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I can’t stop listening to “Friday’s Child”. It’s just so much of what the second season was all about. Great Action licks, awesome commercial break act enders. (Cat’s Paw has great Act out music too).
I still can’t believe we’ve got all of Fried’s Trek scores and practically all of his UNCLE music too! There’s something almost jaunty or jazzy in even his serious moments. But I think the main word that comes to mind is fun!
And how about Fried’s awesome Starship flybys! The crashing cymbals and big interesting arrangements of the theme just really sell how cool the Enterprise can be.
His music is really noticeably missing in the third season, I don’t know how, but they we’re able to take a great cue like “Down the throat” and suck all the fun out it for its third season Library version.
I’m just rambling here, but I almost always go to Friday’s Child when I’m in the mood for Trek music. Or at least it seems to be my first stop in a listening marathon.
Mike
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Friday's Child is pretty near the top of Star Trek music for me--that score's got everything (except violins). And "fun" is the right word--I also think that's one reason he got left out of most of season three. The second season sense of fun, that Fried helped define, was totally absent year three.
It just occurred to me that, despite the common talk about STAR TREK composers getting typecast (eg., Duning for sensitive stories, Steiner for action...), it wasn't always so. If you listen to Friday's Child with its over-the-top dramatics, you probably don't think "This is the perfect guy to score Miramanee's touching story in The Paradise Syndrome." But Fried did turn out to be the perfect guy for it.
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I just listened to "The Paradise Syndrome" CDs back to back. First the LLL and then the Royal Philharmonic.
In the LLL, I think I'm hearing a harpsichord during Spock's climactic mind meld, although it isn't listed in the orchestra credits.
The original is of course unbeatable. "Miramanee" is better at the original tempo, as many have observed; it gets her lively youth across. "Forest Montage" is the most important cue that the Royal Phil omitted. And "Miramanee's Death" plays out more effectively in the original. I got into it and actually welled up a little. It's great.
That said, I still got tremendous enjoyment out the Royal Phil. It's a tight, highlights-only presentation, so the 20 minutes go by fast. In a sense, it's like when you skip the newly released, atonal cues in THE WRATH OF KHAN. And I'm not tired of this music as the LLL comes to a close, so the re-recording is like an encore.
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I wonder if that isn't an electronic effect, though it's pretty darn close to a harpsichord.
I agree with pretty much everything else you said. Both recordings are essential for me too, for the reasons you state, and are perhaps topped only by the rerecords for The Empath and the one Tribble track. Those are great fun as well and terrific complements to the originals.
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From season three scores only, what would you say was one most often heard tracked into other episodes?
I think SPOCK'S BRAIN and THE ENTERPRISE INCIDENT are co-winners of that honor.
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Yes, and Steiner obviously recorded a version of the battle music specifically for library use. But after "Elaan" there really isn't a sustained space battle (one of many reasons "Elaan" is one of the high points of season three for me) in the series.
Just a note--Fred Steiner didn't rerecord Paradise Syndrome, that was Tony Bremner for Label X. Steiner recorded Charlie X, Mudd's Women, the climax of The Doomsday Machine, Mirror, Mirror, Trouble With Tribbles, By Any Other Name and The Empath for Varese Sarabande Records.
All four re-recording CDs are keepers. They're not obsolete; they're alternates and still on my iPod.
Speaking of battle music: I would never trade away the existing WRATH OF KHAN, so dear to my heart, but if Fred Steiner had gotten that movie, he would have scored some kick-ass space combat.
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The two Varese/Steiner re-recordings are excellent. To be expected, with George Korngold producing. The Bremner recordings are very good too.
The only parts I'm not keen on are the two Fielding scores. While all the others lend themselves nicely to the bigger, lusher orchestral treatment, I think the Fielding ones are the exception and sound overblown.
The Royal Phil's "Spectre of the Gun" is odd because their player piano was missing a note due to a mechanical defect. But their "Trouble with Tribbles" (via Fred Steiner) sounds good to me, better than the OST. Another one where I outright prefer the re-recording is "The Corbomite Maneuver."
In a STARLOG interview (August 1991), Gerald Fried was very happy with Bremner's suite from "The Paradise Syndrome." As am I, but I've got to have both versions.
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