Friday, July 23, 2004
Jerry Goldsmith, Musical SF hero, Rest in Peace
It's sad to read of the death of composer Jerry Goldmsith. I can't pretend I ever followed his career the way I did star-composers John Williams or Danny Elfman, but his music was often a key, enjoyable part of films and tv shows. Most people would recognize his work for the Star Trek franchise when it returned from the dead starting in the late 70s. In my early teen years, I was much more taken with James Horner's more lush, melodramatic work for Star Trek II and III--they were some of the first LPs I ever owned and, along with William's Star Wars music, primed me for classical music long before I started buying rock/pop. But now, thinking of his work for the first film (which became the theme for ST The Next Generation) and for ST Voyager, I can appreciate now how he helped give Star Trek a consistent character. (If only Enterprise had used a Goldsmith theme instead of that awful song! The whole idea of singing a drippy song with lyrics just seems so wrong after Goldsmith's stately, brass-empasizing orchestral themes which had a somewhat regal flavor.) Looking at the list of film scores he composed, I have to admit I can't remember a lot of them, but most of them are movies I saw only once. I do remember his lovely music for The Trouble with Angels, a family favorite I saw several times growing up. There his music was almost a character in its own right, a melancholy, sweet theme that expresses the theme of adolescent growth and which is used in contrast to the comic hijinx of Hayley Mills and June Harding's characters. Other highlights include A Patch of Blue, Chinatown, Planet of the Apes, Patton (talk about memorable music!) and the Alien movies.
