Giacchino seems to have matured as shown in different parts of "John Carter" and this maturity would seem grim to full development in "Into Darkness".
it's hard to judge the score based on the few samples in the broadcast, but i'm encouraged. i agree giacchino seems to be continually maturing in style. "ode to harrison" is particularly refreshing after the overblown, downright silly theme for nero from trek 2009.
Here is the translation of what I wrote in my blog:
Last night the radio station WQXR in the transmission "Movies on the Radio" has hosted the composer Michael Giacchino, and sent about 22 minutes of music from his upcoming soundtrack for the new film by JJ Abrams, "Star Trek Into Darkness". Along with clips from 30 seconds released from the site of the Colosseum we pretty much more than half of the album to be released on 28 May and, while waiting to hear the soundtrack in its entirety, we can begin to make some comments. Although the quality of the podcast of the broadcast is not outstanding (mp3 128kbps), the thing that catches ears is the sound quality: abandoned the slightly muffled sound, reminding the recordings of the '60s, by Dan Wallin, here we find a mix extremely clear and powerful made ??by Joel Iwataki, able to bring out the fullness of the orchestral sound as it rarely happened in Giacchino's soundtrack.
Coming to the music itself feels like the year of self-imposed break has done well to the composer. The year 2011 proved to be an extremely rich (maybe too much) and has seen the creation of six feature films (although "John Carter" was released in March 2012, the score was composed in the previous year) and three short films: despite some signs of artistic growth, excessive production has led to the creation of products that, ranging from discreet ("Cars 2") to the excellent ("John Carter"), in each case show a clear sign of a lack of refinement due to the narrow (and often overlapping ) deadlines with which the work was done.
So it was with some trepidation that I waited this "Star Trek Into Darkness", especially to really understand if the flashes of growth shown in previous works here could find a complete development. And from what heard so far, it seems that Giacchino has reached an important step in his career. The thing that we can immediately notice is more work on the contrapuntal and greater complexity and maturity in the use of the various sections of the orchestra: just make a comparison between the track "That New Car Smell" from the previous "Star Trek" from 2009 and 30 seconds preview of "Kirk Enteprises" which essentially takes what has been done before, but widening it and layered in an extremely fulfilling. The music is fresh, full of ideas and Giacchino manages every time to give them an interesting development, without ever leaving a feeling of incompleteness as happened in other cases. While the action musics of the latest Giacchino seemed to work more on an accumulation of events, rather than on a more consistent and satisfying development of the piece, we find here the discursive and acrobatic skills that the composer seemed to have put aside which is revived here and expanded: it seems that the stylistic differences between the roaring and unstoppable Giacchino of the beginning and the more personal of recent years have been ironed out and balanced. The research orchestral timbre is accompanied by an important and thoughtful use of electronics that, though in Giacchino I was never able to appreciate that much so far, here seem to have been cast in the best way.
In addition to the return of the main theme, the theme of Spock, the theme of the cadets (probably the theme of the crew here) and of course the classic theme by Alexander Courage, for now we can hear the introduction of two new thematic ideas: one dedicated to the new villain played by Benedict Cumberbatch, John Harrison, and one dedicated to the Klingons. The latter is a theme flavor primitive and violent, accompanied by a frenzied chorus singing in Klingon language in the track "The Kronos Wartet", and characterized by percussion and metallic sounds. But is the theme of Harrison to do the lion's share in the score. Consists of several ideas which make up the structure, the theme appears at the same time threatening, inevitable, but tragic: compared to the bombastic theme of Nero, the villain of the previous film, it is more subtle and psychological, but also comes with a dramatic grandeur unexpected. A brilliant theme (probably one of the best composed by Giacchino) that in the score is repeated several times under always different clothes (amazing the action version that we can hear in the stratospheric "Ship to Ship").
Unfortunately the album that Varèse Sarabande will present on May 28 will only contain 44 minutes of music (less than half of the music composed for the film): that there are behind speculative reasons or actual problems of royalties is extremely annoying to have to wait until it's released in the future the remaining music, producing in fact the inability to declare a full review on the music composed by Giacchino.
I enjoyed the WQXR program last night, as always. Although Giacchino's music didn't do much for me on first hearing, he sure sounds like a nice guy.
Agreed. Seems like a pretty humble guy considering how successful he is. I liked the sound samples quite a bit. Looking forward to hearing the entire OST.
Giacchino seems to have matured as shown in different parts of "John Carter" and this maturity would seem grim to full development in "Into Darkness".
it's hard to judge the score based on the few samples in the broadcast, but i'm encouraged. i agree giacchino seems to be continually maturing in style. "ode to harrison" is particularly refreshing after the overblown, downright silly theme for nero from trek 2009.
