Music
Bear McCreary is the primary composer for the television series, having assisted Richard Gibbs on the 3-hour miniseries. When the show was picked up, Gibbs opted not to devote full-time to the regular series' production and McCreary became the composer. He scored over 70 episodes. Six Battlestar Galactica soundtrack albums have been released to great critical acclaim - one for the miniseries, one for each of the four seasons, and one combining music from the inter-season Razor and post-finale prequel The Plan. The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan hailed the music as "sensational" and "innovative", Joanna Weiss of The Boston Globe praised McCreary as a "visionary composer" who did much to create "the rich atmosphere of Battlestar", Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger described McCreary's work on the show as "transcendent" and Variety said "Galactica offers some of the most innovative music on TV today."
The music of Battlestar Galactica displays a wide variety of ethnic influences and intentionally tries to avoid the "usual" style of a science fiction score. For some of the series' more important episodes, McCreary was granted a full orchestra. Character themes and leitmotifs gradually took on importance, despite being avoided earlier. A variety of ethnic instruments have been used. One season 4 episode employed: Chinese membrane flute, Indian bansuri flute, duduk (Armenian woodwind), erhu (Chinese violin), yialli tanbur (a Turkish lute), dumbek (Middle Eastern drum), Japanese taiko drums and four brass players, 30 string players and a 12-voice choir.
There have been several live concerts featuring the music of Battlestar Galactica. In April 2008, more than 1,000 fans attended two sold-out shows at L.A.'s Roxy on Sunset Boulevard, with some fans flying in from as far as England and Australia. A ballet based on McCreary's scores for Galactica premiered on March 7, 2009 for a 13 week run. Entitled "Prelude to War", it was performed by the dancers of the Theaterhagen in Hagen, Germany with choreography by Ricardo Fernando, and the Hagen Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bernhard Steiner.
Read more about this topic: Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV Series)
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“If I could believe the Quakers banned music because church music is so damn bad, I should view them with approval.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“If music in general is an imitation of history, opera in particular is an imitation of human willfulness; it is rooted in the fact that we not only have feelings but insist upon having them at whatever cost to ourselves.... The quality common to all the great operatic roles, e.g., Don Giovanni, Norma, Lucia, Tristan, Isolde, Brünnhilde, is that each of them is a passionate and willful state of being. In real life they would all be bores, even Don Giovanni.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“In benevolent natures the impulse to pity is so sudden, that like instruments of music which obey the touch ... you would think the will was scarce concerned, and that the mind was altogether passive in the sympathy which her own goodness has excited. The truth is,—the soul is [so] ... wholly engrossed by the object of pity, that she does not ... take leisure to examine the principles upon which she acts.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)