The Lost Shining Score: Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind’s Synth Tracks

Composer Wendy Carlos in her New York studio, 1979, courtesy of https://www.abc.net.au

The Shining is notoriously enigmatic. The narrative takes you through a horrifying oscillation of space and time. The lore behind its production is potent with drama, disagreements, and accusations. Since its premiere in 1980, it continues to be a source of public curiosity into horror and filmmaking.

Kubrick creates a complex film by artfully confusing his audience. Kubrick uses every tool at his disposal to achieve this—sound, frame, story, dialogue, props, set, color, cinematography, and time. His manipulation of these forms makes for a compelling and original retelling of King’s acclaimed novel.

Within The Shining score, an interesting collage is taking place. The pieces span decades, countries, and genres. Kubrick takes music from the 1930s British Hotel Band era, 1980s synth horror, and classical avant-garde compositions. Unlike other films, there is no one set composer and no uniform sound. We end up with a sonic collage that mirrors our visual experience as we venture throughout the Overlook.

The most famous sounds of The Shining are easily those iconic opening tracks created by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind. Main Title booms over a wide helicopter shot of the Rocky Mountains as yellow credits roll over the screen. Trilling animal sounds and dissonant materials scratch at each other over a deep bass before classic warning horns return throughout the piece. Next, we hear Rocky Mountains, a deep, distorted synth track that takes us through growing, agitated sounds before trailing off into an eerie drone.

These tracks establish a tone of otherworldly danger in the film. After these tracks, Kubrick pivots to a new sound, decade, and genre. We hear a beautifully delicate and frightening violin composition titled Lontano (1967), which sets off more alarms as to what’s in store for us at the Overlook Hotel. Kubrick goes on to repeat this throughout the film, including works by Krzysztof Penderecki, Béla Bartók, Andrzej Markowski, and others. Regardless of Kubrick’s intentions, selecting these compositions is a hidden nod to The Exorcist (1973), one of the first and most notable horror films to utilize avant-garde compositions that make the hair on our neck stand up.

Kubrick’s musical choices pay off: he successfully disorients his viewer as we watch Jack’s descent into madness. We can’t guess what we will see, and even less so what we will hear. However, Kubrick only made this decision in post-production. In fact, he commissioned a full score from Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind, which they completed. The two only learned that Kubrick had scrapped nearly the entire thing upon seeing the film in theaters during its 1980 premiere.

For decades, no one heard the synth horror score created for The Shining. Wendy Carlos finally released the tracks in two volumes titled Rediscovering Lost Scores in 2005. The CDs contain the music Kubrick scrapped from The Shining and A Clockwork Orange, along with other iconic films.

To add to the enigmatic characterization The Shining already has, the original score is incredibly hard to find. Rediscovering Lost Scores Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 are out of print, not found for streaming online, and only available in about 20 libraries globally. Carlos is famously reclusive and probably not planning on re-releasing the albums any time soon. On top of the endless theories and myths regarding The Shining, these lost tracks add another layer of mysticism.

Don’t worry! I’m trying to find the albums. Lots of librarianship to come.

Lauren Zuzevich for Decayed Radio