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Twilight Zone: The 40th Anniversary Collection |
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Music Composed and Conducted by
Bernard Herrmann, Jerry Goldsmith, and Others
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It has been a good year for television music fans. With the Battlestar: Galactica Anthology set, fans have been able to get their hands on an extensive look at the music for that sci-fi series. Not to be outdone, The Twilight Zone has a major 40th Anniversary celebration in the form of a four CD set that contains a ton of music from the likes of Bernard Herrmann, Jerry Goldsmith, and many others. Silva Screen has really done an excellent job with this compilation. The sound quality is top notch and several nice features, like having several major selections from the CBS music library, and the opening title music with and without Rod Serling’s opening narrative. The first and second CDs contain a look at the musical contributions by Bernard Herrmann and Jerry Goldsmith respectively. Included on the first disc are Herrmann’s original main title sequence (which was only used for the first season), and his revised main title (which was ultimately rejected in favor of what would become the show’s famous opening sequence). His “Outer Space Suite” for the CBS Music Library is also included. Herrmann composed scores for seven episodes during his stint on the series, four of which are included in the form of suites on this CD. This music for the pilot episode (“Where is Everybody?”) was composed around the same time that Hitchcock’s Psycho was receiving its musical terror. The similarities are there, but the music never hits the same horrifying reaches that Psycho did. It goes no farther then echoing the tense music that underscored Marion Crane’s attempt to make off with the ill-gotten forty thousand dollars. In fact, that is the way the music runs on most of the shows. It never really crosses into the realm of pure horror, preferring instead to remain on the suspense mode, much like the show itself. The space music is very interesting, especially in comparisons with how sci-fi projects are scored today. The next disc contains the talents of Jerry Goldsmith, who was staff composer at CBS at the time The Twilight Zone was being produced. It was during this second season that Marius Constant wove two of his previous compositions together and came up with the theme that would remain for the remainder of the run of the show. The Goldsmith contributions on this CD are mostly Western music in nature, with the major exception of “The Invaders.” This episode took me totally by surprise when I first saw it and has since become one of my personal favorites. Goldsmith composes an otherworldly and suspenseful piece of music for this show, and it is the highlight of the second CD. The third and forth CDs feature music by various composers, most of which follow in same tense style that makes up the scores for the previous episodes. The one major exception is Nathan Van Cleave. While the use of synth became a trademark of Goldsmith scores, Van Cleave is the one who incorporated their use into his music for the series. A lot of his work is almost entirely synthesized with the Novachord and Theremin (the same synth instrument that Herrmann used so effectively in The Day the Earth Stood Still). This gives these episodes a really eerie edge to them that set them apart from the rest of the music. Though he still makes use of a small accompaniment of traditional players, the haunting synth sounds are a constant presence. This collection is very nice due to the comprehensiveness of the overview that it presents. It’s very interesting to listen to some stock library cues composed by the likes of Herrmann and Goldsmith, and this is probably the oldest Goldsmith music on CD. Twilight Zone fans are surely livid and need no prodding. However, for the rest of you out there you might want to think long and hard. With four CDs it is especially expensive, and due to the nature of the series, most of the music is dark in nature and not really something that you would want listen to very often. That said, I am still very impressed with the ambitiousness of this set and for those of you who are interested in what is contained on these four CDs you won’t be disappointed. |
See Also
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