MARTIN O'DONNELL, MICHAEL SALVATORI & PAUL MCCARTNEY
In late 2013, veteran Bungie composer Marty O’Donnell finished Music of the Spheres, an eight-part musical work designed to be released alongside Destiny. It never came out.
Composed by O’Donnell, his partner Michael Salvatori, and former Beatle Paul McCartney, Music of the Spheres was envisioned as a musical companion to Bungie’s ambitious Destiny. But Bungie and O’Donnell spent nearly a year battling over, among other things, publisher Activision’s failure to use O’Donnell’s music in a trailer at E3 2013. In April 2014, Bungie fired O’Donnell, and despite O’Donnell’s hopes, the company indefinitely shelved Music of the Spheres. He has made several public comments on the work since, and last month, he implicitly encouraged people to share it.
Composer Tweeted on November 30, 2017: “Years ago, when I was Audio Director at Bungie, I gave away nearly 100 copies of Music of the Spheres,” O’Donnell tweeted on November 30, 2017. “I don’t have the authority to give you permission to share MotS. However, no one in the world can prevent me from giving you my blessing.”
On December 25, 2017 when reached for comment the composer shared the following: I’m quite relieved and happy. This was the way it was supposed to have been heard 5 years ago. My wife and I spent the afternoon with my now 93 year old father and we showed him that people were finally able to hear this work. It made our Christmas even better. My mother, his wife of over 60 years died a couple years ago and although she loved listening and shared it with some of her friends (she was a musician) she never understood why it wasn’t released. I don’t know who actually did it but they have my blessing. I honestly don’t know how anyone could begrudge this any longer.
The first movement reminded me of a cue from "The Fifth Element".
While I didn't care for the chugging strings and clichéd percussion of the opening of movement two, I did enjoy other parts of it.
The opening of movement three gave me a 1980's Goldsmith vibe, in ideas and orchestration.
I especially enjoyed the opening of movement four, particularly about 17:30 in.
The chugging strings and percussion of movement five I also didn't care for, though I appreciated it more, especially around 23:30 in where it just got better (in my opinion) and became catchy.
Movement six could be a Olympics anthem, or at least heard at the Olympics (for people who actually watch that anymore). And the second softer half is good, too.
Movement is a bit darker, mysterious and more dissonant. Those first approximate ten seconds opening it, it sounded like it was going to venture into Beck's work for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".
Movement eight was going fine until that acoustic light rock(?) Paul McCarthy song crossfaded with the glorious build-up finale, ruining it. If you cant' stand the song, skip ahead to about 48:37 where it ends and the MotS work ends on scoring.
Was that all Paul did? The song?
Anyway, a fine way to waste about fifty minutes of your time. Nothing incredible or ground breaking, but I can certainly see some people wanting to own this.
Rather than some reviewers inevitably torturing themselves with the foregone two-star review of "Crazy Rich Asians" (Brian Tyler), maybe they should save their brains for an hour and review this. Just sayin'.
The Music of the Spheres logo looks like an abbreviation of "Man of Steel". The nightmares.
