List of Star Trek composers and music
Encyclopedia
This is a list of composers of music for the series Star Trek
, and other articles about music associated with the show.
Other notable composers who contributed music to at least one episode include Don Davis
, John Debney
, Jerry Fielding
, Brian Tyler
and George Romanis.
was written by Jerry Goldsmith
, who would later compose the scores Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
, Star Trek: First Contact
, Star Trek: Insurrection
, and Star Trek: Nemesis
, as well as the themes to the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation
and Star Trek: Voyager
. Gene Roddenberry had originally wanted Goldsmith to score Star Trek' s pilot episode, "The Cage", but the composer was unavailable. When Wise signed on to direct, Paramount asked the director if he had any objection to using Goldsmith. Wise, who had worked with the composer for The Sand Pebbles
, replied "Hell, no. He's great!" Wise would later consider his work with Goldsmith one of the best relationships he ever had with a composer.
Goldsmith was influenced by the style of the romantic, sweeping music of Star Wars
. "When you stop and think about it, space is a very romantic thought. It is, to me, like the Old West, we’re up in the universe. It’s about discovery and new life [...] it’s really the basic premise of Star Trek," he said. Goldsmith's initial bombastic main theme reminded Ramsay and Wise of sailing ships. Unable to articulate what he felt was wrong with the piece, Wise recommended writing an entirely different piece. Although irked by the rejection, Goldsmith consented to re-work his initial ideas. The rewriting of the theme required changes to several sequences Goldsmith had scored without writing a main title piece. The approach of Kirk and Scott to the drydocked Enterprise by shuttle lasted a ponderous five minutes due to the effect shots coming in late and unedited, requiring Goldsmith to maintain interest with a revised and developed cue. Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the only Star Trek film to have a true overture, using "Ilia's Theme" in this role. Star Trek and The Black Hole
would be the only feature films to use an overture from the end of 1979 until the year 2000 (with the movie Dancer in the Dark
).
Much of the recording equipment used to create the movie's intricately complicated sound effects was, at the time, extremely cutting edge. Among these pieces of equipment was the ADS (Advanced Digital Synthesizer) 11, manufactured by Pasadena, California
custom synthesizer manufacturer Con Brio, Inc.
The movie provided major publicity and was used to advertise the synthesizer, though no price was given. The film's soundtrack also provided a debut for the Blaster Beam
, an electronic instrument 12 to 15 ft (3.7 to 4.6 m) long. It was created by musician Craig Huxley
, who played a small role in two episodes of the original television series.
The Blaster had steel wires connected to amplifiers fitted to the main piece of aluminum; the device was played with an artillery shell. Goldsmith heard it and immediately decided to use it for V'ger's cues. An enormous pipe organ first plays the V'ger theme on the Enterprises approach, a literal indication of the machine's power.
Goldsmith scored The Motion Picture over a period of three to four months, a relatively relaxed schedule compared to typical production, but time pressures resulted in Goldsmith bringing on colleagues to assist in the work. Alexander Courage
, composer of the original Star Trek theme, provided arrangements to accompany Kirk's log entries, while Fred Steiner
wrote the music to accompany the Enterprise achieving warp speed and first meeting V'ger. The rush to finish the rest of the film impacted the score. The final recording session finished at 2:00am on December 1, only five days before the film's release.
A soundtrack featuring the film's music was released in 1979 together with the film debut, and was one of Goldsmith's best-selling scores. Sony's Legacy Recordings
released an expanded two-disc edition of the soundtrack on November 10, 1998. The album added an additional 21 minutes of music to supplement the original track list, and was resequenced to reflect the story line of the film. The first disc features the complete score, while the sequence disc contains "Inside Star Trek", a spoken word
documentary.
had composed the music for The Motion Picture, but was not an option for The Wrath of Khan
given the reduced budget; Meyer's composer for Time After Time, Miklós Rózsa
, was likewise prohibitively expensive. Bennett and Meyer wanted the music for the film to go in a different direction, but had not decided on a composer by the time filming began. Meyer initially hoped to hire an associate named John Morgan, but Morgan lacked film experience, which would have troubled the studio.
Paramount's vice-president of music Joel Sill took a liking to a 28-year old composer named James Horner
, feeling that his demo tapes stood out from generic film music. Horner was introduced to Bennett, Meyer and Salin. Horner said that "[The producers] did not want the kind of score they had gotten before. They did not want a John Williams
score, per se. They wanted something different, more modern." When asked about how he landed the assignment, the composer replied that "the producers loved my work for Wolfen
, and had heard my music for several other projects, and I think, so far as I've been told, they liked my versatility very much. I wanted the assignment, and I met with them, we all got along well, they were impressed with my music, and that's how it happened." Horner agreed with the producers' expectations and agreed to begin work in mid-January 1982.
In keeping with the nautical tone, Meyer wanted music evocative of seafaring and swashbuckling, and the director and composer worked together closely, becoming friends in the process. As a classical music fan, Meyer was able to describe the effects and sounds he wanted in the music. While Horner's style was described as "echoing both the bombastic and elegiac elements of John Williams' Star Wars and Jerry Goldsmith
's original Star Trek(The Motion Picture) scores," Horner was expressly told to not use any of Goldsmith's score. Instead Horner adapted the opening fanfare of Alexander Courage
's Star Trek television theme. "The fanfare draws you in immediately—you know you're going to get a good movie," Horner said.
In comparison to the flowing main theme, Khan's leitmotif
was designed as a percussive texture that could be overlayed with other music and emphasized the character's insanity. The seven-note brass theme was echoplex
ed to emphasize the character's ruminations about the past while on Ceti Alpha V, but does not play fully until Reliants attack on the Enterprise. Many elements drew from Horner's previous work (a rhythm that accompanies Khan's theme during the surprise attack borrows from an attack theme from Wolfen, in turn influenced by Goldsmith's score for Alien
. Musical moments from the original television series are also heard during investigation of the Regula space station and elsewhere.
To Horner, the "stuff underneath" the main story was what needed to be addressed by the score; in The Wrath of Khan, this was the relationship between Kirk and Spock. The main theme serves as Kirk's theme, with a mellower section following that is the theme for the Starship Enterprise. Horner also wrote a motif for Spock, to emphasize the character's depth: "By putting a theme over Spock, it warms him and he becomes three-dimensional rather than a collection of schticks." The difference in the short, French horn-based cues for the villain and longer melodies for the heroes helped to differentiate characters and ships during the battle sequences.
The soundtrack was Horner's first major film score, and was written in four and a half weeks. The resulting 72 minutes of music was then performed by a 91-piece orchestra. Recording sessions took place April 12–15 at the Warner Brothers lot, The Burbank Studios. A pickup session was held on April 30 to record music for the Mutara nebula battle, while another session held on May 3 was used to cover the recently-changed epilogue. Horner used synthesizer
s for ancillary effects; at the time, science-fiction films such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
and The Thing were eschewing the synthesizer in favor of more traditional orchestras. Craig Huxley
performed his invented instrument—the Blaster Beam
—during recording, as well as composing and performing electronic music for the Genesis Project video. While most of the film was "locked in" by the time Horner had begun composing music, he had to change musical cue orchestration after the integration of special effects caused changes in scene durations.
returned to score The Search for Spock
, fulfilling a promise he had made to Bennett on The Wrath of Khan. Much like the content of the film, Horner's music was a direct continuation of the score he wrote for the previous film. When writing music for The Wrath of Khan, Horner was aware he would reuse certain cues for an impending sequel; two major themes he reworked were for Genesis and Spock. While the Genesis theme supplants the title music Horner wrote for The Wrath of Khan, the end credits were quoted "almost verbatim".
In hours-long discussions with Bennett and Nimoy, Horner agreed with the director that the "romantic and more sensitive" cues were more important than the "bombastic" ones. Horner had written Spock's theme to give the character more dimension: "By putting a theme over Spock, it warms him and he becomes three-dimensional rather than a collection of schticks," he said. The theme was expanded in The Search for Spock to represent the ancient alien mysticism and culture of Spock and Vulcan.
Among the new cues Horner wrote was a "percussive and atonal" theme for the Klingons which is represented heavily in the film. Jeff Bond described the cue as a compromise between music from Horner's earlier film Wolfen
, Khan's motif from The Wrath of Khan, and Jerry Goldsmith
's Klingon music from The Motion Picture. Horner also adapted music from Sergei Prokofiev
's Romeo and Juliet
for part of the Enterprise theft sequence and its destruction, while the scoring to Spock's resurrection on Vulcan draws similarities to Horner's Brainstorm
ending.
