synthesis available in 1972, which isn't very advanced, but she uses it well.  It is like an instrument to itself.

Also on the album are tracks that adapt other parts of the 9th Symphony, the William Tell Overture and the Gazza Ladra, though the latter was not used in the final film and is instead inspired by the use of the original Gazza Ladra in Clockwork Orange.  There are also a few tracks that didn't make it into the film or were for parts of the film that didn't make it into the final cut.  Overall, I prefer her adaptations to her originals, but that's a matter of my own love of adaptations, not a commentary about the quality of her originals.

I would be remiss if I talked about Wendy Carlos without talking about her as a transgender icon.  This album was originally released on LP as Walter Carlos' Clockwork Orange, but Wendy transitioned around the same time(1972), a fairly prominent transgender figure for the time.  Wendy has had a hard fight to get the music world to respect her transition.  I am very glad that the CD release in the 1990's respected her transition and I have nothing but respect for her work, given that she also had to struggle against such odds.

Recommended Context for Listening: This along with some Isao Tomita could make an interesting party playlist.

What Playlists has this made it onto? This has made it onto my Cyberpunk playlist, for when I feel like walking around Chicago as postmodern dystopia

Who Should Buy This Album? Fans of early electronic music, fans of adaptations of classical music.