The Star Trek Album: (The City of Prague
Philharmonic) By 2003, it had been several years since the Silva family
of labels had released their last major, critically acclaimed collection
of science fiction film music. After the success of their "Space and
Beyond" album in 1997, they produced two sequel sets in the series (in
1998 and 2000), both very attractive. Over the course of those three
albums, the City of Prague Philharmonic performed nearly every major
piece of
Star Trek music available at the time, and while most of
it appeared on the first album in that series, there were additional
piece sprinkled throughout the two follow-up albums. All of these
double-CD sets offered interesting performances of the selections, and
while some of them were better performed than others, the overwhelming
magnitude of available re-recordings from the Prague musicians (along
with their always crisp sound quality) remains staggering. Other labels
that had recorded
Star Trek music on their own various
compilations, including the Telarc presentations of Kunzel and the
Cincinnati Pops and Varèse Sarabande releases of the Royal
Scottish National Orchestra, had already condensed their
Star
Trek recordings onto single "final frontier" album offerings. It was
only a matter of time before Silva did the same with their own
recordings from the franchise, but unlike the other two labels, Silva
had already released so many recordings of
Star Trek music that
two-CD sets were now required to feature all of it. The resulting "The
Star Trek Album" contains all of Prague's previous recordings,
most of their sound effects, and a couple of new cues to round out a
selection from the first ten feature films and four television
shows.
The inherent problem with this kind of release, of
course, is the same one that exists when Varèse Sarabande or any
other label shuffles around their re-recorded selections and releases
them again; people who already own the previous releases of these
recordings are left wondering if the price of the new set is worth
having the minimal, newly offered material. In the case of this product
from Silva, Prague offers only two new performances. For details about
each of the pre-existing recordings, seek the reviews of Silva's
previous products (there's no point in discussing them again in detail
here). On the "Space and Beyond" albums, Prague had offered identical
performances of all of these other tracks, although it should be noted
that there are some gems in that collection. The Prague recordings of
the opening titles from Goldsmith's
Star Trek: The Motion
Picture, the overture from Horner's
Star Trek II: The Wrath of
Khan, the end titles from Goldsmith's
Star Trek V: The Final
Frontier, and end titles from Eidelman's
Star Trek VI: The
Undiscovered Country (which, unlike other groups' arranged suites,
does include the rhythmic Klingon motif) are all superior and highly
enjoyable, and most of the other selections are without major mistakes.
A number of the performances of the television music represented
material that has never been released in original form, though it should
be noted that these items had already (for the most part) been recorded
by either Prague or other ensembles. If a criticism is to be had with
the addition of performances of the more recent Goldsmith scores in the
film franchise, it revolves around the fact that all of the suites from
the last three films, as well as the fifth, feature the same structure
for their end credits; thus, you end up hearing the Goldsmith's fanfare
for the original film over and over and over again.
For this new album set, Nic Raine (who regularly does a
spectacular job arranging and conducting John Barry material) personally
arranged his own suite of themes and noteworthy cues from
Star Trek:
Nemesis. Not only does this solve the problem of repeat performances
of Goldsmith's original end credit suite format, but Raine's arrangement
presents the best thematic and action music heard in
Star Trek:
Nemesis. From the eight-minute suite of this score (including the
opening title, the duel between ships at the end, and the emotional
variant of Shinzon's theme on woodwind leading into the last portion of
the end credits), you'd think that the original score is a masterpiece
in the series, and despite the shortcomings of Goldsmith's original
recording, the Prague performers whip surprising life into it here.
Likewise, the other new recording is also lively. The percussion section
brought their silverware to bang on pots and pans for the Klingon attack
sequence in
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (Horner's version
Klingon religious feast day, perhaps), a score that had previously been
omitted from Prague's
Star Trek selections. The addition of these
two cues completes the Silva and Prague presentation of
Star Trek
music and makes for one fine set. If only an instrumental version of the
"Enterprise" theme song (or perhaps some other selection of music from
that ill-fated production) could have been recorded, the album would
still have been a complete survey of the entire franchise until 2009.
The sound effects are negligible, never as interesting or true to the
shows as Kunzel's similar attempts. The greatest fault of the album is
that the cues are, for some reason, not in chronological order of the
films and shows. Otherwise, it's a noteworthy set with two fantastic new
performances that almost complete the first two ages of "Star Trek"
productions.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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The insert includes notes about the scores and films/shows, but
no extra details about the recordings.
