Scoring Star Trek Part 13: George Duning - Metamorphosis
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- Опубліковано 24 кві 2023
- The softer side of Star Trek TOS. "Metamorphosis" is an unexpected love story, and its music had to be of an entirely different order. Colombia Pictures' veteran George Duning more than delivers with one of the most sophisticated yet beautiful scores of the series.
Even with this video's length (almost 25 minutes!) I still couldn't cover it all, and the ending Killer Cue real may have a few surprises.
Duning is at the very top of musical score writers of all time. I have admired his work in may other examples.
Very much appreciated. Thank you.
I love his music for The Big Valley.1965.
For the past few days, I have been playing a theme from this episode, again and again, in my mind. Then I find this!
I agree - this episode stands out as something completely different from the rest of the series, and so - appropriately - does its musical score. The music with which which Commissioner Hedford appears merged with the Companion is simply magical, pure as true love's confession.
Setting phasers to stunned!
Great analysis! FUN FACT: Bob Justman so loved Dunning's work so much that he commissioned George to compose the main theme & episode score for his next project, the pilot episode of Then Came Bronson. I'm looking forward to your future videos! ❤
Your videos make me fall in love with these scores all over again.
Mission accomplished 👌
brilliant stuff David -- "Metamorphosis" is one of my favorite TOS episode mainly b/c of Duning's score and the dreamy like qualities of the planetoid. The score really is one of the best in television history, as you say. Thanks again for your efforts in putting this together - been looking for something like this and about Duning for a long time.
Brilliant breakdown of the best episodic score from any ST series. So melodic, so atmospheric, so central to the emotional impact of the story. Thanks for this video.
Thank you for checking it out. 🖖
Excellent ....Metamorphosis is one of my favorite scores from Star Trek. So heartfelt and tender,you can feel its emotional depth :)
Love, strange love, a star-woman teaches.
Right? Ha ha
The best episode of the show I ever saw.
A beautiful and totally unique love story.
Wonderful analysis, David. Nice to see others who appreciate the quality of the music in this particular episode. Guning's composition here stands alone within STTOS. Thanks for taking the time to discuss this gem.
Appreciate that. And it was a pleasure. Win/Win!
About the same time Star Trek was running on NBC, George Dunning also did the score for The Big Valley on ABC, and all the scene music for the first three seasons, then Lalo Schifrin took over.
omg, I've been searching for this channel for years, *and here it is.* Thank you so much!
David, I missed you! Love your work and the information you bring to each of these. I see, or hear, the music in a different light after each of your videos. Duning was a genius, but the way the show's editors used the music for other episodes was brilliant too! Looking forward to more...
Wow, David, that was a lot of work! Thanks so much for all the insights! (And congrats on the ever-increasing editing skills.) If there were a way to up the volume on the musical pieces, that would be the one thing that would perfect the presentation. Thank you again for this!
Ah, appreciate the input. Thanks for watching!
Some really famous major orchestra players -- Jesse Ehrlich, Virgina Majewske, Edgar Lustgarten (formerly in the NBC SO under Toscanini).
There were truly some great musicians playing on Star Trek! William Criss had been principal oboe of the Met Opera orchestra, and clarinetist Mitchell Lurie played principal in the Chicago Symphony.
Another great episode score
I was so looking forward to your take on this episode and this score. I just think it’s as good as it gets.
Agreed. Top notch.
It was a good love score. As I said in the previous day's posted video, it reminded me of "Return to Tomorrow" (which I preferred) where Sargon takes over Kirk's body and his wife, Thalassa, takes over a woman's body and they kiss at the end. That was done by Duning, too! I just found a picture of a "Volume 6" of Star Trek soundtracks that has both as well as Duning's score for "Patterns of Force."
@@sandal_thong8631 …Return To Tomorrow’s score is drop-dead gorgeous. The Duning scores for Trek are my favorites. ‘Is There In Truth No Beauty’ and ‘The Empath’ are knockouts as well.
