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Posted: |
Jun 2, 2010 - 4:18 AM
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By: |
Bernd
(Member)
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Recently I watched the first season of Star Trek - The Next Generation ... again. I never noticed before how great most of the scores are. There´s a general sense of adventure, optimism and awe to these scores. Dennis Mc Carthy, Ron Jones, Fred Steiner and George Romanis, who worked on this season, included pretty often quotes of Alexander Courage´s fanfare and some very prominent renditions of Jerry Goldsmith´s famous Theme for the Motion Picture. These moments are important, since the public know undinieably, that it is watching a Star Trek series. When George Lazenby became James Bond, John Barry (Monty Norman´s) theme was very important to give the movie some continuity. In some episodes like "Where no Man has Gone Before" there are some very energetic and powerful cues which lend some drive to the overall rythm of the picture. In this first season the writers, actors and producers were looking for a direction, a distinctive voice. On the one hand, they experimented a lot ("Conspiracy") and on the other hand, they relied on old TOS formulars ("The Naced Now", etc.) But I think the composers found their own voice already pretty early in this very first season. As far as I remember, music of TNG´s first season is available on these releases: * Star Trek - The Next Generation: Music From The Original TV Soundtrack (Encounter At Farpoint) * Star Trek - The Next Generation: Music From The Original Television Soundtrack, Volume Two (The Best Of Both Worlds) GNP Crescendo * Star Trek - The Next Generation: Music From The Original Television Soundtrack, Volume Three (Yesterday's Enterprise, Unification, Hollow Pursuit) * Star Trek - The Next Generation: Original Soundtrack Recordings Musi by Jay Cahttaway * The Best Of Star Trek: 30th Anniversary Special! Original TV Soundtrack * The Best of Star Trek, Volume Two * Best of Science Fiction (One Track from "Skin of Evil": "Tasha´s Funeral") as a re-recording What is your opinion about these scores? Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
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Incidentally, Dennis McCarthy wrote a theme for Captain Picard in the pilot episode which recurs in future episodes ("TNG: Hide and Q", "TNG: Arsenal of Freedom"). Is this the theme McCarthy composed for the Main Titles? On the "Encounter at Farpoint" CD is an alternate but ultimately rejected Main Title cue. Quite heroic. Perhaps a bit too heroic. This theme appears in several TNG scores. I never identified it as Picard´s theme. But that´s an interesting info! In McCarthy's rejected main titles it sounds very Superman. But as he used it in other scores it's pretty terrific. Considering the "no recognizable themes" purge that went on as Berman became more in charge I'm amazed it lasted as long as it did. My most vivid recollection of it was in "Yesterday's Enterprise" when Picard is the last man alive on the bridge. That was as late as season three. I was amazed watching season one a few years back at how much more "musical" the scores were in the first season. It had almost none of the "musical wallpaper" that TNG was famous for. As the show went on the stories got much better, but the music got much worse.
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Posted: |
Jun 2, 2010 - 9:13 AM
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By: |
antipodean
(Member)
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In McCarthy's rejected main titles it sounds very Superman. But as he used it in other scores it's pretty terrific. Considering the "no recognizable themes" purge that went on as Berman became more in charge I'm amazed it lasted as long as it did. My most vivid recollection of it was in "Yesterday's Enterprise" when Picard is the last man alive on the bridge. That was as late as season three. I believe it was Bob Justman (from the team of producers) who was responsible for the music in the early seasons, so he pretty much allowed Messrs Jones and McCarthy to do their job as they saw fit. As Rick Berman's influence steadily grew as the seasons progressed, he began to clamp down on the music, asking for it to be toned down, especially electronics and percussion (which tended to interfere with the other sound effects that Berman favoured.) In all fairness, there is also a very discernable quality between the musical styles of Jones (which tended to be dramatic and exuberant) and McCarthy (who was better able to accomodate his producers' wishes), so the character of the music would alternate between one and the other between episodes. It wasn't until after Jones left and Jay Chattaway was brought in sometime in the fourth season that the style of the TNG music began to "settle down" somewhat. On the other hand, as this thread shows, many fans do notice and still remember the exuberant underscore (esp those by Ron Jones) in the first three seasons or so, which for me reached its culmination in the jawdropping cliffhanger "TNG: The Best of Both Worlds". To me that is the absolute standout score, in any genre of any series, in episodic television scoring.
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I believe it was Bob Justman (from the team of producers) who was responsible for the music in the early seasons, so he pretty much allowed Messrs Jones and McCarthy to do their job. Just the first year. Justman left at the end of season one. The music stayed pretty strong throughout the second and third seasons, probably at Roddenberry's behest. We wasn't an active producer, but he did have very strong opinions on how Star Trek should be presented. This is only a supposition, but as he stepped back due to failing health, Berman's musical preference took stronger hold. The 4th season was pretty much the turning point. Ron Jones was invited to leave and Jay Chattaway came in as his regular replacement. His third season score for Tin Man was exceptionally strong and bold - and he was asked to not do that again. As much as many fans are down on Dennis McCarthy's score for Generations (waiting for that expansion - LOL), it was the first indication of a return to the bold sound which worked so well for Trek (I'm amazed Berman even considered Jerry Goldsmith - I guess he felt the big screen was appropriate for big music) . Shortly thereafter, Deep Space Nine began to feature grand and thematic material. McCarthy adapted his action riffs from the movie in a number of battle scenes and they really made a huge difference. TNG, while a superior series, had very little money for complext visual effects, so the battles were sparse, and limited in their speed as far as model work. They truly needed bold scores to pump them up, but post-Jones episodes didn't have that and the action scenes were pretty limp for the most part. DS9 gained momentum with the music, Voyager followed suit. By the time Enterprise aired, loud, bold music was back as the norm and some really amazing work was done by McCarthy, Brian Tyler, Velton Ray Bunch, and others. Sadly, as the budget was cut in the second season, the music took a hit, but some of it was still excellent (Chattaway's Terra Prime is amazing).
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Posted: |
Jun 2, 2010 - 9:45 AM
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By: |
Bernd
(Member)
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I was amazed watching season one a few years back at how much more "musical" the scores were in the first season. It had almost none of the "musical wallpaper" that TNG was famous for. As the show went on the stories got much better, but the music got much worse. Exactly! "Musical wallpaper" describes ist very well, I guess. What I learned in this thread is, that apparently this was a demand by the producer(s). This partly explains, why especially McCarthy´s scores are much more "dramatic and exuberant" (as antipodean calls it correctly) in the first season. I don´t know if this is true, but I have the impression, that the composers treated the early episodes more like "small movies" with a "closed" musical ark including themes and motives. Perhaps it was not just the producer´s demand for more "calmer" scores, but also the great number of hours of music that McCarthy and Chattaway had to fill, that led to this "musical wallpaper" effect? The later seasons don´t seem to feature too many rememberable score. Apart from Chattaway´s "The Inner Light" of course. BUT it works nevertheless! Compared to other shows, Star trek always featured top notch scores.
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