Star Trek: Original Television Soundtrack, Volume Two (The Doomsday Machine, Amok Time)

I was astonished to see this music actually available. Being somany, many years since the first production date, I would hardly haveexpected to find something preserved so accurately. This is, in fact aperfect recording. The music itself is really astonishing. Ratherthan an endless trundling out of the Star Trek theme, Sol Kaplan comesup with a collection of brilliant orchestral minatures in which hedisplays an absolute and total command of large scale orchestralwriting. I would guess his major influences would be Sibelius, Mahler,and probably Richard Strauss, but you would have to also certainlyinclude Edgar Varese and possibly Jacob Druckmann. Some of his ideasappear to spring from a probably uncatalogued collection of martialthemes, but his ability to paint vivid and powerful colours is likenothing I have heard before. Some of the themes reach really deep andwill endure for many decades to come. The way he ties in the StarTrek theme itself is very clever and elegant, making quite...Read more

Yep, this CD contains the Star Trek 'battle' or 'fight' music that Joel, Crow and Tom Servo would quote during MST3K shows -- the music you think of whenever Captain Kirk, Spock and Bones are in a life-or-death struggle. The music was originally written for "Amok Time," the episode where Spock's libido goes into overdrive, and he battles Kirk "to the death" over Spock's bride.

Also on the CD is the music from "The Doomsday Machine." Not as memorable, but still good, solid movie music.

Music composers Sol Kaplan and Gerald Fried are two of the better music writers for television back in the late 1960's. Both were famous for scores for other things (Kaplan for "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" and Fried for "Gilligan's Island"), but showed that they could create music for a then new project: Star Trek.

Kaplan's score for "The Doomsday Machine" emphasized what was going on in each scene, underscoring how tension packed the episode was when it was made in 1967. (With the Special Effects that are available now, if they ever redo Star Trek, this is one episode that would seriously "amp up" the tension!!)

Fried, on the other hand, used his impressive Jazz training to show Mr. Spock in his "pon farr" state, and also to give the previously never seen before Planet Vulcan an alien atmosphere. Of course, the famous music for the fight scene between Spock and Kirk has been imitated often, but never topped.

An excellent CD for music...Read more