Re: Music of Star Trek (Series and Films).
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Nelson Au
Scott- In case you're still monitoring this thread, I finally got copies of those Star Trek soundtracks from Crescendo, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 earlier this week. I had to buy them separately as the box set was no longer available.
I also picked up the other two volumes from Varese Sarabande newly recorded music, Mirror and Charlie X, etc a few months ago. And as I said above, I have those recordings from label X that I picked up years ago and with the help of another member, I have Volume One from that collection finally!
I have the vinyl LP of The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone before so I was familiar with this recording and it was fun to hear it again! One of my favorite tracks is the very last one, #35. It's never heard on the show, but it's got a cool Western sound to it.
Volume Two was totally new to me. And that was really cool to hear. I have not heard such a clean recording of the Star Trek main title and it was without Shatner's narration. The cool thing about this set is that I never heard these particular scores without the dialogue and sound effects. So One or two short passages sounded different to me in Doomsday Machine. Like when McCoy and Decker first beam back to the Enterprise and they rush to the bridge. Track 6, it starts the same right after the commercial break, then there's a 3 or 4 second passage that's different, from 2 seconds in to about 5 seconds, then it sounds like what I'm used to hearing. I think it was masked by dialogue. I'll have to watch the episode again!
Amok Time is fantastic! It's great to hear all that score without the dialogue and sound effects! The writing and performance is terrific to hear, like for the first time. It was such a totally new sound too. I hope Gerald Fried got recognition for the work, the use of instrumentation was so unique. Made me wonder if the psychedelic music of the time or was it jazz that had any influence. Same for Sol Kaplan for creating an equally iconic piece that is so identified with The Doomsday Machine.
Makes me hope that Giacchino will be able to do a score as distinctive and unique.
I'll listen to Volume 3 later today.
On those Varese Sarabande two volumes, I thought they were okay. Not as good to listen to because they weren't exactly the real thing. But also because they only have short segments. But then I only listened to it once.
I thought the Label X recordings were better because they recreated all the score for that whole episode and blended it together as a suite. I guess that's what makes the first 3 volumes from Crescendo so much more enjoyable, it's the whole show.
|
Nelson,
Congratulations on obtaining the discs! That's great. I think I told you that I too have the three-disc boxed set as well as the two additional discs that you mention above.
Yeah, those three volumes from Crescendo are the cream of the crop, for sure. I don't know if I have any favorites; I tend to listen to them when I am exercising (rebounding) in our library. I never (and never will) tire of those superb recordings. Since the music is part of a stock vocabulary in many instances (I realize that there are exceptions to this), the images that one conjures up in their mind's eye when listening to the music are numerous, even when the piece of music is identical. To cite one example, the pizzicato string work that occurs in
This Side Of Paradise (occurring immediately after the oft-referred to line by me of Kirk: "Gentleman, we're debating in a vacuum; let's go get some answers") is used as well in
Charlie X and in
Operation: Annihilate! as the landing party moves inward toward the city. I love this music so much that I bought the music to
Charlie X just to have that excerpt.
I may have mentioned this before, but the sound effects overlayed with the music (or the inverse, if you will) is very eerie/ethereal/other-worldly in some instances. For example, I'm speaking specifically of the instance where the awesome chordal string work which occurs in
Space Seed (it is during the completion of the beam over to the Botany Bay) is coupled with the transporter sound effect (this happens only once in the entire run of
TOS); it's such an incredible juxtaposition. The colors that are achieved by that particular combination are gorgeous. (BTW, it's the same music used when Charlie disappears after the appearance of the Thasian; however, all are on the Bridge, so there is no need for the sound effect of the transporter.) This is the same excerpt of music that I have on occasion written about in relation to the
VOY episode
Time and Again. The harmonic succession is not identical, but it is an uncannily similar progression and appears to use similar instruments texture-wise. I hope you have a chance to give both of these excerpts a comparative listening one day.
I may also have mentioned that I picked up a rare copy of the
Star Trek library of sound effects. This CD is jam-packed with just about every sound effect ever heard on the show. It was a wonderful purchase.
BTW, speaking of Fried--
During the Scary Movie Challenge, one of the films I watched was
I Bury the Living. My eldest son, who really has no musical training to speak of (except that he lives with his mother, a bassoonist, and his father, a harpsichordist
) commented on how the score to that film sounds like
Star Trek. (By
Star Trek, he means
TOS, since he said 'Kirk'--LOL.) I thought that that observation of his was quite interesting.
Man, G. Fried sure was prolific:
Gerald Fried
