The Film Score Monthly Silver Age Classics series presents another long-lost science fiction score: Leonard Rosenman's stunning Beneath the Planet of the Apes. The 1970 sequel to producer Arthur P. Jacobssss' groundbreaking sci-fi allegory Planet of the Apes picks up directly after the first film ends, with astronaut George Taylor (Charlton Heston) exploring the lifeless Forbidden Zone of a planet where apes evolved from men. But Taylor soon disappears in a terrifying illusion, leaving Nova (Linda Harrison) and another human explorer newly landed on the planet (James Franciscus as Brent) to dodge gorilla patrols in Ape City and eventually stumble on a twisted civilization of underground mutants.

Taking over for Jerry Goldsmith, composer Leonard Rosenman retained the neoprimitive musical underpinnings of the ape world while creating a score very much written in his own, inimitable style. The result bridges the alien soundscape Rosenman created for Fantastic Voyage with the percussive barbarism always associated with the upside-down civilization of the ape planet. Rosenman's Beneath the Planet of the Apes is as inventive and otherworldly as Goldsmith's original Apes score, yet Rosenman's approach is in its way diametrically opposed to Goldsmith's—composed of vertically-stacked layers of sound, clanging, metallic effects, bristling, rambunctious chase music and a perverse, chaotic march for the ape army. Add to this some striking electronic effects and a bizarre choral mass written for the atomic bomb-worshipping mutants, and you have the recipe for one of the most original science fiction movie scores ever written.

For years Leonard Rosenman's Beneath the Planet of the Apes score has been available to collectors only in the form of a strange concept album released in conjunction with the movie. For this LP Rosenman was asked to rearrange his score for a smaller orchestra and add contemporary elements including electric guitar performances and rock percussion. Leavening these stylistic departures from his original score were several dialogue sequences from the film, another common practice from the old days of motion picture soundtrack albums that persists today. For the FSM Silver Age Classics release we have gone back to the original score as heard in the film in dynamic stereo sound, including every note Rosenman recorded for the movie, electronic music and sound effects (some created to sonically illustrate the mind-controlling abilities of the film's mutants) and the score's hair-raising Mass for the Bomb.

This score has never been available before in its original form, and as a bonus we've included the complete original LP arrangements and dialogue snippets, which provide a striking contrast between the score Rosenman originally wrote and its adaptation as a popular soundtrack album. It's the second musical piece in the Planet of the Apes puzzle, and a fascinating companion piece to both the original Planet of the Apes score and Leonard Rosenman's science fiction and fantasy work.