Stanley Kubrick hired Alex North to create the score for his film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, but somewhere along the way things changed. Well into North's work, he received notice from Kubrick that he didn't need to continue working on the score, to which he assumed that enough music had been provided. Rather, Kubrick had decided to leave the temporary score intact and not use any of North's contributions. North was reportedly, and understandably, heartbroken when he discovered the fate of his work at the 1968 premiere of the film, while he watched it. Indeed, Kubrick NEVER spoke a word of the score's rejection to North, he found out with the rest of the world as they became refamiliarized with the Blue Danube.
North's unused score eventually received a premiere recording and was made available on CD in 1993 as conducted by Jerry Goldsmith. This finally answered the question whether Kubrick made the right decision, and in my opinion that is a firm YES! That said, North's work is still an interesting footnote in film and music history, if nothing more than being the other music for 2001, though it's also worth noting that North had what was recorded for his score recorded.
In 2007, Intrada Records, a label dedicated to film score releases, gained the rights to issue the surviving mono tapes of North's 1968 recordings of the score, and an oddly limited issue of 3000 copies were pressed with no digital release or later reissue. While I don't think this score is remotely as good as the compilation score Kubrick assembled, I do think it's important to hear these pieces and their original recordings, so today I'm posting a very high quality rip of the Intrada release with scans of the packaging and liner notes included. To note, this is not my rip nor do I know who did the work, so a big thank you to the anonymous individual responsible for their hard work.
Alex North's Unused Score For 2001: A Space Odyssey (Intrada Release)
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