12 - Black Orchid

Composer: Roger Limb
Director: Ron Jones

What's the score?
For this "country house murder" pastiche set in 1925, Roger Limb uses his now-familiar buzzing mid-range synth sound, but adds a piano for period flavour. Most of the cues are extremely short. As usual, Limb holds fire during expository scenes - the Doctor defending himself and the reveal of George Cranleigh's identity in Part Two - but he also maintains a reverent silence for the entire duration of the cricket match in Part One. He also gets a break during the party scenes, when stock music takes over.

Musical notes

• The party scenes that occupy much of Part One and the early portion of Part Two are set to a selection of dance tunes from the 1920s, taken from stock. The Millennium Effect website has a comprehensive list of the tunes used. Although these are used diegetically (we see the butler's hand changing the records), two of the tunes were recorded after the year in which the story was set... It's a pity the stock music couldn't have been matched to specific scenes with a bit more self-awareness - "Has Anybody Seen My Gal" (a.k.a. "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue") would have been an amusing choice for the scene in Part Two in which Charles Cranleigh asks if anybody's seen his fiancée.
• The rest of the time, Limb either buzzes and tinkles quietly in the background, or indulges in melodramatic flourishes of the dun-dun-daaa! variety - the opening cue from Part One is fairly representative. There's a hint of characterisation in the music, with low notes representing the murderous George Cranleigh and high notes the Doctor or Ann Talbot, but this isn't applied uniformly.
• A small note - Part Two features (what I think is) the first use in Limb's work of a four-note phrase to represent villainy. The actual sequence of notes changes from score to score, but the basic concept makes repeat appearances. It will play quite a large part in Limb's score for Arc of Infinity; we might associate it with tragic villainy, then, except that it also pops up briefly in Time-Flight.

Vox pop
Well, it's time to drop the mask, and I'm not talking about George Cranleigh's Harlequin costume. There isn't a lot to say about Roger Limb's music in this story, because there just isn't a lot of music; that leaves me with space to fill, which makes this a convenient point at which to address my opinion of Limb's first six scores in general.

Firstly, though, I should stress that Limb's music undergoes a radical change in his final two scores, and I'll be a lot more complimentary about those. The following remarks only concern his work 1981-83, and in no way reflect on his work 1984-85.
The problem I have with Limb's work in Seasons 19 and 20, when he dominates the musical landscape of DW, isn't that he favours a meandering compositional style with only occasionally structured cues. Nor is it that, despite the tremendous range of synthesized sounds available to him (and his contributions to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop - A Retrospective album show that he knew of their existence), he restricts himself to a narrow band of irritating waspish sounds. Either of these things would be tolerable without the other (the meandering more so than the wasps, I'd suggest). The problem is both things in combination, compounded by Limb's repeated use of the same technique six times in succession. There are brief flashes of something more - the show pieces of Kassia's theme and wedding music in Part One of The Keeper of Traken, the froggy sounds and furious march in Part Four of Four to Doomsday, the addition of the piano in Black Orchid - but they are only flashes, and they're not enough to alleviate the more general gloom.
The chief point in favour of Limb's score for Black Orchid is precisely that there's so little of it - without a stand-out cue, it simply fades into the background and lets the stock music do all the heavy lifting. Innocuous is the word for it. Limb's previous two scores were largely background affairs too, and when a scene required the music to take centre stage, he generally came through. That's not something I can say of his next three scores, which sound more like a composer at war with his client. My opinion of Roger Limb's work will eventually get better, but first it's going to get worse.

Availability

• The BBC DVD release does not include the full isolated score. The DVD photo gallery features four and a half minutes of music; however, three minutes of this are compiled from the stock music used in the story, and only ninety seconds of Roger Limb's score are included, making this the least available of all the Radiophonic Workshop's DW scores.

11 - The Visitation

Composer: Paddy Kingsland
Director: Peter Moffatt

What's the score?
Paddy Kingsland's other contribution to this season, after (or before?) Castrovalva. The DVD release of this story offers an amusing difference of opinion between composer and director. In interview with Mark Ayres, Kingsland says that Peter Moffatt was his favourite director because of the clear instructions and positive response he gave; meanwhile, on the commentary track (just as the end credits for Part Two are rolling), Moffatt announces his dislike of the "turgid" score for this story, on the grounds that its synthesized sound isn't a suitable match for the historical setting.
In an effort to match the historical setting that apparently didn't satisfy Peter Moffatt, Kingsland employs harpsichord, drum and recorder sounds. The harpsichord, together with the generally sombre tone, has the side effect of making parts of this score sound quite similar to his score for Logopolis.

