{"id":51101,"date":"2025-01-07T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/e649a43a-1c66-4b36-ab74-0b32a03d6b6c"},"modified":"2025-01-07T11:09:21","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T10:09:21","slug":"wendy-carlos-trans-pioneer-and-creator-of-stanley-kubricks-creepiest-soundtracks","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/wendy-carlos-trans-pioneer-and-creator-of-stanley-kubricks-creepiest-soundtracks\/","title":{"rendered":"Wendy Carlos: trans pioneer and creator of Stanley Kubrick’s creepiest soundtracks"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By <\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 07 January 2025 at 09:30 AM<\/p>

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Read on to discover all about Wendy Carlos, pioneer of the moog synthesizer and the artist behind one of classical music’s biggest selling albums…<\/strong><\/p>

Switched-On Bach: one of the biggest selling classical albums of all time<\/h3>
When in 1968 Columbia Records launched Switched-On Bach<\/em>, a collection of works by JS Bach<\/a><\/strong> reimagined on the modular Moog synthesizer<\/a><\/strong>, little did they know it would become one of the biggest selling classical albums of all time.<\/p>
Anticipating poor sales, the studio executives offered its composer Wendy Carlos a small advance and a high royalty deal, and bundled her album up with two others: Terry Riley\u2019s In C<\/em>, which would become a landmark work in the minimalist canon, and Rock and Other Four Letter Words<\/em>, a psychedelic mix of Moog synthesizer, free jazz<\/a><\/strong> and sound collage that Robert Moog, who attended the launch party, described as \u2018abysmal\u2019. Riley was at the launch too, dressed in white robes and improvising on a Farfisa organ. Apparently taking umbrage at being thrown into the marketing mix, Carlos left early, leaving it to Moog to demonstrate the commercial potential of his modular synthesizer on the night.<\/p>
Wendy Carlos… from Bach to Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange<\/em> to Stephen King’s The Shining<\/em><\/h3>
Even before you hear her music, the story behind Carlos\u2019s debut album speaks volumes about its composer. At the same time as bringing about a revolution in synthesizer technology, Carlos would steer clear of the limelight, working with just a clutch of close collaborators from her studio at home in New York.<\/p>

<\/div> <\/figure> With her producer and friend Rachel Elkind she created the chilling synthesizer renderings of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/henry-purcell\">Purcell<\/a><\/strong> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/ludwig-van-beethoven\">Beethoven<\/a><\/strong> for Stanley Kubrick\u2019s A Clockwork Orange<\/em>, and revamped the Dies Irae of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/hector-berlioz\">Berlioz<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/love-story-behind-berliozs-symphonie-fantastique\">Symphonie fantastique<\/a><\/strong><\/em> for the director\u2019s adaptation of Stephen King\u2019s horror novel The Shining<\/em>. Her collaboration with Annemarie Franklin produced the soundtrack for the cult 1980s sci-fi film Tron<\/em>, with its otherworldly mix of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/what-instruments-make-up-an-orchestra\">orchestra<\/a><\/strong> and synths. With Robert Moog supplying her with the latest updates, Carlos put his synthesiser at the forefront of developments in new music \u2013 she released her ambient double album Sonic Seasonings<\/em> long before Brian Eno came on the scene with 1978\u2019s Music for Airports<\/em>.<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/tv-and-film-music\/six-best-horror-film-scores\">The 13 most terrifying horror film scores of all time<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Wendy Carlos at 85… elusive and anti-streaming<\/h3> But as she turns 85 this month, the composer, who has lived much of her life in New York, remains as elusive as ever; she hasn\u2019t released any new work or given any interviews since the late \u201990s. In 2009, she took her music off the market; a firm advocate of analogue over digital, and the owner of her entire music catalogue, she has not made any of her works available on downloading or streaming platforms.<\/p> None of this comes as a surprise when you consider the single-mindedness with which Carlos has developed her musical talent over the years, and the control she exerts not just over, but within each of her works.<\/p> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Wendy Carlos the early years… a self-taught composer and scientifically brilliant<\/h3> Originally from Rhode Island, she grew up in a musical family that was as cash-strapped as it was resourceful. At six, she began learning the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/who-invented-the-piano\">piano<\/a><\/strong>, practising between lessons on the keyboard her father had drawn her on a piece of paper. She taught herself music theory from library books, learning about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/what-is-harmony-in-music\">harmony<\/a><\/strong>, counterpoint and temperament.<\/p> Not just musically gifted, she was also scientifically brilliant \u2013 when she was 14, she won a prize for inventing a computer; she also built the home hi-fi system from scratch, using bits of wood and a soldering iron. Inquisitive and precocious, she was soon exploring the same <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/avant-garde-music\">avant-garde<\/a><\/strong> ideas that were occupying the great minds in the musical capitals of Darmstadt, Paris and New York. She loved the music of Pierre Henry \u2013 and after hearing his 1958 Orph\u00e9e Ballet<\/em>, an early experiment in musique concr\u00e8te<\/em>, she set about manipulating everyday sounds on the tape machine she\u2019d built for her home studio.