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THE MUSIC
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From the onset, Gene Roddenberry wanted well-conceived background music to accompany the crew of the Enterprise on their mission. In an era when science fiction typically brought to mind electronic music for atmosphere, Roddenberry felt that symphonic scores would better enhance the human experience that he was trying to relate in his show. To accomplish this, Star Trek was able to hire some of leading composers of the time to provide the memorable soundtrack to the three-year run of the series.
But . . . for what episode was each piece of music composed? Play different fans of the show a selection of the score, and, invariably, you will get different answers as to what episode that same piece of music was used. The reason for this is that Star Trek, like other television shows of its era, used music tracking when compiling the soundtrack for each season. Because there was a very limited budget set aside for the soundtrack, the music editor would reuse the score recorded for one episode in several other episodes during the series' run. This practice is not allowed today by union rules; each episode of a series must now have new music recorded for its soundtrack (except for the main and end title music).
How extensive was this practice in Star Trek? Out of seventy-nine episodes filmed (including "THE CAGE"), only thirty-four episodes had new music recorded for them. To complicate matters, the episodes were not assembled into a finished product that could be televised in the same order they were filmed. So, for example, "THE CORBOMITE MANEUVER" (episode three) contained music from "THE NAKED TIME" (episode seven) and "CHARLIE X" (episode eight) because the latter episodes were slated to be televised before the former episode. Precise documentation was kept to ensure that proper credit was given to each composer.
Star Trek drew on the talents of the following composers: Alexander Courage, Fred Steiner, Gerald Fried, George Duning, Sol Kaplan, Jerry Fielding, Joseph Mullendore, and Samuel Matlovsky.
Below is each composer's contribution to the series:
"THE CAGE"
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"THE CAGE" (AND "THE MENAGERIE")
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SOUND EFFECTS FROM THE ORIGINAL SERIES AND THE ANIMATED EPISODES
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AN EXCELLENT REFERENCE FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN THE DETAILS OF THE MUSIC FROM THE ORIGINAL SERIES THROUGH THE MOTION PICTURES, THE NEXT GENERATION, DEEP SPACE NINE, AND VOYAGER.
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