Released in 1960, Spartacus tells the story of a slave trained to be a gladiator, but escapes from his servitude and leads an army of slaves to almost defeating one of the greatest armies in history The film is considered to be one of Hollywood's greatest movies and film scores.
Prior to Spartacus, Alex North was best known for working on smaller more intimate dramas such as A Streetcar Named Desire (the first jazz film score). His most famous work was the classic Unchanged Melody (words by Hy Zaret) from the film Unchanged, which was number one on both sides of the Atlantic and one of the most recorded songs in history. He was considered to be a modernist composer as opposed to the romantic classical style of his contemporaries in Hollywood.
North composed for and conducted a 87 piece symphonic orchestra with additional rare instruments such the ondioline, the sarrusophone, the Israeli recorder, the Chinese oboe, the lute, the mandolin, the Yugoslav flute, the bagpipes, a plucked string instrument from Greek and Roman period called the kythara, and the dulcimer.