<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/nine-best-pieces-music-inspired-science\">9 of the best pieces of music inspired by science<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Who were the early mentors of Wendy Carlos?<\/h3> For Carlos, technical discoveries and musical invention went hand in hand. At Brown University, in Providence, she combined her studies of physics with music before heading to New York to study for a master\u2019s in musical composition at Columbia University, where Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening had co-founded the Computer Music Center, the first research centre of its kind in America.<\/p> Here she had access to brilliant minds and to the latest electronic equipment, working on its flagship RCA Mark II synthesiser with composer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/news\/milton-babbitt-1916-2011\">Milton Babbitt<\/a><\/strong>. Carlos could have easily embraced the ivory towerism that Babbitt became known for with his 1958 article entitled, \u2018Who Cares if You Listen?\u2019 But a chance encounter with Robert Moog at an engineering conference in New York in 1964 set her career on a different path. \u2018I accidentally woke him up,\u2019 she later recalled. \u2018He was taking a much needed nap on a banquette.\u2019<\/p> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Wendy Carlos and Robert Moog… and important partnership<\/h3> Looking back, you can almost feel the intensity with which these two inquisitive minds clicked: Carlos, the music graduate who could talk science, just starting out in Manhattan; Moog, the creative engineer, able to develop the tools with which she could pursue her music career. After working as a sound engineer at Gotham Recording Studios and creating sound effects and jingles for television advertisements, Carlos had saved up enough money to buy one of Moog\u2019s first 900-series modules. Moog delivered it to her apartment by hand.<\/p> Over the months and years that followed, he would tailor the modules to Carlos\u2019s specification, meeting her need for greater nuance and expressivity. As one of his most demanding and discerning customers, she made a number of improvements, including a slide that controlled <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/discovering-music-glissando\">portamento<\/a><\/strong><\/em> and a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/polyphony-music-definition\">polyphonic<\/a><\/strong> generator bank that could create chords and arpeggios \u2013 Moog also built her a touch-sensitive keyboard, long before weighted keys were commercially available.<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/hooked-on-classics\">Hooked on classics: the 1980s phenomenon with Mozart, drum machines… and record-busting sales<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Switched-On Bach… a work of determined genius and ‘the record of the decade’<\/h3> When the technical limitations of Moog\u2019s early synthesizer are taken into account, you begin to see why Switched-On Bach<\/em> is a work of vision and graft. To showcase the capabilities of the modular synthesiser, she chose repertoire that varied in size and complexity but whose form was crystal clear, from the simple two-part inventions in F, B-flat and D minor, to the much larger <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/recordings\/best-recordings-js-bachs-brandenburg-concertos\">Brandenburg<\/a><\/strong> Concerto<\/em> No. 3 in G. To hear the surprising array of sounds on this album, you wouldn\u2019t think that the synthesiser could only produce one note at a time.<\/p> Assisted by friend and musicologist Benjamin Folkman, Carlos built each note from scratch: first she determined its parameters \u2013 its pitch, colour, duration and attack \u2013 before placing it in a sequence to form a melody. This was then layered and synchronised to create the counterpoint and harmony in Bach\u2019s work. The result \u2013 futuristic yet neoclassical, human yet weirdly mechanical, at times jaunty yet eerily sinister \u2013 was not to everybody\u2019s taste. But while traditionalists shunned its kitschiness, there were classical purists who welcomed Switched-On Bach<\/em>, too. At a time when he was embracing studio performance, the reclusive pianist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/glenn-gould-2\">Glenn Gould<\/a><\/strong> called it \u2018the record of the decade\u2019 and \u2018one of the greatest feats ever achieved in a keyboard performance\u2019.\u00a0<\/p> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Wendy Carlos and gender identity… transitioning as a woman and retreat from the spotlight<\/h3> Carlos has said that she considered herself to be the arranger, as opposed to the composer, of these works. But there are more personal reasons for her decision not to steal the limelight. In her 2020 biography of Wendy Carlos, Amanda Sewell explores the relationship between the composer\u2019s gender identity and her music, arguing that \u2018Carlos\u2019s gender identity has shaped many aspects of her life, her career, how she relates to the public, and how the public has received her music.\u2019<\/p> At the time of Switched-On Bach<\/em>\u2019s release, Carlos had yet to speak openly about her transitioning as a woman. The name on the album\u2019s cover was Walter Carlos, the one she went by at the time, but it was released on her Trans-Electronic Music Productions label. Unprepared for its commercial success \u2013 and perhaps wanting her work to be the focus of attention, rather than her gender identity \u2013 the composer opted for solitude.