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Home | Soundtracks | Star Trek | Star Trek: The Next Generation | Star Trek: Deep Space Nine | Star Trek: Voyager |
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LINER NOTES by Jeff Bond and Robert Townson |
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Since Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek in the mid 1960s, it has blossomed from a low-rated network failure to a syndication phenomenon, a cultural movement, a blockbuster movie series and no less than three sequel shows comprising more than five hundred additional hours of television. Boasting iconic characters and its own unique "future history," the Trek franchise has become the standard against which all filmed and televised science fiction is judged. Music has always played a pivotal role in Star Trek. From the beginning, Gene Roddenberry's dictum was that the burgeoning series should feature bold, dramatic underscoring rather than the cold electronic effects that were popularly applied to some "sci fi" films. While the show's first composer, Alexander Courage (who scored the two pilot episodes, "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before") did apply some electronic effects to his episode scores in order to bring an eerie, outer-space feel to the show, these effects were textural, acting on the viewer in an almost subconscious way. It was Courage who composed the theme that has the longest association with the series: his TV title music introduced the "final frontier" with a glittering mysterioso orchestration underpinning an eight-note fanfare for horn and trumpet. Scored to accompany a narration by series star William Shatner, the theme really took flight after the actor employed the famous split infinitive "to boldly go where no man has gone before," launching a bongo-driven siren song for soprano that remains one of the most unusual and memorable TV science fiction themes ever written. Courage's title music went through several renditions, from the soprano-performed version to a rendition for electric violin. After composer Fred Steiner joined the show and established much of the musical style of the series' first season, he wrote an arrangement (heard here) for full orchestra that brought a warmer, mellower feel to Courage's theme. While the long melodic line of Courage's Star Trek melody made it difficult to employ in the show's dramatic underscoring, the "Enterprise fanfare" that opened the piece was far more useful, and a variation of that melody found its way into virtually every "flyby" special effects shot of the famous starship traveling through space. During its three year series run, the original Star Trek established incredibly high standards for television music, employing composers like Courage, Steiner, Sol Kaplan, Gerald Fried, Joseph Mullendore, George Duning, and Jerry Fielding to produce scores that sometimes rivaled motion picture scoring of the period. One of the most distinctive and sophisticated musical voices on the series was Fielding, whose third season "Spectre of the Gun" was a close reflection of his legendary score to Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, which was written around the same time. Fielding was also a master of quirky comedy with scores and themes for shows like Hogan's Heroes and McHale's Navy. It was Fielding who scored Star Trek's crowning achievement in comedy, fan favorite "The Trouble with Tribbles." Fielding wrote some droll comic interludes for Captain Kirk's agricultural commissioner and some pesky Klingons. The composer produced a peculiar mewling effect for the score by recording trombone glissandos at slow speed, and he was also able to write an appropriate theme for a dissembling Scotty and a spectacular piece of percussive fight music for a bar brawl. In 1979 the Enterprise was relaunched as the centerpiece of a long-lived motion picture franchise with Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The spectacular production was helmed by director Robert Wise and scored by legendary film composer Jerry Goldsmith. Written during a brutal postproduction period in order to make the film's December 7 date on move screens, Goldsmith's magnificent, Oscar-nominated score was written to accompany special effects sequences which were still being finished as Goldsmith was composing, meaning many of these sequences hit the big screen virtually unedited The result was a series of long, classically developed cues that were some of the best writing of Goldsmith's career. One highlight was "The Enterprise," a long development of the composer's title melody that accompanied Kirk's first look at the refurbished starship. With the expensive Star Trek: The Motion Picture a mixed success, Paramount took a different route for the 1982 sequel Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Utilizing a production crew gleaned from television (including executive producer Harve Bennett), director Nicholas Meyer made a leaner and meaner sequel that couldn't afford a Jerry Goldsmith for its score. Meyer turned to upcoming composer James Horner, a veteran of several Roger Corman epics like Humanoids from the Deep and Battle Beyond the Stars. Horner ran with the assignment and produced a score that remains one of the cornerstones of his movie career and one of the most exciting and buoyant motion picture scores of the '80s. Horner's end credits suite neatly encapsulated the rolling, nautical feel of the score with some bright, energetic orchestration that contrasts a Korngold-like primary theme with Horner's reflective, "humanized" theme for Spock. Horner returned to score Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, but after two somber films that revolved around the death and rebirth of the Vulcan, director and star Leonard Nimoy elected to change course again for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Nimoy and company made the film series' first comedy with this popular time travel adventure, and the director hired his friend Leonard Rosenman to compose a score that was radically different in style from its predecessors. Rosenman, a veteran of the concert hall as well as the soundstage, wrote a sharply accented heroic theme for brass and strings, but much of the rest of the score is marked by dissonant, modernistic action music. Rosenman introduced contemporary jazz-fusion for the Enterprise crew's introduction to 20th Century Earth, and his end title music features a warm, baroque-styled theme written to characterize the story's two humpback whales. Jerry Goldsmith returned to the series for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, armed with his familiar march theme from the first Star Trek film as well as his energetic, Prokofiev-like theme for the Klingons, who featured prominently in this Trek opus. By the time Star Trek V hit theaters Goldsmith's march theme was more familiar to television viewers as the theme to Star Trek: The Next Generation than it was as the theme to the first Star Trek movie. Star Trek: The Next Generation's popularity