, composer for The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock, declined to return for The Voyage Home
. Nimoy turned to his friend Leonard Rosenman
, who had written the music to, among other films, Fantastic Voyage
, Ralph Bakshi
's The Lord of the Rings
, and three Planet of the Apes
sequels. Rosenman wrote an arrangement of Alexander Courage
's Star Trek television theme as the title music for The Voyage Home, but Nimoy suggested that he write his own instead. As music critic Jeff Bond writes, "The final result was one of the most unusual Star Trek movie themes," consisting of a six note theme and variations set against a repetitious four note brass motif; the theme's bridge prefigures material in Rosenman's Frodo March for The Lord of the Rings. The melody makes appearances in the beginning of the film at Vulcan as well as when Taylor seeks Kirk's help finding her whales.
The Earth-based setting of the filming gave Rosenman leeway to write a variety of music in different styles. Nimoy intended the crew's introduction to the streets of San Francisco to be accompanied by something reminiscent of George Gershwin
, but Rosenman changed the director's mind and the scene was scored with a contemporary jazz fusion
piece by Yellowjackets
. When Chekov flees detention aboard the aircraft carrier, Rosenman wrote a bright cue that incorporated classical Russian compositions, while the escape from the hospital was done in a baroque style. More familiar Rosenman compositions included the action music as the Bird of Prey and a whaling ship face off in open water, while the whale's communication with the probe utilized atmospheric music reminiscent of the composer's work in Fantastic Voyage. After the probe leaves, the music turns into a Vivaldiesque "whale fugue". The first sighting of the Enterprise-A uses the Alexander Courage theme before the end title music.
Mark Mangini served as The Voyage Homes sound designer. He described it as different from working on many other films because Nimoy appreciated the role of sound effects and made sure that they were prominent in the film. Since many sounds familiar to Star Trek had already been established—the Bird of Prey's cloaking device, the transporter beam, et al.—Mangini focused on making only small changes to them. The most important sounds were those created by the whales and the probe. Mangini's brother lived closed to biologist Roger Payne
, who had many recordings of whale song. Mangini went through the tapes and chose sounds that could be mixed to suggest a sort of language and conversation. The probe's screeching calls were the whale song in distorted form. The humpback's communication with the probe at the climax of the film contained no dramatic music, meaning that Mangini's sounds had to stand alone. He recalled that he had some difficulty with envisioning how the scene would unfold, leading Bennett to perform a puppet show to explain. Nimoy and the other producers were unhappy with Mangini's attempts to create the probe's droning operating noise; after 18 attempts, the sound designer finally asked Nimoy what he thought the probe should sound like, and recorded Nimoy's response. Nimoy's voice was distorted with "just the tiniest bit of dressing" and used as the final sound.
The punk music that blares during the bus scene was written by Thatcher after he learned that the audio to be added to the scene would be "Duran Duran
, or whoever" and not "raw" and authentic punk. Thatcher collaborated with Mangini and two sound editors (who were in punk bands) to create their own music. They decided that punk distilled down to the sentiment of "I hate you", and wrote a sound to match. Recording in the sound studio as originally planned produced too clean a sound, so they moved to the outside hallway and recorded the entire band in one take using cheap microphones to create the distorted sound intended. The song was later used for Paramount's "Back to the Beach
".
; beyond choosing Luckinbill as Sybok, he hired Jerry Goldsmith
to compose the film's score. Goldsmith had written the Academy Award-nominated score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture
, and the new Trek film was an opportunity to craft music with a similar level of ambition while adding action and character—two elements largely missing from The Motion Picture.
Goldsmith's main theme begins with the traditional opening notes from Alexander Courage
's original television series theme; an ascending string and electronic bridge leads to a rendition of the march from The Motion Picture. According to Jeff Bond, Goldsmith's use of The Motion Pictures march led to some confusion among Star Trek: The Next Generation
fans, as they were unfamiliar with the music's origins and believed that Goldsmith was stealing the theme to The Next Generation, which was itself The Motion Picture march. Another theme from The Motion Picture that makes a return appearance is the Klingon theme from the 1979 film's opening scene. Here, the theme is treated in what Bond termed a "Prokofiev-like style as opposed to the avant-garde counterpoint" as seen in The Motion Picture. Goldsmith also added a crying ram's horn.
The breadth of The Final Frontiers locations led Goldsmith to eschew the two-themed approach of The Motion Picture in favor of leitmotif
s, recurring music used for locations and characters. Sybok is introduced with a synthesized motif in the opening scene of the film, while when Kirk and Spock discuss him en route to Nimbus III it is rendered in a more mysterious fashion. The motif also appears in the action cue as Kirk and company land on Nimbus III and try to free the hostages. When Sybok boards the Enterprise, a new four-note motif played by low brass highlights the character's obsession. The Sybok theme from then on is used in either a benevolent sense or a more percussive, dark rendition. Arriving at Sha-ka-ree, the planet's five-note theme bears resemblance to Goldsmith's unicorn theme from Legend; "...the two melodies represent very similar ideas: lost innocence and the tragic impossibility of recapturing paradise," writes Bond. The music features cellos conveying a pious quality, while the appearance of "God" begins with string glissandos but turns to a dark rendition of Sybok's theme as its true nature is exposed. As the creature attacks Kirk, Spock and McCoy, the more aggressive Sybok theme takes on an attacking rhythm. When Spock appeals to the Klingons for help, the theme takes on a sensitive character before returning to a powerful sequence as the ship destroys the god-creature.
was to adapt Gustav Holst
's orchestral suite The Planets
. The plan proved unfeasibly expensive, so Meyer began listening to demo tapes submitted by composers. Meyer described most of the demos as generic "movie music", but was intrigued by one tape by a young composer named Cliff Eidelman
. Eidelman, then 26, had made a career in composing for ballets, television, and film, but despite work on fourteen features, no film had been the hit needed to propel Eidelman to greater fame.
In conversations with Eidelman, Meyer mentioned that since the marches that accompanied the main titles for other Star Trek films were so good, he had no desire to compete with them by composing a bombastic opening. He also felt that since the film was darker than its predecessors, it demanded something different musically as a result. He mentioned the opening to Igor Stravinsky
's The Firebird
as similar to the foreboding sound he wanted. Two days later Eidelman produced a tape of his idea for the main theme, played on a synthesizer. Meyer was impressed by the speed of the work and the close fit to his vision. Meyer approached producer Steven Charles-Jaffe with Eidelman's CD, which reminded Jaffe of Bernard Herrman; Eidelman was given the task of composing the score.
Eidelman's previous project had been creating a compilation of music from the past five Star Trek films, and he consciously avoided taking inspiration from those scores. "[The compilation] showed me what to stay away from, because I couldn't do James Horner
[composer for The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock] as well as James Horner," he said. Since he was hired very early on in production, Eidelman had an unusually long time to develop his ideas, and he was able to visit the sets during filming. While the film was in early production Eidelman worked on electronic drafts of the final score, to placate executives who were unsure about using a relatively unknown composer.
Eidelman stated that he finds science fiction the most interesting and exciting genre to compose for, and that Meyer told him to treat the film as a fresh start, rather than drawing on old Star Trek themes. Eidelman wanted the music to aid the visuals; for Rura Penthe, he strove to create an atmosphere that reflected the alien and dangerous setting, introducing exotic instruments for color. Besides using percussion from around the world, Eidelman treated the choir as percussion, with the Klingon language translation for "to be, or not to be
" ("taH pagh, taHbe") being repeated in the background. Spock's theme was designed to be an ethereal counterpart to the motif for Kirk and the Enterprise, aimed at capturing "the emotional gleam in the captain's eye". Kirk's internal dilemma about what the future holds was echoed in the main theme: "It's Kirk taking control one last time and as he looks out into the stars he has the spark again [...] But there's an unresolved note, because it's very important that he doesn't trust the Klingons. He doesn't want to go on this trip even though the spark is there that overtook him." For the climactic battle, Eidelman starts the music quietly, building the intensity as the battle progresses.
, a composer who had worked on The Next Generation
, was given the task of composing for Star Trek: Generations
. Critic Jeff Bond wrote that while McCarthy's score was "tasked with straddling the styles of both series", it also offered the opportunity for the composer to produce stronger dramatic writing. His opening music was a ethereal choral piece that plays while a floating champagne bottle tumbles through space. For the action scenes with the Enterprise-B, McCarthy used low brass chords and touches. Kirk was given a brass motif accented by snare drums (a touch verboten during The Next Generation), while the scene ends with a dissonant notes as Scott and Chekov discover Kirk has been blown into space.
