Composer Jerry Goldsmith has died

This came as a surprise to me, but CNN is reporting composer Jerry Goldsmith had died at the age of 75. I didn't even know he had cancer. To me, he always seemed like one of those composers that would stick around forever. Like Henry Mancini. Only like Mancini, Goldsmith proved to be merely mortal.

Science fiction geeks will mourn his passing as the man who composed the film scores for Planet of the Apes, the Star Trek films, Total Recall, The Omen and a host of others. There's a story how, during the run-up to the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the director called him in and made his rework the score, because it was lacking... something. Goldsmith was frustrated by this, but halfway through the score he realized he hadn't written a fanfare--no bold, daring "Where no man has gone before" statement in the music. So he wrote one, and it proved so popular that it evolved into the now-familiar theme from Star Trek: The Next Generation. His Planet of the Apes soundtrack, with the groundbreaking, discordant elements, proved to be so influential that to me, at any rate, it symbolizes the SF soundtrack of the 1970s. Before John Williams added the sweeping hero movements to the SF toolbox with his Star Wars work, almost every SF film seemed to feature a score that shamelessly swiped from Goldsmith's Apes work--and that's not necessarily a good thing.

He also did iconic music for Patton, The Waltons and many other movies and television programs. I like a lot of his work, dislike some, and felt that over the last decade he lost some of his creativity when composing--some of his film work sounded more by-the-numbers than inspired.

Believe it or not, my favorite Goldsmith soundtrack is Gremlins 2. Of course, I love that movie to death. Like the film, Goldsmith took the original theme and went new places with it. Turned it up to 11, so to speak. The music literally sings chaos and mayhem, while never losing its footing. The whole disc is like that--I simply cannot imagine anyone conducting these movements without having a big, goofy grin on their face. Goldsmith had to have had a great deal of fun composing this music, because the joy and exuberance comes through in every measure.

Now Playing: Jerry Goldsmith Gremlins 2 Soundtrack