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The long-running british show
Doctor Who,
besides those memorable electronic main titles written by Ron Grainer,
never had music that deserved too much attention from us. This reality
changed in 2005 with the arrival of an updated phase supervised by
Russell T. Davies and with Murray Gold in charge of brand new
arrangements for Grainer’s theme and to provide scores for every single
episode. It was a big change indeed, and since then the show’s music was
featured at two highly sucessfull BBC concerts.
Murray’s musical voice became an inseparable part of the new
Doctor Who;
over four seasons both the main characters and the villains (these
usually members of a vast gallery of aliens) were given their own themes,
and some episodes began to be remembered also for its scores and songs.
Gold’s work became so competent and popular that he was one of the few
team members who were held by Steven Moffat when he assumed the post of
Davies for series five.
And Gold, surprising to many, literally scored again: almost totally
discarding his previous material, mainly associated with the 10th Doctor
(David Tennant), he created a whole new set of melodies and themes to
mark the arrival of a new lead actor, Matt Smith, and the new companion
Amy Pond, played by Karen Gillan. When the series five was realeased
Moffat stated that it would be a dark fairy tale, and that aspect is
undoubtedly reflected in the harmonies and orchestrations, as you can
hear in this new 2 CD set album from Silva Screen’s
Doctor Who
series.
The album starts with "Doctor Who XI", Gold’s newest, cadenced and
electronic arrangement for Ron Grainer’s classic, which serves as an
introduction to the new age of the show. It is followed by music that
underscores the first meetings between the Doctor and Amy, where we can
notice a whole sense of
Alice in Wonderland
- for instance in “The Mad Man with a Box” the girl is not given the
antics of a Mad Hatter but the Time Lord ongoings are as much equivalent.
Because there is a threat that comes with Amy since her childhood, and
it is related to the Doctor, soon the wonder and excitement present in
the music will give room to more dark and dangerous tones.
"I Am The Doctor" is the season’s main theme. Driven initially by the
string section, and slowly joined by horns, woodwinds, bass and guitar,
it conveys the strength and determination of the main character, as well
his irreverent and pixilated side. It will be recurrent in the album,
which features an adequate musical representation from all 13 series
five episodes. The theme will become more epic at the chapters that
close the season’s main arc, "The Pandorica Opens" and "Big Bang". They
also feature the return of bad guys Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Judoon
and Sylurans, in an attempt to finally defeat their sworn enemy the
Doctor. Here Gold obviously had a chance to revisit the material he had
previously created for the aliens, opposing it to the new incarnation
of the hero.
By the way the cues dedicated to these events occupy most of disc 2, and
are undoubtedly the album’s highlights. Filled with emotional moments
and orchestral grandeur they do converge all the musical ideas of the
season, taking it to a closure that proves the composer’s high level
work, superior even to the vast majority of contemporary science-fiction
or action motion picture soundtracks.
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