<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Wendy Carlos Interview 1989 BBC Two\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Z3cab5IcCy8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <\/figure> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Wendy Carlos and <\/em>Stanley Kubrick<\/h3> Has Carlos\u2019s retreat to the studio in any way held her back as a composer? She once said she had \u2018lost an entire decade\u2019 by avoiding live appearances and public interactions with other musicians. And yet, in those early years of her career she seemed to align herself with similarly brilliant and reclusive thinkers. Having expanded the Moog\u2019s range of repertoire to include <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/claudio-monteverdi\">Monteverdi<\/a><\/strong>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/domenico-scarlatti\">Scarlatti<\/a><\/strong> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/george-frideric-handel\">Handel<\/a><\/strong> on her follow-up album, The Well-Tempered Synthesizer,<\/em> she was ideally placed to capture the pitch-black humour at the heart of A Clockwork Orange<\/em>.<\/p> Carlos and Elkind had already been developing a synthesizer rendition of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/beethoven-ninth-symphony\">Beethoven\u2019s Ninth Symphony<\/a><\/strong> and Carlos was exploring parallels between her work Timesteps<\/em> and the dystopian atmosphere of Anthony Burgess\u2019s novel, when she heard that Kubrick was adapting it for the screen. Her music \u2013 in particular her take on Purcell\u2019s Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary<\/em>, first heard during the opening credits \u2013 offered the perfect analogy for Burgess\u2019s brutal world in which technology could transform humanity.<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/tv-and-film-music\/six-best-sci-fi-movie-soundtracks\">Best sci-fi movie soundtracks of all time<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> In true Kubrick style, the director, who had unceremoniously deleted Alex North\u2019s score from 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/em>, cut much of Carlos\u2019s score from his final edit. Her score for The Shining <\/em>was even more savagely axed. But in her subsequent release of the complete soundtracks, they speak for themselves. Heard in its entirety, Timesteps<\/em> is a work of sheer brilliance: a vast ambient landscape that moves seamlessly between episodes of movement and repose, with primitive rhythms, snippets of Beethovenian counterpoint and Ligeti-like atmospheres. Like the nature-inspired soundscape of Sonic Seasonings<\/em>, it offers a sense of total escape.<\/p> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Wendy Carlos… an important continuing influence<\/h3> Whether in these early original works, or in the many reimaginings of classical repertoire that she would return to over the years \u2013 from 1973\u2019s Switched-On Bach II<\/em> to 1992\u2019s Switched-on Bach 2000<\/em> \u2013 Carlos revels in the beauty of sound itself. It\u2019s one reason her music continues to influence what we hear today, from Michael Stein and Kyle Dixon\u2019s soundtrack for the hit Netflix TV series <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/what-music-series-3-stranger-things\">Stranger Things<\/a><\/strong> <\/em>to the self-built sounds of producer and DJ Aphex Twin. While Carlos might choose to say nothing, then, her music continues to speak to us all.<\/p> <p\/> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Published: Tuesday, 07 January 2025 at 09:30 AM Read on to discover all about Wendy Carlos, pioneer of the moog synthesizer and the artist behind one of classical music’s biggest selling albums… Switched-On Bach: one of the biggest selling classical albums of all time When in 1968 Columbia Records launched Switched-On Bach, a collection […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":51102,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"9"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/wendy-carlos-trans-pioneer-and-creator-of-stanley-kubricks-creepiest-soundtracks.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/wendy-carlos-trans-pioneer-and-creator-of-stanley-kubricks-creepiest-soundtracks-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/wendy-carlos-trans-pioneer-and-creator-of-stanley-kubricks-creepiest-soundtracks-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/wendy-carlos-trans-pioneer-and-creator-of-stanley-kubricks-creepiest-soundtracks-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/wendy-carlos-trans-pioneer-and-creator-of-stanley-kubricks-creepiest-soundtracks-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/wendy-carlos-trans-pioneer-and-creator-of-stanley-kubricks-creepiest-soundtracks.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/wendy-carlos-trans-pioneer-and-creator-of-stanley-kubricks-creepiest-soundtracks.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Published: Tuesday, 07 January 2025 at 09:30 AM Read on to discover all about Wendy Carlos, pioneer of the moog synthesizer and the artist behind one of classical music’s biggest selling albums… Switched-On Bach: one of the biggest selling classical albums of all time When in 1968 Columbia Records launched Switched-On Bach, a collection…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/51101"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}