combined with the successful movie series to create a new Star Trek renaissance, bringing the franchise to it highest level of popularity ever. Against this backdrop Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was created as a swan song for the original TV series cast. Leonard Nimoy suggested a topical political allegory about the end of the Cold War, played out as rapprochement between the Federation and the Klingon Empire becomes possible. Times are desperate as the story begins, however, and director Nicholas Meyer again called on a relative newcomer to provide a fresh sound for the score. Composer Cliff Eidelman's approach was perhaps the most unique of all the Star Trek film scores, with a brooding opening title that gathers energy as it propells itself toward the massive explosion that opens the film. Eidelman was the first composer to employ a choir in a Star Trek score (with choral voices chanting the words "to be or not to be" in Klingonese). Only in his end credit piece does Eidelman allow a more traditional heroic theme to emerge out of the darkness as Kirk and his crew literally fly off into the sunset after their final mission. With the original crew of the starship Enterprise retired, it was time for Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D to take to the big screen in Star Trek Generations. Generations bridged the gap between the two series by having a time-displaced Captain Kirk play a pivotal role in the proceedings, essentially handing over the reigns of the franchise to Picard & Co. Composer Dennis McCarthy was instrumental in developing a new sound for the Next Generation TV series and he was a natural choice to score the first Next Generation film. In his tenures on The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, McCarthy has produced more music for Star Trek than any other composer, writing literally hundreds of hours of underscore for the three series. His overture for Generations picks up on a theme for Kirk and Picard first heard full force in a horse riding sequence that takes place inside the story's alternate reality plane of the Nexus. While appropriately bold and heroic, McCarthy's Generations overture illustrates the more streamlined approach he brought to this stage of the franchise. McCarthy also wrote the title music for the second Star Trek sequel series, Deep Space Nine, an eight note horn melody that manages to evoke both the loneliness of the frontier space outpost seen in the series and the essential optimism inherent in the Star Trek mythos. Jerry Goldsmith returned to the Star Trek universe on Star Trek: First Contact, contrasting his familiar, bustling march from Star Trek: The Motion Picture with an elegant and noble new theme for the "first contact" between humans and Vulcans depicted in the film. Goldsmith also too up the reigns in Star Trek: Insurrection, providing a beautiful and reflective pastoral theme for the peaceful Ba'Ku people threatened by a hostile alien race in the film. Goldsmith wrote one of his most sweeping and beautiful melodies for the most recent incarnation of the Star Trek phenomenon, Star Trek: Voyager, underscoring a groundbreaking special effects title sequence with a soaring, majestic melody for French horns, trumpet and strings. Goldsmith won an Emmy Award for this theme, once again establishing himself as one of the premiere composers of film and television music and one of the essential voices behind the sound of Star Trek. — Jeff Bond Bob Peak: The Art of Star Trek More than any other artist, Bob Peak has given the world of Star Trek much of its style and color over its nearly 35-year history. In fact, while Peak's most famous piece of Star trek art may be his landmark panting for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), he actually entered the Star Trek universe for the first time a full decade earlier. In November of 1968 Peak's first Star Trek painting was featured on the cover of TV Guide. The piece captured the psychedelic feel of the sixties, so prominent in the show itself, and so impressed Gene Roddenberry that when resurrecting his beloved franchise ten years later, he again sought out Peak to assist in the updating of Star Trek. Peak would go on to create original artwork for Star Trek through the rest of his life. The Enterprise's continuing motion picture voyages (Star Trek II, III, IV and V) would each feature a new work by Peak. In fact, one of the artist's final projects was a painting for a limited edition print title Star Trek: Journey to the Undiscovered Country. Peak passed away in 1992 leaving Star Trek VI as the first Trek film to debut without him. With all of this exceptional work for Roddenberry's universe, there is still something particularly special, striking and awe-inspiring about the final design of Peak's poster for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The beams of light...pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple...the noble poses of Kirk, Spock and Ilia....the light refracting of an Enterprise looking better than she had ever looked during the original show...it all seemed so simple....so perfect....so powerful! What wasn't seen...what is rarely (if ever) seen, was the creative process that led to this final design. As preliminary composition sketches, Peak created over a dozen images. At least a couple of them received fully executed finished paintings and one would emerge as the now famous final poster. In an unusual twist, one of Bob Peak's unused design composites has now been realized and completed by his son, Matthew Joseph Peak, and is featured on the cover of this CD. In light of the untimely passing of his father, Matthew had been brought into the word of Star Trek once before, in 1994, under a commission from The Franklin Mint for a limited edition print. When considering the artistic options for this new CD we realized the unusual opportunity that existed. With so much design having already been invested by Bob Peak himself, why not complete one of them in tribute to him? Bob Peak is certainly one of the most influential artists of the last fifty years. His work, both in the commercial and fine art worlds, has continued to resonate since his passing. His paintings for such films as My Fair Lady, Camelot, Superman: The Movie, Apocalypse Now, Excalibur and Silverado are among the best and most famous film posters of all time. Peak's influence on Star Trek has been particularly profound and has continued to be seen in the posters for the films released since his death and now on the cover of this disc. This CD is dedicated to his memory. — Robert Townson |
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TECHNICAL & RECORDING NOTES |
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Varese Sarabande Records |
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REVIEWS |
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Review at Filmtracks (added December 16, 2001) |
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This page was last modified on Saturday, January 05, 2008 at 06:08 PM EST