McCarthy expanded his brassy style for the film's action sequences, such as the battle over Veridian III and the crash-landing of the Enterprise. For Picard's trip to the Nexus, more choral music and synthesizers accompany Picard's discovery of his family. The film's only distinct theme, a broad fanfare, first plays when Picard and Kirk meet. The theme blends McCarthy's theme for Picard from The Next Generations first season, notes from the theme for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
, and Alexander Courage
's classic Star Trek fanfare.
scored First Contact
, his third Star Trek feature. Goldsmith wrote a sweeping main title which begins with Alexander Courage
's classic Star Trek fanfare. Instead of composing a menacing theme to underscore the Borg, Goldsmith wrote a pastoral theme linked to humanity's hopeful first contact. The theme uses a four-note motif used in Goldsmith's Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
score, which is used in First Contact as a friendship theme and general thematic link. A menacing march with touches of synthesizers were used to represent the Borg. In addition to composing new music, Goldsmith utilized music from his previous Star Trek scores, including his theme from The Motion Picture. The Klingon theme from the same film is used to represent Worf.
Because of delays with Paramount's The Ghost and the Darkness
, the already-short four week production schedule was cut to just three weeks. While Berman was concerned about the move, Goldsmith hired his son, Joel
, to assist. The young composer provided additional music for the film, writing three cues based on his father's motifs and a total of 22 minutes of music. Joel used variations of his father's Borg music and the Klingon theme as Worf fights hand-to-hand (Joel said that he and his father decided to use the theme for Worf separately). When the Borg invade sickbay and the medical hologram distracts them, Joel wrote what critic Jeff Bond termed "almost Coplandesque" material of tuning strings and clarinet, but the cue was unused. While Joel composed many of the film's action cues, his father contributed to the spacewalk and Phoenix flight sequences. During the fight on the deflector dish, Goldsmith used low-register electronics punctuated by stabs of violent, dissonant strings.
In a break with Star Trek film tradition, the soundtrack incorporated two licensed songs: Roy Orbison
's "Ooby Dooby" and Steppenwolf
's "Magic Carpet Ride". GNP Crescendo
president Neil Norman explained that the decision to include the tracks was controversial, but said that "Frakes did the most amazing job of integrating those songs into the story that we had to use them".
GNP released the First Contact soundtrack on December 2, 1996. The album contained 51 minutes of music, with 35 minutes of Jerry Goldsmith's score, 10 minutes of additional music by Joel Goldsmith, "Ooby Dooby" and "Magic Carpet Ride". The compact disc shipped with CD-ROM
features only accessible if played on a personal computer, including interviews with Berman, Frakes, and Goldsmith.
was composer Jerry Goldsmith
's fourth film score for the franchise. Goldsmith continued using the march and Klingon themes he crafted for Star Trek: The Motion Picture
in 1979, with adding new themes and variations. Insurrection opens with Alexander Courage
's Star Trek: The Original Series
fanfare, also introducing a six-note motif used in many of the film's action sequences. The Ba'ku are scored with a pastoral theme, repeating harps, string sections and a woodwind solo. The Ba'ku's ability to slow time uses a variation of this music.
Goldsmith approached starship sequences with quick bursts of brass music. While observers are watching the Ba'ku unseen, Goldsmith employed a "spying theme". Composed of a piano, timpani percussion, and brass, the theme builds until interrupted by the action theme as Data opens fire. Goldsmith did not write a motif for the Son'a, choosing to score the action sequence without designating the Son'a as an antagonist (suggesting the film's revelation that the Son'a and Ba'ku are related.) The film's climax is scored with the action material, balanced by "sense of wonder" music similar to cues from The Motion Picture.
was the final Star Trek score and the second to last film score composed and conducted by Jerry Goldsmith
prior to his death in 2004 (not including his music for Timeline
(2003), which was rejected due to a complicated post-production process). The score opens with Alexander Courage
's Star Trek: The Original Series
fanfare, but quickly transitions into a much darker theme to accompany the conflict between the Reman and Romulan empires. Goldsmith also composed a new 5-note theme to accompany the character Shinzon and the Scimitar, which is manipulated throughout the score to reflect the multiple dimensions of the character. Goldsmith also incorporated a number of zipping, swooshing synthesizers into the conventional orchestra to illustrate the suspenseful and horrific elements of the story. The score is book-ended with Goldsmith's theme from Star Trek: The Motion Picture
, following a brief excerpt from the popular 1929 song "Blue Skies
" by Irving Berlin
.
, Abrams' most frequent collaborator, composed the music for Star Trek. He kept the original theme by Alexander Courage
for the end credits, which Abrams said symbolized the momentum of the crew coming together. Giacchino admitted personal pressure in scoring the film, as "I grew up listening to all of that great [Trek] music, and that's part of what inspired me to do what I'm doing [...] You just go in scared. You just hope you do your best. It's one of those things where the film will tell me what to do." Scoring took place at the Sony Scoring Stage with a 107-piece orchestra and 40-person choir. An erhu
, performed by Karen Han, was used for the Vulcan themes. A distorted recording was used for the Romulans. Varèse Sarabande
, the record label responsible for releasing albums of Giacchino's previous scores for Alias
, Lost
, Mission: Impossible III
, and Speed Racer
, released the soundtrack for the film on May 5.
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
, and other articles about music associated with the show.
Composers
The following wrote movie scores, theme music, or incidental music for several episodes.| Composer | Movie score | Series theme | Incidental music |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paul Baillargeon Paul Baillargeon Paul Baillargeon is a Canadian composer, known for his music for television shows. He contributed music to 41 episodes of Star Trek shows, and won the 2002 ASCAP Award for Enterprise, shared with the series' other regular composers.... |
Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise | ||
| David Bell David Bell (composer) David Bell is an American composer, known for his music for television shows. From 1984 to 1991 he contributed music to 79 episodes of Murder, She Wrote, 5 episodes of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman", followed by 66 episodes of Star Trek shows from 1994 to 2003... |
Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise | ||
| Velton Ray Bunch Velton Ray Bunch Velton Ray Bunch is Emmy winner film and television composer. Sometimes credited as Ray Bunch. Bunch has been nominated for an Emmy three times for his work, and won the fourth time for his score to the Enterprise episode "Similatude".He's worked on dozens and dozens of television series and TV... |
Enterprise | ||
| Jay Chattaway Jay Chattaway Jay Chattaway is an American composer of film and television scores. He is mainly known for his work as score composer for several Star Trek television series: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise... |
The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise | ||
| Alexander Courage Alexander Courage Alexander "Sandy" Mair Courage Jr. was an American orchestrator, arranger, and composer of music, primarily for television and film.-Biography:... |
Star Trek: The Original Series Star Trek: The Original Series Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry, produced by Desilu Productions . Star Trek was telecast on NBC from September 8, 1966, through June 3, 1969... |
The Original Series | |
| George Duning George Duning George Duning was an American musician and film composer. He was born in Richmond, Indiana and educated in Cincinnati, Ohio at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, where his mentor was Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.... |
The Original Series | ||
| Cliff Eidelman Cliff Eidelman Clifford Glen “Cliff” Eidelman is an American composer and conductor who scored films such as Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Free Willy 3: The Rescue, and Christopher Columbus: The Discovery.- Career :Eidelman began his formal training in violin at the age of eight and continued with... |
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is the sixth feature film in the Star Trek science fiction franchise and is the last of the Star Trek films to include the entire main cast of the 1960s Star Trek television series. Released in 1991 by Paramount Pictures, it was directed by Nicholas Meyer and... |
||
| Gerald Fried Gerald Fried Gerald Fried is an American musician, well known for his compositions in film and television.Born and raised in the Bronx, New York City, Fried attended Juilliard School of Music... |
The Original Series, including the famous "Star Trek fight music" introduced in the episode "Amok Time" | ||
| Michael Giacchino Michael Giacchino Michael Giacchino is an American composer who has composed scores for movies, television series and video games. Some of his most notable works include the scores to television series such as Lost, Alias and Fringe, games such as the Medal of Honor and Call of Duty series, and films such as... |
Star Trek | ||
| Jerry Goldsmith Jerry Goldsmith Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring.... |