I'm looking into digging into all of them. Gem's theme - 'nuff said.
@@davidpage9355 …I had heard a long time ago that The Empath was the first time a Hollywood composer had used a Yahama Electone E-3 organ (…a prototype that he’d gotten from Japan…) on any score. I can’t be sure but it sounds similar to the electronic instrument he used in ‘Is There In Truth No Beauty’. It fascinates me someone in his late 40’s, known for lush scoring, was that much on the cutting edge with new technology.
This one blew me away. First, a reminder that Picnic, one of my absolute favorite movie scores, was written by this same composer. His preference for melodic intervals of the seventh and the ninth makes his melodies so heart wrenching.
This was one of my least favorite scores... but your video is amazingly produced and provides so much information. Great work!!
Appreciate that. Thanks!
Gonna show this one to my mom today. She was trained in music, loves this episode, and got me into classical music & soundtracks when I was very little. She's unfortunately been dealing w/memory loss & collateral depression/anxiety, but I find when I can get her engaged w/music her cognitive abilities snap right back. So.. thanks for helping out today! 🖖
"... when I can get her engaged w/music her cognitive abilities snap right back." That is a wonderful act. You are a good son.
Thank you for your work! I've always thought of the TV music as a character that got left out of the movies and I missed it. The movie music was great, but it was like watching star wars with a Danny Elfman score; it just wasn't the same.
Again, thank you thank you for your analysis and insights 😊
It's a pleasure. Thank you for checking it out!
So true....the musical scoring in the series was so important to story impact and very memorable.....the movie music just didn't have that. Absolutely loved what George Duning brought to TOS. Also loved Alexander Courage's work in the first season 'The Naked Time'.
Just discovered your channel. I don’t know music from a hole in the ground but I enjoy listening to the craft behind it. Duning is my favorite TOS composer. Incidentally my grandmother also trained at Cincinnati conservatory.
Fascinating as per usual. I'll admit that it wasn't until I started watching your clips that I learned that it was "leitmotif" and not "light motif" - I'd only ever heard it spoken before. And yes, the thing that I was thinking of before I watched this clip, George Duning was the only composer to really make big use of strings in his scores. Even Gerald Fried's romantic theme from "Shore Leave" has a flute providing the melody.
The excerpts you've picked do foreshadow a lot of Duning's other scores on the show - his main theme from "Return To Tomorrow" is very similar to this one, and there's a moment in "And The Children Shall Lead" reminiscent of the Companion's attack on Kirk & Spock, and also when Cochrane first calls to them, there's something similar in "The Empath" - his fingerprints are very recognisable. I know I might have sounded a little critical of his work on some of my other comments but that's not how I meant to sound.
I've talked elsewhere about his music in season 2 not getting much reuse, and I realised why I haven't spotted a lot of it before when I saw the Killer Cues section at the end of here. Some of it was reused on episodes that were not only aired before it, but had their own original scores by other composers! "Amok Time" and "I, Mudd" were both aired before this episode (despite being made after it), and so I assumed the establishing cue for the former was by Gerald Fried. And then "The Trouble With Tribbles" had new music by Jerry Fielding. As for "The Gamesters Of Triskelion" and "A Piece Of The Action", they use tracked music but they don't credit anyone for it whatsoever - I guess the mix of composers was so even that there wasn't one name that really fit on the credit? (This also happened with "Bread And Circuses", "Assignment: Earth" and "The Omega Glory" although that last one did have one brand new cue by Fred Steiner).
Random question, not really relevant but my own curiosity, did you source the clips from an edited version of the episode or did you make an edit yourself? I'm sure there was some dialogue from Cochrane skipped, when he sees Nancy Hedford for the first time, I remember his line "a woman, and a beautiful one at that" - and I seem to recall her snapping at him for it - which is fair enough from her perspective, although at the same time, from his perspective he's been on his own for 150yrs, he can't help thinking and expressing the thought! But I digress. (Also I'm trying to think who Eleanor Donohue reminds me of in appearance, possibly Barbara Parkins but I can't be certain.)
