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Mr. Phelps, glad this answered your question. That music wasn't on the GNP disc?
Well, this is one of the 900 lb gorillas of Star Trek. When the TOS Box came out people would ask "Why would you want 15 CDs of Nah Nah NAAA NAAA NAAA NAAA NAAA NA NA NA NA?"
For all of the recognition that The Fight music gets for me the real standout of this music is Spock's theme. I like Spock music. Loved Goldsmith's in TMP, loved Horner's in TWOK and TSFS, loved Eidelman's retread of Horner in TUC and I adore Giacchino's theme for Spock in JJ-Trek.
But Fried really set the gold standard. That bass guitar manages to be cold and unfeeling while also being profoundly sad. The string version of the theme certainly doesn't hurt. I love the way it's played at the end of the episode when Spock is talking with T'Pau.
The music under T'Pring's speech is mercifully dialed out. I hated this kind of plink plink music in Catspaw too.
One of the interesting discoveries for me in this set is discovering Fried's theme for Kirk. It's kind of like Giacchino's Kirk theme in that it's all action and danger rather than Courage or Steiner's Captain themes which are more exploration and discovery and the loneliness of command. Watching the episode I was surprised at how specific his use of the theme is. When Kirk is talking with Spock at the beginning of the episode the music is Spock's theme but when Kirk calls the bridge to order the diversion to Vulcan the music switches to the Kirk theme. A small thing but it caught my attention.
Fried's Enterprise music is a little over the top. Which is probably why they tracked in Duning and Courage music for the teaser and the titles.
The ceremony music / fight music is pretty terrific. I like how it's foreshadowed when Spock is describing Pon Far. I always thought it was interesting that when Sarek is introduced rather than using the cold calculating Spock theme they used the crazy combative ceremony music.
That's it. See you on 8/30 for The Doomsday Machine!
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Sorry, I'm late for my own thread!
Well here we are for The Doomsday Machine. I think Amok Time is probably better known than this one to the teeming masses. But since I was a little boy this score has always been definitive Star Trek.
Kaplan brings back his Enterprise fanfare from Enemy Within. Unlike, say, Gerald Fried, Kaplan never really changed this much. As evidenced from the opening track where it plays like forty times.
He uses Courage’s fanfare quite a bit. He makes it heroic he makes it menacing.
Then there’s his Constellation theme. It’s haunting and forlorn. It plays like the sound of far away battlefields, glory long past. I love when it’s played on xylophone during Commodore Matt Decker.
And of course his Doomsday theme. Jaws before there was Jaws. If this didn’t have you on the edge of your seat it was because it had knocked you to the floor.
I didn’t go back and watch the episode with this one like I did with Amok Time. I know there is some music that was either left out or changed, but I can’t tell you what off the top of my head.
A terrific score. One of the best. We had a very nice representation of it on the old GNP disc. The TOS Box is truly a treat.
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Hey, Happy Star Trek Day! Exactly one year after Star Trek premiered Fred Steiner was back at it scoring Mirror, Mirror.
Mirror, Mirror is another score like Who Mourns for Adonais. If I can get past the “reused” bits (which all work wonderfully) it’s a terrific score. Maybe it’s just because with so few Star Trek scores it bugs me that Steiner could have been writing a NEW bad guy theme rather than reusing his Romulan theme.
But once I get past that I realize that this is like getting Balance of Terror expanded into a larger score. And it’s a good one. The love theme alone is worth the price of admission.
This is a score where my memories of it are chiefly (exclusively?) from the episode it was scored for. Unlike other scores where I remember them better when they were tracked into a different episode.
This isn’t a score I revisit much. Unlike Balance of Terror which I listen to a lot.
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The love theme alone is worth the price of admission.
But it's the same theme as the "black ship" theme. Magnificently so, but the same.
Yes. Amazing isn't it?
The one that got me was when I realized the Ruk and Andrea's theme's in What Are Little Girls Made Of are the same. That Fred Steiner. He's wacky!
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Oh, I was having a bad enough day before this showed up on my calendar. 47 years after it was recorded here is Samuel Matlovsky’s single contribution to Star Trek: I, Mudd.
I hate goofy music. I don’t necessarily hate music for comedies. I love Young Frankenstein, Clue, Dave. But none of those have goofy music. (Mostly.) The last three seasons of Doctor Who have had some unhappy times for me, musically. I hated it when Goldsmith tried to be zany.
So here I am on Eternal Beauty / Crew Gone. Nothing’s really jumping out at me so far. It’s just kind of there to me. It kind of sounds like substandard Vic Mizzy Addams Family.
Some of the atmospheric stuff (such as Gilded Cage / Not Programmed) sounds ok. But that waltz (it’s a waltz, right?) just makes me grind my teeth every time.
It’s not even that I don’t like Mickey Mousing. Some of it slightly reminds me of Barry’s Goldfinger.
The only thing I really dig in this score is Mudd’s Detention / Stella 500. Well, the first part of it.
They recorded a library track? Really? Did it ever get used?
See you on 10/5 for Jerry Fielding’s The Trouble with Tribbles.
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Yeah, I must admit this is the only ST score I deleted off my hard drive. It works in the episode but as a stand alone listen, Blech!
To quote Surak himself, "Let us speak no further of it."
Ladies and gentlemen, a Trek score so bad that Adam B. will not do a track by track! Yikes!
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Well, right off the bat this is better than I, Mudd. It’s definitely a new voice for Star Trek.
This has light music. But it’s not GOOFY music. Well, maybe a little. Ok, it is. But it obviously doesn’t cross whatever “goofy music” line I have. I like this score. I should listen to it more.
The Tribble music is used just sparingly enough to not make you claw your eyeballs out. But it’s a near thing.
Does he use the Trek theme or fanfare at all? Nope. How many composers did that?
I love his fight music. I mean a lot. Maybe more than Fried’s. It’s fun, but it’s really fight (fite?) music.
How can you not love his “bagpipe” music? BTW, I just read These Are the Voyages Vol. 2. The author makes the claim that Steiner wrote a partial score to By Any Other Name because they needed the bagpipe music. I almost chewed through my teeth! Although to be fair, I associate Scotty’s music more with By Any Other Name than Tribbles.
If I can’t have more Kaplan I wish we had more Fielding. Just to see what else he would have done. Why does IMDB only credit him with Tribbles and not Specter of the Gun?
Speaking of By Any Other Name, that't next up on 12/27!
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The Trouble With Furballs
Track 15 - Skip it.
Track 17 - Skip it.
I can sort of agree on the second, but I must emphatically disagree on the first, I think its such a great opening, and has a nice melancholic sound.
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