Goldsmith’s Masterpiece: ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’
For this episode of The Score Seeker, join me as I discuss Jerry Goldsmith’s monumental and emotional score to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, released in 1979. Primarily known as a modernist up to that point, Goldsmith decided to take a more romantic musical vein since John Williams had established that sound for Star Wars, two years earlier. But Goldsmith was not about to copy Williams, instead, he brought his immense talent and innate orchestration abilities to create an alternate way to score a space picture, melding the traditional symphony orchestra with cutting-edge electronic sounds. To that end, Goldsmith employed the work of Craig Huxley, whose “blaster beam,” an electric string instrument, was used to create the eerie and menacing sounds for the entity of V-Ger. The romantic side of Goldsmith’s score features a lavish array of leitmotifs including the passionate “Ilia’s Theme,” the chugging “Starfleet Motif,” four interrelated themes for V-Ger, and of course the now famous “Star Trek March”, which has defined the sound of Star Trek ever since its incarnation.
Composers: Jerry Goldsmith, Alexander Courage (composer: “Star Trek” theme), Craig Huxley (additional music, blaster beam), Fred Steiner (additional music)
Orchestrators: Jerry Goldsmith, Arthur Morton, Alexander Courage, Fred Steiner
Conductors: Jerry Goldsmith, Lionel Newman
“I don’t remember a score like this before Star Trek. I think this spawned a whole genre. Jerry had this style of triadic movement going and slow harmonies changing and doing deceptive cadences that became the kind of space atmosphere that got done after that.”
- David Newman
Soundtrack Albums
