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The Corbomite Maneuver
Balance of Terror
What Are Little Girls Made Of
From its inception in 1966 to its latest incarnation, VOYAGER, television's STAR TREK has been a fertile ground for film music. Coming out of an era where science fiction movies tended to embrace spacey-sounding electronic gimmicks and pop and rock music was dominating much television music, STAR TREK refused to embrace trends and instead offered a home for introspective and dramatic orchestral scoring.
Alexander Courage's Main Title music, especially its opening trumpet fanfare, defined the STAR TREK milieu. Heralding excitement, Courage's theme each week lured viewers into a world of adventure and discovery. Scores for individual episodes were divided between a team of composer with much music being reused in later episodes.
Fred Steiner scored more original TREK episodes than anyone else. In THE CORBOMITE MANEUVER, his music seethes with danger, creating a sinister and claustrophobic malevolency through rhythmic trumpet howls, rattled percussion, and persuasive harp fingering as Kirk battles with the vengeful captain of an opposing warship. For BALANCE OF TERROR, where Kirk squares off against an equally capable Romulan captain in a loose adaptation of THE ENEMY BELOW, Steiner supports their struggle with brass and timpani, while thunderous clouds of brass and shivering violin embellish the action scenes. A dreamy lounge-version of Courage's main theme is heard in a wedding sequence. The interpersonal drama of WHAT ARE LITTLE GIRLS MADE OF, where Kirk and Nurse Chapel try to outwit Chapel's ex-fiance from developing a race of androids, is subtly evoked with quiet violin atmospheres and chord progressions of low brass and percussion.
All Good Things
With his magnificent theme for STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, Jerry Goldsmith carved a new and powerful musical feeling for the milieu. With the advent of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, Goldsmith's sturdy movie theme was merged with Courage's fanfare to create an apt musical summation of STAR TREK, old and new.
One of two initial composers for the new series, Dennis McCarthy grasped the human-based dramatic requirements of the old series while taking it to new levels of orchestral excitement, aided by larger budgets and larger orchestras. His music for ALL GOOD THINGS, a Vonnegut-esque story in which Picard is shifted throughout different time periods, is a powerful, rhythmically-driven composition that shifts from pensive, sustained violins to pulsing, tonal dissonance. The five cues here are a good representation of the episode score, always maintaining a strong forward motion, just as Picard is continually moving throughout the episode. Courage's fanfare is also put to good use, reorienting the action music back to Picard and the Enterprise.
Way of the Warrior
With a third series launched in 1993, McCarthy came aboard to compose both the series theme and the majority of the episodes. His theme for Deep Space Nine adopts the heraldic sensitivity of the original fanfare, an ascending brass melody rich in sonority that captures the sense of honor and heroism embodied by the DS9 crew. McCarthy's score for WAY OF THE WARRIOR, in which ST:TNG's Worf assumes a post on Deep Space Nine, is an abundantly textured orchestral composition emphasizing violins to characterize Worf's struggles in loyalty between the Federation and his people. McCarthy's music strikes a cadence that propels the action forward in a very powerful way. McCarthy's "Yo!" is some of the most audaciously bombastic battle music ever heard in a TREK episode. Elsewhere, in a reflective sequence aboard the Holodeck, a solo harp lends a plaintive and introspective intonation.
His Way
For a bonus track, there's Nana Visitor's torchy rendition of "Fever" from the episode HIS WAY which is sure to melt any human's or shapeshifter's heart.
Bride of Chaotica
For the new series, STAR TREK: VOYAGER, Jerry Goldsmith was summoned back to the TREK milieu after scoring ST:TMP and ST5 to provide a theme for the new series. (He would go on to score FIRST CONTACT and INSURRECTION). Goldsmith's muted brass fanfare opens into a gentle, eloquent statement for French horns, a slow and graceful summation of glory and heroism.
David Bell's score for BRIDE OF CHAOTICA, in which Ensign Kim and Lt. Paris play out a 1930ish Flash Gordon-like serial on the Holodeck, takes on a thoroughly different style of scoring. Based on a thunderous main theme which recurs frequently as a mighty and magnificent ostinato for the valiant "Captain Proton," Bell's evocative score is a wonderfully nostalgic recreation of the tonality and style of those early science fiction serials to which the episode and its music pays homage. The music runs the gamut from passion to power and captures all the splendor and daring of the heroes and villains of the episode.
From the strategy plays of Kirk and Picard to the Holodeck fantasies of Sisko and Janeway, STAR TREK has brought out the best and most creative attributes of television composition.
-- Randall D. Larson
Senior Editor, Soundtrack Magazine
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