Here is the translation of what I wrote in my blog:
Last night the radio station WQXR in the transmission "Movies on the Radio" has hosted the composer Michael Giacchino, and sent about 22 minutes of music from his upcoming soundtrack for the new film by JJ Abrams, "Star Trek Into Darkness". Along with clips from 30 seconds released from the site of the Colosseum we pretty much more than half of the album to be released on 28 May and, while waiting to hear the soundtrack in its entirety, we can begin to make some comments. Although the quality of the podcast of the broadcast is not outstanding (mp3 128kbps), the thing that catches ears is the sound quality: abandoned the slightly muffled sound, reminding the recordings of the '60s, by Dan Wallin, here we find a mix extremely clear and powerful made ??by Joel Iwataki, able to bring out the fullness of the orchestral sound as it rarely happened in Giacchino's soundtrack.
Coming to the music itself feels like the year of self-imposed break has done well to the composer. The year 2011 proved to be an extremely rich (maybe too much) and has seen the creation of six feature films (although "John Carter" was released in March 2012, the score was composed in the previous year) and three short films: despite some signs of artistic growth, excessive production has led to the creation of products that, ranging from discreet ("Cars 2") to the excellent ("John Carter"), in each case show a clear sign of a lack of refinement due to the narrow (and often overlapping ) deadlines with which the work was done.
So it was with some trepidation that I waited this "Star Trek Into Darkness", especially to really understand if the flashes of growth shown in previous works here could find a complete development. And from what heard so far, it seems that Giacchino has reached an important step in his career. The thing that we can immediately notice is more work on the contrapuntal and greater complexity and maturity in the use of the various sections of the orchestra: just make a comparison between the track "That New Car Smell" from the previous "Star Trek" from 2009 and 30 seconds preview of "Kirk Enteprises" which essentially takes what has been done before, but widening it and layered in an extremely fulfilling. The music is fresh, full of ideas and Giacchino manages every time to give them an interesting development, without ever leaving a feeling of incompleteness as happened in other cases. While the action musics of the latest Giacchino seemed to work more on an accumulation of events, rather than on a more consistent and satisfying development of the piece, we find here the discursive and acrobatic skills that the composer seemed to have put aside which is revived here and expanded: it seems that the stylistic differences between the roaring and unstoppable Giacchino of the beginning and the more personal of recent years have been ironed out and balanced. The research orchestral timbre is accompanied by an important and thoughtful use of electronics that, though in Giacchino I was never able to appreciate that much so far, here seem to have been cast in the best way.
In addition to the return of the main theme, the theme of Spock, the theme of the cadets (probably the theme of the crew here) and of course the classic theme by Alexander Courage, for now we can hear the introduction of two new thematic ideas: one dedicated to the new villain played by Benedict Cumberbatch, John Harrison, and one dedicated to the Klingons. The latter is a theme flavor primitive and violent, accompanied by a frenzied chorus singing in Klingon language in the track "The Kronos Wartet", and characterized by percussion and metallic sounds. But is the theme of Harrison to do the lion's share in the score. Consists of several ideas which make up the structure, the theme appears at the same time threatening, inevitable, but tragic: compared to the bombastic theme of Nero, the villain of the previous film, it is more subtle and psychological, but also comes with a dramatic grandeur unexpected. A brilliant theme (probably one of the best composed by Giacchino) that in the score is repeated several times under always different clothes (amazing the action version that we can hear in the stratospheric "Ship to Ship").
Unfortunately the album that Varèse Sarabande will present on May 28 will only contain 44 minutes of music (less than half of the music composed for the film): that there are behind speculative reasons or actual problems of royalties is extremely annoying to have to wait until it's released in the future the remaining music, producing in fact the inability to declare a full review on the music composed by Giacchino.
Having listened to the 22 minutes I at least partly disagree, there is not more counterpoint here for example, it's still unfolded as layers, not as independent melodic lines, and it's still very simplistic in some parts. And in a John-Adams-way minimialistic and in a JW-idee-fixe-like way repetitive (that obsessive motif for Harrison), I don't see a more developed style than in MG's previous output. Can you give some arguments and examples for your ideas about the 22 minutes?
Anyway, I like the music very much. Looking forward!
I'm loving the Ode to Harrison track. I wasn't crazy about the first Star Trek score but that track is a nice reminder of why I became so interested in Giacchino's music in the first place. He can have a great flair for the dramatic and I like the way he incorporated electronics.
Saw the movie tonight and am really exited about it. The music is fine but surely not different from his previous works, solid Giacchino scoring, which is great, but no surprises