Star Trek: The Motion Picture Star Trek: The Motion Picture Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first film based on the Star Trek television series. The film is set in the twenty-third century, when a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud called V'Ger approaches the Earth,... Star Trek V: The Final Frontier Star Trek V: The Final Frontier Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is a 1989 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the fifth feature in the franchise and the penultimate to star the cast of the original Star Trek science fiction television series... Star Trek: First Contact Star Trek: First Contact Star Trek: First Contact is the eighth feature film in the Star Trek science fiction franchise, released in November 1996, by Paramount Pictures. First Contact is the first film in the franchise to feature no cast members from the original Star Trek television series of the 1960s... (with son Joel Joel Goldsmith Joel Goldsmith is a composer of film, television, and video game music. He is the son of renowned composer Jerry Goldsmith. He was the main composer for the TV series Stargate SG-1, although the main titles were written by David Arnold... ) Star Trek: Insurrection Star Trek: Insurrection Star Trek: Insurrection is a 1998 American science fiction film directed by Jonathan Frakes, written by Michael Piller , and with music composed by Jerry Goldsmith. It is the ninth film in the Star Trek franchise, and the third to feature the cast from the television series Star Trek: The Next... Star Trek: Nemesis Star Trek: Nemesis Star Trek Nemesis is a 2002 science fiction film directed by Stuart Baird, written by John Logan , and with music composed by Jerry Goldsmith. It is the tenth feature film in the Star Trek franchise, and the fourth and final film to star the cast from the television series Star Trek: The Next... |
The Next Generation Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production... Voyager Star Trek: Voyager Star Trek: Voyager is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe. Set in the 24th century from the year 2371 through 2378, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS Voyager, which becomes stranded in the Delta Quadrant 70,000 light-years from Earth while... |
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| James Horner James Horner James Roy Horner is an American composer, orchestrator and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements... |
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a 1982 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. The film is the second feature based on the Star Trek science fiction franchise. The plot features James T... Star Trek III: The Search for Spock Star Trek III: The Search for Spock Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is a 1984 motion picture released by Paramount Pictures. The film is the third feature based on the Star Trek science fiction franchise and is the center of a three-film story arc that begins with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and concludes with Star Trek IV:... |
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| Ron Jones Ron Jones (composer) Ron Jones is an American composer who has written music for TV shows, including Star Trek: The Next Generation, Duck Tales, American Dad!, and Family Guy... |
The Next Generation | ||
| Sol Kaplan Sol Kaplan Sol Kaplan was a prolific film and television music composer.Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Kaplan worked as a successful concert pianist, including performing at Carnegie Hall in 1941. That same year, Kaplan composed his first film score. He went on to write music for dozens of films... |
The Original Series | ||
| Dennis McCarthy Dennis McCarthy (composer) Dennis McCarthy is an ASCAP- and Emmy Award-winning composer, mostly for television programs and films produced in the United States.... |
Star Trek: Generations Star Trek: Generations Star Trek Generations is a 1994 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. Generations is the seventh feature film based on the Star Trek television series and the first film in the series to star the cast of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation.Parts of the film... |
Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe... |
The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise |
| Leonard Rosenman Leonard Rosenman Leonard Rosenman was an American film, television and concert composer.-Life and career:Leonard Rosenman was born in Brooklyn, New York. After service in the Pacific with the Army Air Forces in World War II, he earned a bachelor's degree in music from the University of California, Berkeley... |
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is a 1986 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the fourth feature film based on the Star Trek science fiction television series and completes the story arc begun in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and continued in Star Trek III: The... |
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| Fred Steiner Fred Steiner Fred Steiner was an American composer, conductor, orchestrator, film historian and arranger for television, radio and film. Steiner wrote the theme music for The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Perry Mason and The Bullwinkle Show... |
The Original Series, The Next Generation (episode "Code of Honor") | ||
| Diane Warren Diane Warren Diane Eve Warren , is a US songwriter. Her songs have received six Academy Award nominations, five Golden Globe nominations, including one win and seven Grammy Award nominations, including one win. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001... |
Enterprise | ||
Other notable composers who contributed music to at least one episode include Don Davis
Don Davis (composer)
Donald Romain Davis is an American film score composer, conductor, and orchestrator. Best known for his work on The Matrix, he has worked on a variety of films, from horror to comedy.- Early life :...
, John Debney
John Debney
John C. Debney is an American film composer. He received an Academy Award nomination for his score for Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ...
, Jerry Fielding
Jerry Fielding
Jerry Fielding was an American radio, record, film and television composer, conductor, and musical director.-Childhood and education:...
, Brian Tyler
Brian Tyler (composer)
Brian Tyler is an American composer, producer, conductor, and film producer most known for his scores of Eagle Eye, The Expendables, Battle: Los Angeles, The Final Destination, Rambo, Fast & Furious, Fast Five, and Final Destination 5. Tyler is a symphonic conductor and conducts his own scores....
and George Romanis.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
The score for Star Trek: The Motion PictureStar Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first film based on the Star Trek television series. The film is set in the twenty-third century, when a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud called V'Ger approaches the Earth,...
was written by Jerry Goldsmith
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....
, who would later compose the scores Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is a 1989 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the fifth feature in the franchise and the penultimate to star the cast of the original Star Trek science fiction television series...
, Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek: First Contact is the eighth feature film in the Star Trek science fiction franchise, released in November 1996, by Paramount Pictures. First Contact is the first film in the franchise to feature no cast members from the original Star Trek television series of the 1960s...
, Star Trek: Insurrection
Star Trek: Insurrection
Star Trek: Insurrection is a 1998 American science fiction film directed by Jonathan Frakes, written by Michael Piller , and with music composed by Jerry Goldsmith. It is the ninth film in the Star Trek franchise, and the third to feature the cast from the television series Star Trek: The Next...
, and Star Trek: Nemesis
Star Trek: Nemesis
Star Trek Nemesis is a 2002 science fiction film directed by Stuart Baird, written by John Logan , and with music composed by Jerry Goldsmith. It is the tenth feature film in the Star Trek franchise, and the fourth and final film to star the cast from the television series Star Trek: The Next...
, as well as the themes to the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...
and Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe. Set in the 24th century from the year 2371 through 2378, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS Voyager, which becomes stranded in the Delta Quadrant 70,000 light-years from Earth while...
. Gene Roddenberry had originally wanted Goldsmith to score Star Trek
The Sand Pebbles
The Sand Pebbles is a 1962 novel by American author Richard McKenna about a Yangtze River gunboat in 1926. It was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post for the three issues from November 17, 1962 through December 1, 1962. The author completed it in May, 1962, just in time to enter it in the 1963...
, replied "Hell, no. He's great!" Wise would later consider his work with Goldsmith one of the best relationships he ever had with a composer.
Goldsmith was influenced by the style of the romantic, sweeping music of Star Wars
Star Wars music
The music of Star Wars consists of the scores written for all six Star Wars films by composer John Williams from 1977 to 1983 for the Original Trilogy, and 1999 to 2005 for the Prequel Trilogy. It includes the Star Wars: The Clone Wars music written by Kevin Kiner...
. "When you stop and think about it, space is a very romantic thought. It is, to me, like the Old West, we’re up in the universe. It’s about discovery and new life [...] it’s really the basic premise of Star Trek," he said. Goldsmith's initial bombastic main theme reminded Ramsay and Wise of sailing ships. Unable to articulate what he felt was wrong with the piece, Wise recommended writing an entirely different piece. Although irked by the rejection, Goldsmith consented to re-work his initial ideas. The rewriting of the theme required changes to several sequences Goldsmith had scored without writing a main title piece. The approach of Kirk and Scott to the drydocked Enterprise by shuttle lasted a ponderous five minutes due to the effect shots coming in late and unedited, requiring Goldsmith to maintain interest with a revised and developed cue. Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the only Star Trek film to have a true overture, using "Ilia's Theme" in this role. Star Trek and The Black Hole
The Black Hole
The Black Hole is a 1979 American science fiction film directed by Gary Nelson for Walt Disney Productions. The film stars Maximilian Schell, Robert Forster, Joseph Bottoms, Yvette Mimieux, Anthony Perkins, and Ernest Borgnine, while the voices of the main robot characters are provided by Roddy...
would be the only feature films to use an overture from the end of 1979 until the year 2000 (with the movie Dancer in the Dark
Dancer in the Dark
Dancer in the Dark is a 2000 Danish musical drama film directed by Lars von Trier and starring Icelandic singer Björk, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Cara Seymour, Peter Stormare, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, and Joel Grey...
).
Much of the recording equipment used to create the movie's intricately complicated sound effects was, at the time, extremely cutting edge. Among these pieces of equipment was the ADS (Advanced Digital Synthesizer) 11, manufactured by Pasadena, California
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
custom synthesizer manufacturer Con Brio, Inc.