-Liam.
You're right about the "weight" as to which composer had the majority of cues tracked - it was only when there was a clear "winner" (bad term, but you know what I mean) that the "Additional Music" credit was shown, as far as I can tell anyway.
To your question - you have a very good eye to catch my edits of the Cochrane line! She mostly rolled her eyes at his comment. I ran the clip twice in the video. The first time (14:24) it was clipped to make the Courage theme line up with the end of my clip, and in the KC section it was because the tracked version from "Tribbles" was shortened slightly, so I had to fudge the two to make them line up in the 2-frame portion. It happened to be pretty much at the same spot.
And hey! Glad I was able to teach something about leitmotif!
@@davidpage9355 fair enough. I think there's about 3 factors that helped me spot the edit:
1 - I have a better than average memory
2 - it's the kind of line that sticks in the mind
3 - back when I originally got the VHS tapes, one episode ("The Changeling") was an edited version, I had a book listing among other things the syndication cuts for each episode and the missing parts matched. I remember complaining to the video company about it. When the DVDs came out, I watched that episode with a very keen eye and was relieved to see it was uncut this time!
As for the tracked music credits, I get you. Most of the season 2 episodes credited someone or other (sometimes shared between two names), but the five episodes I listed don't have any whatsoever, so I suppose there's just a little bit of too many names without one specific dominant fingerprint on the episode to justify it? I've talked about the problem with season 1's music credits already. The season 3 credits are the most accurate to my ears - the fact that Fred Steiner dominates in spite of George Duning contributing more original scores to the season probably makes it easier, there's so many cues to recognise! Back in my teens I would watch the episode and think to myself whose name would appear on the music credit, and didn't get a single tracked episode wrong in season 3 (the only ones I couldn't identify were the original scores for "The Enterprise Incident" because I didn't know Alexander Courage had returned, and "Spectre Of The Gun" because it was so episode-specific and Jerry Fielding's other score, "The Trouble With Tribbles" wasn't enough to give me his fingerprint).
I think he meant that companion/commisioner hedford rise/fall as a call & answer or echo/reflection, suggesting both characters (companion rising/hedford falling) in each phrase of the melody.
'Nancy Sobs' is for me the most evocative cue in the series. It's also obvious you're hooked on Donald Fagen :-).
Yep, big Dan Fan here!
It's amazing what a tapestry the scoring for Star Trek episodes was! If you were to pull out one composer and his work, the thread would unravel so many other episodes' scores.
"The Gamesters of Triskelion" was so good with sound cues from "Amok Time" and "Metamorphosis," in my opinion a better episode than the ones the music came from.
On the other hand, I think there was a reason some composers did a "one-off," only scoring one episode. (I think you have to have a hit to be called a "one-hit wonder," just as the title character in _Tootsie_ said you had to have been famous in order to be a "has-been".) And their music might not have gone on to be used as cues in many more episodes. I wasn't impressed with Sam Matlovsky's "I, Mudd" score, or Joe Mullendore's "The Conscience of the King" score. Except for the latter's one love theme, "Lenore's Kiss," that was reused to better effect introducing Edith Keeler. But it didn't change the episode, and since "The City on the Edge of Forever" was partly scored by someone else (Fred Steiner) around the song "Goodnight Sweetheart," they could have come up with something to replace Mullendore's cues if they hadn't existed.
You make a great point about the "tapestry" of music. Exactly true. Duning's "You Loved Me" set to the final shot of Shana looking into the camera, the tear forming and falling as she says "...and remember" just gets me every time! Perfect music editing.
And your comment about "Lenore's Kiss" in "City ..." Fred Steiner composed and recorded cue M33 "Edith's Theme" to be used in the cellar scene, but it had enough components of "Goodnight Sweetheart" in it, and Justman didn't want it heard that early in the show, so it was cut and Mullendore's cue was tracked in its place!
