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For The Original Series this is a difficult question, but I'd say Alexander Courage is my favorite. The main title would not do it, but you take Courage's episode scores together with his library music, and he emerges as a giant. Kaplan, Steiner, Fried, Mullendore, and Duning are also giants, but Courage "wrote the book" on TOS.
For the films, TWOK makes me an automatic vote for James Horner. He was not technically the greatest, but my number of listens tells the tale.
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George Duning. Especially love his 3rd season scores wherein he used the Yamaha organ keyboard.
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Posted: |
Aug 6, 2017 - 1:25 PM
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By: |
Tom Servo
(Member)
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There's too much Trek music spread across 50 years for me to select just one and to boot, I really love pretty much all of it. I'd have to break this down by film and TV series.
For TOS, I'd probably go with Gerald Fried, with Fred Steiner as a second.
For the Star Trek features, my favorite composer would be Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner running a close second, but Jerry might win by sheer quantity.
For TNG, it would be Ron Jones, so many favorite scores such as "11001001", "The Nth Degree", "BOBW" and "Data's Day".
For DS9, it would be Dennis McCarthy, I love his theme for this series and he incorporated it beautifully over the course of 7 seasons, plus with many other standout moments, both emotional ("Life Support", "The Visitor") and action ("Way of the Warrior", "Shattered Glass")
For VOY, it would be Jay Chattaway, as I think he really made this series his own, working in the Goldsmith theme among his own, plus much of his best action music ("Scorpion").
For ENT, it would be Velton Ray Bunch, as he really proved to be a refreshing voice in the overall Trek music canon, adding some wonderfully melodic and memorable scores to this short-lived series ("Desert Crossing", "Affliction", "The Augments").
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Oh boy, this one has me written all over it.
For the original series: Sol Kaplan. He only did two scores, but they were both home runs, not a single note wasted. Both muscular, emotional, action packed and thematic. I wish he could have done more. Steiner was the shiz, but I feel Kaplan was the superior composer.
The films: Horner. His one-two punch of Treks 2 & 3 meld together into a single flowing masterwork. Beautiful music from start to finish. I love JG, but his Trek work didn't move me as much as Horner's did.
TNG: Ron Jones. He had the pulse of the characters and his dynamic style was exactly the reason he got let go.
DS9: Dennis McCarthy - thanks to his Generations score, he brought powerful scoring back to the Berman produced shows and he applied it beautifully to DS9. Some of his best, most mature Trek work is in this series.
VOY: David Bell. His Dark Frontier score is insanely good, movie level quality. Amazing work.
ENT: Jay Chattaway. All of his work for this series is exemplary. Particularly Zero Hour, Terra Prime part 2 and the mind blowingly epic battle music for Azati Prime (and WHY ISN"T THIS ON ANY OF THE DAMNED CD RELEASES??!!). Runner up: Brian Tyler. His two scores are fantastic.
EDITED to correct my d'oh re: David Bell...
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VOY: Paul Baillargeon. His Dark Frontier score is insanely good, movie level quality. Amazing work.
"Dark Frontier" was actually composed by David Bell.
I - JUST - caught that and was about to edit it. Damn, you're quick. Thanks for the backstop.
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As others have mentioned, there's so much Star Trek music now. It's more than an oeuvre; it has become a genre in itself now, like opera. Star Wars can't say that. Not even James Bond can't match the scope of Star Trek music.
Incidentally, since Jay Chattaway has been mentioned a couple of times for other things, I'd like to give a shout out to "Orchestral Suite from The Inner Light." It's pretty great.
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(I swore I posted to this.)
For TV it's Kaplan for the reasons mentioned above. Two PERFECT scores. Steiner is the runner up because he IS Star Trek. (That's how good Kaplan is that he beat Mr. Star Trek.)
For films it's either Goldsmith Horner or maybe Horner Goldsmith. Sure it took Horner two movies to do what Goldsmith did in one. And TMP is so good that TFF and all the TNG Goldsmith's can be considered "bonus material".
On the other hand I've been playing the heck out of Returning to Vulcan this week. Then the rest of TSFS. Then TWOK. Then Returning to Vulcan another four times.
Someone mentioned Giacchino. On September 8th, 2016 (Star Trek's 50th birthday) when I woke up I started my day with MG. He's a very worthy successor to Star Trek. Thank Your Lucky Stardate is tough to beat. So is That New Car Smell.
Any series should be so lucky as to have The Voyage Home as a "weak" score. It's fantastic! (But I wouldn't wish I, Mudd on any show.)
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