Con Brio, Inc.
Con Brio, Inc. was a short-lived but influential synthesizer manufacturing company which, from 1978 to 1982, produced its most famous product, the ADS .- Early history and the ADS 100 :Con Brio was founded in Pasadena, California, around 1979 by Tim Ryan, Alan Danziger,...
The movie provided major publicity and was used to advertise the synthesizer, though no price was given. The film's soundtrack also provided a debut for the Blaster Beam
Blaster Beam
The Blaster Beam is a concept electronic musical instrument consisting of a 12 to long metal beam strung with numerous tensed wires under which are mounted electric guitar pickups which can be moved to alter the sound produced. The instrument is played by striking or plucking the strings with...
, an electronic instrument 12 to 15 ft (3.7 to 4.6 m) long. It was created by musician Craig Huxley
Craig Huxley
Craig Huxley is a Grammy nominee and Emmy Award-winning musician and producer who has been involved in a wide variety of entertainment-related projects since childhood. He began his career as a child actor, starring in hundreds of TV shows; perhaps his most notable roles were those of Captain...
, who played a small role in two episodes of the original television series.
The Blaster had steel wires connected to amplifiers fitted to the main piece of aluminum; the device was played with an artillery shell. Goldsmith heard it and immediately decided to use it for V'ger's cues. An enormous pipe organ first plays the V'ger theme on the Enterprises approach, a literal indication of the machine's power.
Goldsmith scored The Motion Picture over a period of three to four months, a relatively relaxed schedule compared to typical production, but time pressures resulted in Goldsmith bringing on colleagues to assist in the work. Alexander Courage
Alexander Courage
Alexander "Sandy" Mair Courage Jr. was an American orchestrator, arranger, and composer of music, primarily for television and film.-Biography:...
, composer of the original Star Trek theme, provided arrangements to accompany Kirk's log entries, while Fred Steiner
Fred Steiner
Fred Steiner was an American composer, conductor, orchestrator, film historian and arranger for television, radio and film. Steiner wrote the theme music for The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Perry Mason and The Bullwinkle Show...
wrote the music to accompany the Enterprise achieving warp speed and first meeting V'ger. The rush to finish the rest of the film impacted the score. The final recording session finished at 2:00am on December 1, only five days before the film's release.
A soundtrack featuring the film's music was released in 1979 together with the film debut, and was one of Goldsmith's best-selling scores. Sony's Legacy Recordings
Legacy Recordings
Legacy Recordings is Sony Music Entertainment's catalog division. It was founded in 1990 by CBS Records under the leadership of Jerry Shulman, Richard Bauer, Gary Pacheco and Amy Herot to handle reissues of recordings from the vast catalogues of Columbia Records, Epic Records and associated...
released an expanded two-disc edition of the soundtrack on November 10, 1998. The album added an additional 21 minutes of music to supplement the original track list, and was resequenced to reflect the story line of the film. The first disc features the complete score, while the sequence disc contains "Inside Star Trek", a spoken word
Spoken word
Spoken word is a form of poetry that often uses alliterated prose or verse and occasionally uses metered verse to express social commentary. Traditionally it is in the first person, is from the poet’s point of view and is themed in current events....
documentary.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Jerry GoldsmithJerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....
had composed the music for The Motion Picture, but was not an option for The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a 1982 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. The film is the second feature based on the Star Trek science fiction franchise. The plot features James T...
given the reduced budget; Meyer's composer for Time After Time, Miklós Rózsa
Miklós Rózsa
Miklós Rózsa was a Hungarian-born composer trained in Germany , and active in France , England , and the United States , with extensive sojourns in Italy from 1953...
, was likewise prohibitively expensive. Bennett and Meyer wanted the music for the film to go in a different direction, but had not decided on a composer by the time filming began. Meyer initially hoped to hire an associate named John Morgan, but Morgan lacked film experience, which would have troubled the studio.
Paramount's vice-president of music Joel Sill took a liking to a 28-year old composer named James Horner
James Horner
James Roy Horner is an American composer, orchestrator and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements...
, feeling that his demo tapes stood out from generic film music. Horner was introduced to Bennett, Meyer and Salin. Horner said that "[The producers] did not want the kind of score they had gotten before. They did not want a John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
score, per se. They wanted something different, more modern." When asked about how he landed the assignment, the composer replied that "the producers loved my work for Wolfen
Wolfen (film)
Wolfen is the title of a 1981 horror film starring Albert Finney, Diane Venora, Gregory Hines and Edward James Olmos based on Whitley Strieber's 1978 novel The Wolfen...
, and had heard my music for several other projects, and I think, so far as I've been told, they liked my versatility very much. I wanted the assignment, and I met with them, we all got along well, they were impressed with my music, and that's how it happened." Horner agreed with the producers' expectations and agreed to begin work in mid-January 1982.
In keeping with the nautical tone, Meyer wanted music evocative of seafaring and swashbuckling, and the director and composer worked together closely, becoming friends in the process. As a classical music fan, Meyer was able to describe the effects and sounds he wanted in the music. While Horner's style was described as "echoing both the bombastic and elegiac elements of John Williams' Star Wars and Jerry Goldsmith
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....
's original Star Trek(The Motion Picture) scores," Horner was expressly told to not use any of Goldsmith's score. Instead Horner adapted the opening fanfare of Alexander Courage
Alexander Courage
Alexander "Sandy" Mair Courage Jr. was an American orchestrator, arranger, and composer of music, primarily for television and film.-Biography:...
's Star Trek television theme. "The fanfare draws you in immediately—you know you're going to get a good movie," Horner said.
In comparison to the flowing main theme, Khan's leitmotif
Leitmotif
A leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...
was designed as a percussive texture that could be overlayed with other music and emphasized the character's insanity. The seven-note brass theme was echoplex
Echoplex
The Echoplex is a tape delay effect, first made in 1959. Designed by Mike Battle, the Echoplex set a standard for the effect in the 1960s and was used by some of the most notable guitar players of the era; original Echoplexes are highly sought after....
ed to emphasize the character's ruminations about the past while on Ceti Alpha V, but does not play fully until Reliants attack on the Enterprise. Many elements drew from Horner's previous work (a rhythm that accompanies Khan's theme during the surprise attack borrows from an attack theme from Wolfen, in turn influenced by Goldsmith's score for Alien
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
. Musical moments from the original television series are also heard during investigation of the Regula space station and elsewhere.
To Horner, the "stuff underneath" the main story was what needed to be addressed by the score; in The Wrath of Khan, this was the relationship between Kirk and Spock. The main theme serves as Kirk's theme, with a mellower section following that is the theme for the Starship Enterprise. Horner also wrote a motif for Spock, to emphasize the character's depth: "By putting a theme over Spock, it warms him and he becomes three-dimensional rather than a collection of schticks." The difference in the short, French horn-based cues for the villain and longer melodies for the heroes helped to differentiate characters and ships during the battle sequences.
The soundtrack was Horner's first major film score, and was written in four and a half weeks. The resulting 72 minutes of music was then performed by a 91-piece orchestra. Recording sessions took place April 12–15 at the Warner Brothers lot, The Burbank Studios. A pickup session was held on April 30 to record music for the Mutara nebula battle, while another session held on May 3 was used to cover the recently-changed epilogue. Horner used synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
s for ancillary effects; at the time, science-fiction films such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 American science fiction film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Melissa Mathison and starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, and Peter Coyote...
and The Thing were eschewing the synthesizer in favor of more traditional orchestras. Craig Huxley
Craig Huxley
Craig Huxley is a Grammy nominee and Emmy Award-winning musician and producer who has been involved in a wide variety of entertainment-related projects since childhood. He began his career as a child actor, starring in hundreds of TV shows; perhaps his most notable roles were those of Captain...
performed his invented instrument—the Blaster Beam
Blaster Beam
The Blaster Beam is a concept electronic musical instrument consisting of a 12 to long metal beam strung with numerous tensed wires under which are mounted electric guitar pickups which can be moved to alter the sound produced. The instrument is played by striking or plucking the strings with...
—during recording, as well as composing and performing electronic music for the Genesis Project video. While most of the film was "locked in" by the time Horner had begun composing music, he had to change musical cue orchestration after the integration of special effects caused changes in scene durations.
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
Composer James HornerJames Horner
James Roy Horner is an American composer, orchestrator and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements...
returned to score The Search for Spock
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is a 1984 motion picture released by Paramount Pictures. The film is the third feature based on the Star Trek science fiction franchise and is the center of a three-film story arc that begins with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and concludes with Star Trek IV:...
