Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Finding Aid for the Alex North Collection of Motion Picture Music
, 1951-1969
PASC-M 17
No online items
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title: Alex North Collection of Motion Picture Music,
Date (inclusive): 1951-1969
Collection number: PASC-M 17
Creator:
North, Alex
Extent:
83 boxes (41.5 linear ft.)
Repository:
University of California, Los Angeles. Library. UCLA Library Special Collections
Los Angeles, California 90095-1575
Abstract: This collection consists of holograph scores with occasional holograph music notes
Physical location: Stored off-site at SRLF.
Advance notice is required for access to the collection.
Please contact the UCLA UCLA Library Special Collections for paging information.
Language:
English.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UC Regents. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the
creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright
owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Open for research. STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library
Special Collections for paging information.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Alex North; gift; 1976.
[Identification of item],
Alex North Collection of Motion Picture Music, PASC-M 17, UCLA Library Special Collections, University of California, Los
Angeles.
North was born on Dec. 4, 1910, in Chester, PA;
attended the Curtis Institute, Juilliard School,
and Moscow Conservatory; became music director of
the German Theater Group and the Latvian State
Theater, and the only American member of the Union
of Soviet Composers; returned to the US in 1935;
studied with Ernst Toch and Aaron Copland in NY,
and composed ballet scores for Martha Graham,
Hanya Holm, and Agnes de Mille; composed for the
NY stage, including scores for Life and death of
an American (1939), Of V we sing (1942), and Death
of a salesman (1949); wrote music for some 50
documentary shorts between 1937-50; in 1939 went
to Mexico as music director for the Anna Sokolow
dance troupe and studied with Silvestre Revueltas;
served as a captain in the US Army in World War
II; his Revue for clarinet and orchestra was
performed by Benny Goodman and the NY Philharmonic
under Leonard Bernstein in 1946; began scoring
feature films in the early 1950s, becoming a
leading Hollywood composer; his musical language
encompasses dissonance and lyricism, and ranges
from chamber to symphonic proportions; he was
nominated for 15 Academy Awards but did not win
one until 1986, when the Motion Picture Academy
presented him with an honorary life-achievement
award; died in 1991.
Collection consists of Alex North's holograph
scores, with occasional holograph music notes, for
the following motion pictures: The agony and the
ecstasy (1965), All fall down (1962), The bachelor
party (1957), The bad seed (1956), Cheyenne autumn
(1964), The children's hour (1962), Cinerama South
Seas adventure (1958), Cleopatra (1963), Death of
a salesman (1951), Desiree (1954), Devil's brigade
(1968), A dream of kings (1969), Go man go (1954),
Hard contract (1969), Hot spell (1958), I'll cry
tomorrow (1955), The king & four queens (1956),
The long hot summer (1958), Man with the gun
(1955), A member of the wedding (1953), Les
miserables (1952), The misfits (1961), The outrage
(1964), Pony soldier (1952), The racers (1955),
The rainmaker (1956), The rose tattoo (1955),
Sanctuary (1961), Shoes of the fisherman (1968),
Spartacus (1960), Stagestruck (1958), A streetcar
named Desire (1955), The thirteenth letter (1951),
Unchained (1955), Viva Zapata (1952), Who's afraid
of Virginia Woolf (1966), The wonderful country
(1959), 2001, a space odyssey (1968), Symphony to
a new continent, and Somebody killed her husband
(1978).
The following terms have been used to index the description of this
collection in the library's online public access catalog.
North,Alex--Archives.
Composers--United States--Archival resources.
Motion picture music--Scores.
Music--Manuscripts.