source file: m1377.txt
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 17:06:33 -0700

Subject: Re:  Subject: microtonality in popular music

From: alves@orion.ac.hmc.edu (Bill Alves)

>2001:  The vocal (choral) music associated with the black monolith.  Probably
>       something on the order of 15 minutes into the movie, again as a guess.
>I haven't checked into either of those suggestions.  I don't recall either
>being particularly microtonal, but I don't have any reason to doubt what
>they're saying.

The pieces by Gyorgy Ligeti in 2001 include Lux Aeterna (the choral piece
associated with the monolith), Atmospheres (used during the "Stargate"
sequence), and the Requiem (I believe also used during the Stargate
sequence). Though Ligeti has been known to use non-12tet notes, as far as I
remember (I don't have the scores handy), these pieces used 12tet pitches,
mostly in clusters. They are classics of the 1960s school of textural or
sound-mass composition.

Penderecki has on occassion asked for quarter-tone clusters or microtonal
melodic inflections in his works of the same period. Kubrick used some of
Penderecki's pieces (as well as Ligeti's Lontano, if memory serves) in The
Shining, though I don't recall if they were pieces that included
microtones.

Here's some trivia about these films: Alex North was hired by Kubrick to do
a complete orchestral score for 2001 and he did. The entire score was then
trashed when Kubrick decided he liked the temp track of the Blue Danube
more. (North later turned parts of the score into a concert piece that I
haven't heard). Similarly, Wendy Carlos wrote a score for The Shining, of
which only two pieces survived, including the terrifying quotation of the
Dies Irae which opens the film. Does anyone know if her pieces used
alternate tunings, or if the rejected pieces ever saw the light of day in
another form?

Bill

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