What a way to check someone's ego, huh?
@@davidpage9355 In 'City on the Edge of Forever' I loved the use of the minor motif of 'Goodnight Sweetheart' with the ascendant violin line at the end as the scene cut back to the planet where it all began. Perfect scoring to convey the emotion of Edith's tragic demise and Captain Kirk's extreme despair. Just brilliant....
Hi Mr page.love your UA-cam channel.mr duning also did some music.from a tv western show called the big valley.if you didn't know.
Thanks for the comment. Yes, I saw that Duning had done The Big Valley - a show I watched regularly back in the day! That melody still keeps that "rise and fall" approach, but a bit more subtly than the other samples, I thought. That's why I didn't include it. But great to know that so many, like you, do know and appreciate what Duning and so many other composers created! Keep on watching.
I have always loved the Star Trek Fan Fair that you used on this video post on your opening credits at 1:46. Who is that by?
That was Gerald Fried from his score for "Friday's Child". It debuts as the cue "Captain's Log" early in the episode as a more subdued arrangement, but the full version here is at the conclusion of the show, as the cue ""Godfathers". After Kirk and Bones had bragged on how the child had been named after them "Leonard James Akaar" and Spock turns in disgust saying they both will be insufferably pleased with themselves for at least a month. And it was tracked several times later. The actual recording I'm using was from "A Piece Of The Action" right at the end after Kirk says "In a few years the Iocians may demand a piece of OUR action!"
@@davidpage9355 THANK YOU! I love that cue. It was also used and modified in 'The Changeling' in the beginning of the episode.
Ddin't Duning also score for _Patterns Of Force_ ?
Sure did. The several march cues called "Military Mite". It was just those pieces, a partial score and the rest was tracked.
@@davidpage9355 Considering that the majority of Duning's ST scores are sensitive, romantic, even a partial for _Patterns_ , Duning channels his inner Kaplan because _Patterns_ is more like a Kaplan episode.
@@josephheston9238 that's an interesting thought - I've found myself thinking the same thing about "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" in season 3 - as well as the fact that the music when Marvick goes mad in that episode is to season 3 what Gerald Fried's famous cue from the fight in "Amok Time" is to season 2, the season's stock "fight music".
Come to think of it, maybe that's why Duning gave us three original scores in season 3 and Fried only one and Kaplan none at all, maybe the producers felt that Duning had the qualities of both of them. I still missed Kaplan in season 3 though (and was so happy at the end of the final episode "Turnabout Intruder" when a bit of Kaplan's music from "The Doomsday Machine" made a brief appearance).
@@josephheston9238 I just remembered something I forgot to say before - Pattrens Of Force does make use of Sol Kaplan's music from "The Doomsday Machine" in the early part of the episode so that may be what made you think of Kaplan for it. As David says, the military march cues are the only original music for the episode, and it's pretty generic to the subject matter and of course very episode-specific, it was never going to have any reuse anywhere else.
Are your transcriptions available?
Not at this time. I may need to look into it however. I get asked that a lot. Unsure of what possible copyright issues are involved, etc.
Are these your own transcriptions, as derived using your own ear? Did you have any access to original score sheets from over 50 years ago? Your scores here do look good.
Thanks.
They are. I have no access to the original scores, but work from the soundtrack Collectors Set. The artwork lists the orchestra roster for each recording (except "The trouble With Tribbles", unfortunately). So it's a big help to hear just the music, and also to make arrangement decisions based on the instrumentation listed. That said, I wouldn't say I've gotten everything right! But thanks for mentioning it. They take a lot of enjoyable hours.
where did you get the sheet music from?
I transcribe the scores (near as I can - there could be some errors) using MuseScore. It takes enjoyable hours to do! I'm mid-60s and have some time on my hands. Helps keep the brain sharp, plus I think my own sight-reading skills have improved!