Star Trek, Volume Two: Newly Recorded Music from Selected Episodes of the Paramount TV Series (Mirror, Mirror / By Any Other Name / The Trouble with Tribbles / The Empath)

If you're worried that Newly Recorded means it will sound wrong, relax. Fred Steiner, who composed this music in the late 1960s, has reproduced the original orchestrations and arrangements faithfully enough to satisfy the most demanding Star Trek fan. And when this goes out of print, it will be a big bucks collectible.

The main reason for the purchase of this collection of music from the original series is the inclusion of excerpts from George Duning's beautiful score to "The Empath." His music for the episode is comparable to the melodies that he composed for the both the installment "Metamorphosis" and the feature film "Picnic."

Fred Steiner's contributions for "By Any Other Name" and "Mirror, Mirror" are further examples of why "Trek," like no other show at the time, so effectively intertwined music in its storytelling.

Thankfully, only a snippet of the score to "The Trouble with Tribbles" is heard. When listening to the entire CD, I skip this one entirely.

Overall, however, "Volume Two" is a worthy successor to the first on the Varese-Sarabande label.

This is "classic" Star Trek music at it's best. I have all the Star Trek soundtracks and this is one of my favorites. Track 5 "Mirror, Mirror..." is one of the most identifiable Star Trek queues ever written. I like to call it the Star Trek "drama" theme and it was used in many episodes whenever there was something dramatic happening. This song along makes it worth the price of the CD, but all tracks are outstanding and sound quality is excellent. I wish there had been a Volume 3 in this series.