, fulfilling a promise he had made to Bennett on The Wrath of Khan. Much like the content of the film, Horner's music was a direct continuation of the score he wrote for the previous film. When writing music for The Wrath of Khan, Horner was aware he would reuse certain cues for an impending sequel; two major themes he reworked were for Genesis and Spock. While the Genesis theme supplants the title music Horner wrote for The Wrath of Khan, the end credits were quoted "almost verbatim".
In hours-long discussions with Bennett and Nimoy, Horner agreed with the director that the "romantic and more sensitive" cues were more important than the "bombastic" ones. Horner had written Spock's theme to give the character more dimension: "By putting a theme over Spock, it warms him and he becomes three-dimensional rather than a collection of schticks," he said. The theme was expanded in The Search for Spock to represent the ancient alien mysticism and culture of Spock and Vulcan.
Among the new cues Horner wrote was a "percussive and atonal" theme for the Klingons which is represented heavily in the film. Jeff Bond described the cue as a compromise between music from Horner's earlier film Wolfen
Wolfen (film)
Wolfen is the title of a 1981 horror film starring Albert Finney, Diane Venora, Gregory Hines and Edward James Olmos based on Whitley Strieber's 1978 novel The Wolfen...
, Khan's motif from The Wrath of Khan, and Jerry Goldsmith
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....
's Klingon music from The Motion Picture. Horner also adapted music from Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...
's Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev)
Romeo and Juliet is a ballet by Sergei Prokofiev based on William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. It is one of the most enduringly popular ballets...
for part of the Enterprise theft sequence and its destruction, while the scoring to Spock's resurrection on Vulcan draws similarities to Horner's Brainstorm
Brainstorm (1983 film)
Brainstorm is a 1983 science fiction film directed by Douglas Trumbull and starring Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood...
ending.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
James HornerJames Horner
James Roy Horner is an American composer, orchestrator and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements...
, composer for The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock, declined to return for The Voyage Home
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is a 1986 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the fourth feature film based on the Star Trek science fiction television series and completes the story arc begun in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and continued in Star Trek III: The...
. Nimoy turned to his friend Leonard Rosenman
Leonard Rosenman
Leonard Rosenman was an American film, television and concert composer.-Life and career:Leonard Rosenman was born in Brooklyn, New York. After service in the Pacific with the Army Air Forces in World War II, he earned a bachelor's degree in music from the University of California, Berkeley...
, who had written the music to, among other films, Fantastic Voyage
Fantastic Voyage
Fantastic Voyage is a 1966 science fiction film written by Harry Kleiner, based on a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby.Bantam Books obtained the rights for a paperback novelization based on the screenplay and approached Isaac Asimov to write it....
, Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi is an Israeli-American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote...
's The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a 1978 American fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi. It contains both animation and live action footage which is rotoscoped to give it a more consistent look throughout the length of the movie. It is an adaptation of the first half of the high fantasy...
, and three Planet of the Apes
Planet of the Apes
La Planète des singes, known in English as Monkey Planet or Planet of the Apes, is a French 1963 science fiction novel by Pierre Boulle...
sequels. Rosenman wrote an arrangement of Alexander Courage
Alexander Courage
Alexander "Sandy" Mair Courage Jr. was an American orchestrator, arranger, and composer of music, primarily for television and film.-Biography:...
's Star Trek television theme as the title music for The Voyage Home, but Nimoy suggested that he write his own instead. As music critic Jeff Bond writes, "The final result was one of the most unusual Star Trek movie themes," consisting of a six note theme and variations set against a repetitious four note brass motif; the theme's bridge prefigures material in Rosenman's Frodo March for The Lord of the Rings. The melody makes appearances in the beginning of the film at Vulcan as well as when Taylor seeks Kirk's help finding her whales.
The Earth-based setting of the filming gave Rosenman leeway to write a variety of music in different styles. Nimoy intended the crew's introduction to the streets of San Francisco to be accompanied by something reminiscent of George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
, but Rosenman changed the director's mind and the scene was scored with a contemporary jazz fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
piece by Yellowjackets
Yellowjackets
Yellowjackets is an American jazz fusion/smooth jazz quartet.-History:The original group, called The Robben Ford Group, was formed in 1977, and consisted of Robben Ford, Russell Ferrante, Jimmy Haslip and Ricky Lawson, all top-notch L.A. session musicians...
. When Chekov flees detention aboard the aircraft carrier, Rosenman wrote a bright cue that incorporated classical Russian compositions, while the escape from the hospital was done in a baroque style. More familiar Rosenman compositions included the action music as the Bird of Prey and a whaling ship face off in open water, while the whale's communication with the probe utilized atmospheric music reminiscent of the composer's work in Fantastic Voyage. After the probe leaves, the music turns into a Vivaldiesque "whale fugue". The first sighting of the Enterprise-A uses the Alexander Courage theme before the end title music.
Mark Mangini served as The Voyage Homes sound designer. He described it as different from working on many other films because Nimoy appreciated the role of sound effects and made sure that they were prominent in the film. Since many sounds familiar to Star Trek had already been established—the Bird of Prey's cloaking device, the transporter beam, et al.—Mangini focused on making only small changes to them. The most important sounds were those created by the whales and the probe. Mangini's brother lived closed to biologist Roger Payne
Roger Payne
Roger Searle Payne is a biologist and environmentalist famous for the 1967 discovery of Whale song among Humpback whales. Payne later became an important figure in the worldwide campaign to end commercial whaling.Payne studied at Harvard University and Cornell...
, who had many recordings of whale song. Mangini went through the tapes and chose sounds that could be mixed to suggest a sort of language and conversation. The probe's screeching calls were the whale song in distorted form. The humpback's communication with the probe at the climax of the film contained no dramatic music, meaning that Mangini's sounds had to stand alone. He recalled that he had some difficulty with envisioning how the scene would unfold, leading Bennett to perform a puppet show to explain. Nimoy and the other producers were unhappy with Mangini's attempts to create the probe's droning operating noise; after 18 attempts, the sound designer finally asked Nimoy what he thought the probe should sound like, and recorded Nimoy's response. Nimoy's voice was distorted with "just the tiniest bit of dressing" and used as the final sound.
The punk music that blares during the bus scene was written by Thatcher after he learned that the audio to be added to the scene would be "Duran Duran
Duran Duran
Duran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...
, or whoever" and not "raw" and authentic punk. Thatcher collaborated with Mangini and two sound editors (who were in punk bands) to create their own music. They decided that punk distilled down to the sentiment of "I hate you", and wrote a sound to match. Recording in the sound studio as originally planned produced too clean a sound, so they moved to the outside hallway and recorded the entire band in one take using cheap microphones to create the distorted sound intended. The song was later used for Paramount's "Back to the Beach
Back to the Beach
Back to the Beach is a 1987 comedy film starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, directed by Lyndall Hobbs. The original music score is composed by Steve Dorff. The film generated a total domestic gross of $13,110,903...
".
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
Music critic Jeff Bond wrote that Shatner made "at least two wise decisions" in making The Final FrontierStar Trek V: The Final Frontier
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is a 1989 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the fifth feature in the franchise and the penultimate to star the cast of the original Star Trek science fiction television series...
; beyond choosing Luckinbill as Sybok, he hired Jerry Goldsmith
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....
to compose the film's score. Goldsmith had written the Academy Award-nominated score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first film based on the Star Trek television series. The film is set in the twenty-third century, when a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud called V'Ger approaches the Earth,...
, and the new Trek film was an opportunity to craft music with a similar level of ambition while adding action and character—two elements largely missing from The Motion Picture.
Goldsmith's main theme begins with the traditional opening notes from Alexander Courage
Alexander Courage
Alexander "Sandy" Mair Courage Jr. was an American orchestrator, arranger, and composer of music, primarily for television and film.-Biography:...
's original television series theme; an ascending string and electronic bridge leads to a rendition of the march from The Motion Picture. According to Jeff Bond, Goldsmith's use of The Motion Pictures march led to some confusion among Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...
fans, as they were unfamiliar with the music's origins and believed that Goldsmith was stealing the theme to The Next Generation, which was itself The Motion Picture march. Another theme from The Motion Picture that makes a return appearance is the Klingon theme from the 1979 film's opening scene. Here, the theme is treated in what Bond termed a "Prokofiev-like style as opposed to the avant-garde counterpoint" as seen in The Motion Picture. Goldsmith also added a crying ram's horn.
The breadth of The Final Frontiers locations led Goldsmith to eschew the two-themed approach of The Motion Picture in favor of leitmotif
Leitmotif
A leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...
s, recurring music used for locations and characters. Sybok is introduced with a synthesized motif in the opening scene of the film, while when Kirk and Spock discuss him en route to Nimbus III it is rendered in a more mysterious fashion. The motif also appears in the action cue as Kirk and company land on Nimbus III and try to free the hostages. When Sybok boards the Enterprise, a new four-note motif played by low brass highlights the character's obsession. The Sybok theme from then on is used in either a benevolent sense or a more percussive, dark rendition. Arriving at Sha-ka-ree, the planet's five-note theme bears resemblance to Goldsmith's unicorn theme from Legend; "...the two melodies represent very similar ideas: lost innocence and the tragic impossibility of recapturing paradise," writes Bond. The music features cellos conveying a pious quality, while the appearance of "God" begins with string glissandos but turns to a dark rendition of Sybok's theme as its true nature is exposed. As the creature attacks Kirk, Spock and McCoy, the more aggressive Sybok theme takes on an attacking rhythm. When Spock appeals to the Klingons for help, the theme takes on a sensitive character before returning to a powerful sequence as the ship destroys the god-creature.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Director Nicholas Meyer's original plan for the score of The Undiscovered CountryStar Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is the sixth feature film in the Star Trek science fiction franchise and is the last of the Star Trek films to include the entire main cast of the 1960s Star Trek television series. Released in 1991 by Paramount Pictures, it was directed by Nicholas Meyer and...
was to adapt Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
's orchestral suite The Planets
The Planets
The Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1916. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its corresponding astrological character as defined by Holst...
. The plan proved unfeasibly expensive, so Meyer began listening to demo tapes submitted by composers. Meyer described most of the demos as generic "movie music", but was intrigued by one tape by a young composer named Cliff Eidelman
Cliff Eidelman
Clifford Glen “Cliff” Eidelman is an American composer and conductor who scored films such as Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Free Willy 3: The Rescue, and Christopher Columbus: The Discovery.- Career :Eidelman began his formal training in violin at the age of eight and continued with...
. Eidelman, then 26, had made a career in composing for ballets, television, and film, but despite work on fourteen features, no film had been the hit needed to propel Eidelman to greater fame.
In conversations with Eidelman, Meyer mentioned that since the marches that accompanied the main titles for other Star Trek films were so good, he had no desire to compete with them by composing a bombastic opening. He also felt that since the film was darker than its predecessors, it demanded something different musically as a result. He mentioned the opening to Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
's The Firebird
The Firebird
The Firebird is a 1910 ballet created by the composer Igor Stravinsky and choreographer Michel Fokine. The ballet is based on Russian folk tales of the magical glowing bird of the same name that is both a blessing and a curse to its captor....
as similar to the foreboding sound he wanted. Two days later Eidelman produced a tape of his idea for the main theme, played on a synthesizer. Meyer was impressed by the speed of the work and the close fit to his vision. Meyer approached producer Steven Charles-Jaffe with Eidelman's CD, which reminded Jaffe of Bernard Herrman; Eidelman was given the task of composing the score.
Eidelman's previous project had been creating a compilation of music from the past five Star Trek films, and he consciously avoided taking inspiration from those scores. "[The compilation] showed me what to stay away from, because I couldn't do James Horner
James Horner
James Roy Horner is an American composer, orchestrator and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements...
[composer for The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock] as well as James Horner," he said. Since he was hired very early on in production, Eidelman had an unusually long time to develop his ideas, and he was able to visit the sets during filming. While the film was in early production Eidelman worked on electronic drafts of the final score, to placate executives who were unsure about using a relatively unknown composer.
Eidelman stated that he finds science fiction the most interesting and exciting genre to compose for, and that Meyer told him to treat the film as a fresh start, rather than drawing on old Star Trek themes. Eidelman wanted the music to aid the visuals; for Rura Penthe, he strove to create an atmosphere that reflected the alien and dangerous setting, introducing exotic instruments for color. Besides using percussion from around the world, Eidelman treated the choir as percussion, with the Klingon language translation for "to be, or not to be
To be, or not to be
"To be, or not to be" is the opening phrase of a soliloquy from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet , Act III, Scene 1. It is the best-known quotation from the play and probably the most famous in world literature but there is disagreement on its meaning, as there is of the whole speech.- Text :This...
" ("taH pagh, taHbe") being repeated in the background. Spock's theme was designed to be an ethereal counterpart to the motif for Kirk and the Enterprise, aimed at capturing "the emotional gleam in the captain's eye". Kirk's internal dilemma about what the future holds was echoed in the main theme: "It's Kirk taking control one last time and as he looks out into the stars he has the spark again [...] But there's an unresolved note, because it's very important that he doesn't trust the Klingons. He doesn't want to go on this trip even though the spark is there that overtook him." For the climactic battle, Eidelman starts the music quietly, building the intensity as the battle progresses.
Star Trek: Generations (1994)
Dennis McCarthyDennis McCarthy (composer)
Dennis McCarthy is an ASCAP- and Emmy Award-winning composer, mostly for television programs and films produced in the United States....
, a composer who had worked on The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...
, was given the task of composing for Star Trek: Generations
Star Trek: Generations
Star Trek Generations is a 1994 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. Generations is the seventh feature film based on the Star Trek television series and the first film in the series to star the cast of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation.Parts of the film...
. Critic Jeff Bond wrote that while McCarthy's score was "tasked with straddling the styles of both series", it also offered the opportunity for the composer to produce stronger dramatic writing. His opening music was a ethereal choral piece that plays while a floating champagne bottle tumbles through space. For the action scenes with the Enterprise-B, McCarthy used low brass chords and touches. Kirk was given a brass motif accented by snare drums (a touch verboten during The Next Generation), while the scene ends with a dissonant notes as Scott and Chekov discover Kirk has been blown into space.
McCarthy expanded his brassy style for the film's action sequences, such as the battle over Veridian III and the crash-landing of the Enterprise. For Picard's trip to the Nexus, more choral music and synthesizers accompany Picard's discovery of his family. The film's only distinct theme, a broad fanfare, first plays when Picard and Kirk meet. The theme blends McCarthy's theme for Picard from The Next Generations first season, notes from the theme for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe...
, and Alexander Courage
Alexander Courage
Alexander "Sandy" Mair Courage Jr. was an American orchestrator, arranger, and composer of music, primarily for television and film.-Biography:...
's classic Star Trek fanfare.
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Film composer Jerry GoldsmithJerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....
scored First Contact
Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek: First Contact is the eighth feature film in the Star Trek science fiction franchise, released in November 1996, by Paramount Pictures. First Contact is the first film in the franchise to feature no cast members from the original Star Trek television series of the 1960s...
, his third Star Trek feature. Goldsmith wrote a sweeping main title which begins with Alexander Courage
Alexander Courage
Alexander "Sandy" Mair Courage Jr. was an American orchestrator, arranger, and composer of music, primarily for television and film.-Biography:...
's classic Star Trek fanfare. Instead of composing a menacing theme to underscore the Borg, Goldsmith wrote a pastoral theme linked to humanity's hopeful first contact. The theme uses a four-note motif used in Goldsmith's Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is a 1989 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the fifth feature in the franchise and the penultimate to star the cast of the original Star Trek science fiction television series...
score, which is used in First Contact as a friendship theme and general thematic link. A menacing march with touches of synthesizers were used to represent the Borg. In addition to composing new music, Goldsmith utilized music from his previous Star Trek scores, including his theme from The Motion Picture. The Klingon theme from the same film is used to represent Worf.
Because of delays with Paramount's The Ghost and the Darkness
The Ghost and the Darkness
The Ghost and the Darkness is a 1996 adventure film starring Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer set in Africa at the end of the 19th century.It was directed by Stephen Hopkins and the screenplay was written by William Goldman....
, the already-short four week production schedule was cut to just three weeks. While Berman was concerned about the move, Goldsmith hired his son, Joel
Joel Goldsmith
Joel Goldsmith is a composer of film, television, and video game music. He is the son of renowned composer Jerry Goldsmith. He was the main composer for the TV series Stargate SG-1, although the main titles were written by David Arnold...
, to assist. The young composer provided additional music for the film, writing three cues based on his father's motifs and a total of 22 minutes of music. Joel used variations of his father's Borg music and the Klingon theme as Worf fights hand-to-hand (Joel said that he and his father decided to use the theme for Worf separately). When the Borg invade sickbay and the medical hologram distracts them, Joel wrote what critic Jeff Bond termed "almost Coplandesque" material of tuning strings and clarinet, but the cue was unused. While Joel composed many of the film's action cues, his father contributed to the spacewalk and Phoenix flight sequences. During the fight on the deflector dish, Goldsmith used low-register electronics punctuated by stabs of violent, dissonant strings.
In a break with Star Trek film tradition, the soundtrack incorporated two licensed songs: Roy Orbison
Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer-songwriter, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis...
's "Ooby Dooby" and Steppenwolf
Steppenwolf (band)
Steppenwolf are a Canadian-American rock group that was prominent in the late 1960s. The group was formed in 1967 in Los Angeles by vocalist John Kay, guitarist Michael Monarch, bassist Rushton Moreve, keyboardist Goldy McJohn and drummer Jerry Edmonton after the dissolution of Toronto group The...
's "Magic Carpet Ride". GNP Crescendo
GNP Crescendo Record Co.
GNP Crescendo Record Co. is an American record label based in Hollywood, California. Its catalog primarily consists of jazz records, as well as motion picture and television soundtracks and film scores, mostly in science fiction, fantasy and horror....
president Neil Norman explained that the decision to include the tracks was controversial, but said that "Frakes did the most amazing job of integrating those songs into the story that we had to use them".
GNP released the First Contact soundtrack on December 2, 1996. The album contained 51 minutes of music, with 35 minutes of Jerry Goldsmith's score, 10 minutes of additional music by Joel Goldsmith, "Ooby Dooby" and "Magic Carpet Ride". The compact disc shipped with CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
features only accessible if played on a personal computer, including interviews with Berman, Frakes, and Goldsmith.
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
InsurrectionStar Trek: Insurrection
Star Trek: Insurrection is a 1998 American science fiction film directed by Jonathan Frakes, written by Michael Piller , and with music composed by Jerry Goldsmith. It is the ninth film in the Star Trek franchise, and the third to feature the cast from the television series Star Trek: The Next...
was composer Jerry Goldsmith
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....
's fourth film score for the franchise. Goldsmith continued using the march and Klingon themes he crafted for Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first film based on the Star Trek television series. The film is set in the twenty-third century, when a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud called V'Ger approaches the Earth,...
in 1979, with adding new themes and variations. Insurrection opens with Alexander Courage
Alexander Courage
Alexander "Sandy" Mair Courage Jr. was an American orchestrator, arranger, and composer of music, primarily for television and film.-Biography:...
's Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry, produced by Desilu Productions . Star Trek was telecast on NBC from September 8, 1966, through June 3, 1969...
fanfare, also introducing a six-note motif used in many of the film's action sequences. The Ba'ku are scored with a pastoral theme, repeating harps, string sections and a woodwind solo. The Ba'ku's ability to slow time uses a variation of this music.
Goldsmith approached starship sequences with quick bursts of brass music. While observers are watching the Ba'ku unseen, Goldsmith employed a "spying theme". Composed of a piano, timpani percussion, and brass, the theme builds until interrupted by the action theme as Data opens fire. Goldsmith did not write a motif for the Son'a, choosing to score the action sequence without designating the Son'a as an antagonist (suggesting the film's revelation that the Son'a and Ba'ku are related.) The film's climax is scored with the action material, balanced by "sense of wonder" music similar to cues from The Motion Picture.
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
The music to NemesisStar Trek: Nemesis
Star Trek Nemesis is a 2002 science fiction film directed by Stuart Baird, written by John Logan , and with music composed by Jerry Goldsmith. It is the tenth feature film in the Star Trek franchise, and the fourth and final film to star the cast from the television series Star Trek: The Next...
was the final Star Trek score and the second to last film score composed and conducted by Jerry Goldsmith
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....
prior to his death in 2004 (not including his music for Timeline
Timeline (film)
Timeline is a 2003 science fiction action film, directed by Richard Donner. It stars Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor, Billy Connolly, David Thewlis, Gerard Butler and Anna Friel. It is based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton...
(2003), which was rejected due to a complicated post-production process). The score opens with Alexander Courage
Alexander Courage
Alexander "Sandy" Mair Courage Jr. was an American orchestrator, arranger, and composer of music, primarily for television and film.-Biography:...
's Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry, produced by Desilu Productions . Star Trek was telecast on NBC from September 8, 1966, through June 3, 1969...
fanfare, but quickly transitions into a much darker theme to accompany the conflict between the Reman and Romulan empires. Goldsmith also composed a new 5-note theme to accompany the character Shinzon and the Scimitar, which is manipulated throughout the score to reflect the multiple dimensions of the character. Goldsmith also incorporated a number of zipping, swooshing synthesizers into the conventional orchestra to illustrate the suspenseful and horrific elements of the story. The score is book-ended with Goldsmith's theme from Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first film based on the Star Trek television series. The film is set in the twenty-third century, when a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud called V'Ger approaches the Earth,...
, following a brief excerpt from the popular 1929 song "Blue Skies
Blue Skies (song)
-History:The song was composed in 1926 as a last minute addition to the Rodgers and Hart musical, Betsy. Although the show only ran for 39 performances, "Blue Skies" was an instant success, with audiences on opening night demanding 24 encores of the piece from star, Belle Baker. During the final...
" by Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
.
Star Trek (2009)
Michael GiacchinoMichael Giacchino
Michael Giacchino is an American composer who has composed scores for movies, television series and video games. Some of his most notable works include the scores to television series such as Lost, Alias and Fringe, games such as the Medal of Honor and Call of Duty series, and films such as...
, Abrams' most frequent collaborator, composed the music for Star Trek. He kept the original theme by Alexander Courage
Alexander Courage
Alexander "Sandy" Mair Courage Jr. was an American orchestrator, arranger, and composer of music, primarily for television and film.-Biography:...
for the end credits, which Abrams said symbolized the momentum of the crew coming together. Giacchino admitted personal pressure in scoring the film, as "I grew up listening to all of that great [Trek] music, and that's part of what inspired me to do what I'm doing [...] You just go in scared. You just hope you do your best. It's one of those things where the film will tell me what to do." Scoring took place at the Sony Scoring Stage with a 107-piece orchestra and 40-person choir. An erhu
Erhu
The erhu is a two-stringed bowed musical instrument, more specifically a spike fiddle, which may also be called a "southern fiddle", and sometimes known in the Western world as the "Chinese violin" or a "Chinese two-stringed fiddle". It is used as a solo instrument as well as in small ensembles...
, performed by Karen Han, was used for the Vulcan themes. A distorted recording was used for the Romulans. Varèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande is an American record label, distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums as well as newer releases by artists no longer under a contract...
, the record label responsible for releasing albums of Giacchino's previous scores for Alias
Alias (TV series)
Alias is an American action television series created by J. J. Abrams which was broadcast on ABC for five seasons, from September 30, 2001 to May 22, 2006...
, Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
, Mission: Impossible III
Mission: Impossible III
Mission: Impossible III is a 2006 spy film, the third based on the spy-themed television series Mission: Impossible starring Tom Cruise who reprises his role of IMF agent Ethan Hunt....
, and Speed Racer
Speed Racer (film)
Speed Racer is a 2008 American live action film adaptation of Tatsuo Yoshida's 1960s Japanese anime series of the same name, produced by Tatsunoko Productions. The film is written and directed by the Wachowskis...
, released the soundtrack for the film on May 5.
Theme music
- "Theme from Star Trek", theme of the original series
- "Faith of the Heart", theme of Star Trek: EnterpriseStar Trek: EnterpriseStar Trek: Enterprise is a science fiction television series. It follows the adventures of humanity's first warp 5 starship, the Enterprise, ten years before the United Federation of Planets shown in previous Star Trek series was formed.Enterprise premiered on September 26, 2001...
, released on EnterpriseEnterprise (soundtrack)Enterprise is the soundtrack for the first season of Star Trek: Enterprise. All tracks on the CD are from the pilot episode. The opening title song—“Where My Heart Will Take Me”—was sung by Russell Watson...
soundtrack album
External links
- Composers at Memory AlphaMemory AlphaMemory Alpha is a wiki that is an encyclopedic reference for topics related to the Star Trek fictional universe. Conceived by Harry Doddema and Dan Carlson in September 2003 and officially launched on December 5 of that year, it uses the wiki model and is hosted by Wikia, Inc. on the MediaWiki...
, a Star Trek wiki