Musical notes

• The cliffhanger to Part One (and its reprise in Part Two) could almost be a quote from Part Four of Logopolis - the cue that plays as the Doctor's companions find themselves cornered by the Terileptil android sounds remarkably like the cue that played as the Doctor began to fall off the Pharos telescope.
• And it's not just Logopolis breaking through in this score. The bubbling sound from Full Circle makes several repeat appearances here, generally in scenes that take place below the manor house - of the Terileptil experimenting in the control room, for example, or of any activity in the cell. The significance of this sound to these scenes is a mystery to your humble blogger.
• A prominent feature of this score is Kingsland's use of the drum in dramatic/confrontational scenes, typically in 4-beat or 5-beat phrases. Notable examples of the Fight Scene Knock can be heard during the showdown between the Squire's family and the Terileptils at the start of Part One, the woodland rumble between the TARDIS crew and the villagers in Part One, the confrontation between the villagers and the Doctor and Richard Mace in Part Three, and the big fight against the Terileptils in Part Four.
• There's another prominent theme in this score, a kind of earnest pavane, but it's not obvious whether it's supposed to stand for a particular character or group of characters. It seems to adhere to Richard Mace, but it's significantly absent from his introductory scene. It plays in several scenes that feature the mind-controlled villagers, but not consistently. It may simply be a mood piece, included for historical flavour.
• With the period setting in mind, Kingsland holds the electric guitar firmly in check, but it finally kicks in during the ruckus towards the end of Part Four.
• This week's "oo-wee-oo" moment is reserved for the very end of the final episode, as the TARDIS fades away to reveal the "Pudding Lane" street sign and the fact that the Doctor's just started the Great Fire of London. It seems to carry the force of a comic fanfare - d'oh, you've done it again, Doctor! Part Four of Earthshock will feature a similar musical moment.

Vox pop
Peter Moffatt may have overstated it somewhat, but I think it'd be fair to say that this is below average fare from Paddy Kingsland. The repeated knocking sounds are interesting, the underground bubbling sounds bewildering, the period theme pleasant if a little wearing, but mostly this score seems to meander along until Kingsland picks up the pace (and his electric guitar!) in the final minutes of Part Four. It's a comfortable fit for the story, but in isolation it's not a knockout.

Availability

• The BBC DVD release includes the full isolated score as an audio option.

10 - Kinda

Composer: Peter Howell
Director: Peter Grimwade

What's the score?
Peter Howell's only contribution to this season. The overall range and timbre of the sounds used here are pretty similar to those used in Warriors' Gate, with the experimentalism carried a bit further - the Mara is represented by weird shriekings and howlings rather than melodic cues. There's also some use of ambient atmospheres in this score - possibly from Howell rather than Dick Mills, since Mills' "time wind" atmosphere from Warriors' Gate was included and credited on the 30 Years at the Radiophonic Workshop sound effects CD, whereas the background noise of the wind chime glade from this story doesn't appear on the album. Hold onto the glade sound, it'll be making a return appearance...

Musical notes

• A couple of recurring themes stand for the Kinda in this story. The main one, which plays over various group scenes as well as over the final scene after peace has been restored, is a slow, pensive-sounding piece. Keen listeners may notice some structural similarity to that eerie cue from Part Four of Warriors' Gate. The other theme is airier and slightly more mysterious - it plays over the images of the Kinda that appear during the Doctor's hallucination in Part Three.
• The Kinda's wind chimes play an interesting part in the incidental score. They start out as a diegetic sound in Part One when the Doctor, Adric and Tegan first find them - Howell is careful to respond to the verbal/visual cues of the Doctor striking "a perfect fifth" and playing the opening notes of "Three Blind Mice". However, they seem to become part of the non-diegetic music when we get to the scenes inside Tegan's mind. It's debatable whether the chimes heard during the scene in which the Kinda tribespeople tend to the sleeping Tegan are meant to be diegetic or not.
• The mental contact between the Kinda is signalled by a breathy shimmering sound. An extended version of the sound is heard near the start of Part Four when Panna's mind merges with Karuna's. A washed-out version forms a continuous background in the scene in which the Mara telepathically directs the Kinda to help it attack the Dome.
• When Sanders opens the Box of Jhana in Part Two, there's a build-up of rising synth sounds culminating in a falling, trilling sound that could be described as, um, ecstatic. The Part Two cliffhanger relies on an element of uncertainty and possible menace about the Box, but it's hard to take that seriously when we've already heard this noise. Conversely, the cue that plays in Part Four when Hindle opens the Box and is mentally healed is strangely sinister.
• Sanders' return to the Dome in Part Two, having been mentally regressed to childhood, is announced with a cheeky snatch of "Girls and Boys Come Out to Play".
• A slightly weird moment: at the very start of Part Three, and without any obvious reference to the opening shot of the episode, the theme tune fades directly into the Box of Jhana sound. (The Doctor actually opens the Box a couple of minutes later.) It's as if Howell is suggesting that DW itself is our Box of Jhana, and we the viewers are about to be granted a revelatory vision. Sure enough, this is the episode in which we see what the characters see when the Box is opened. Still, part of me wishes this could happen at the start of every episode of DW.

Vox pop
Much as I like this score, I don't feel it's a huge departure from Peter Howell's work in the previous season. The Mara scenes are strange and unsettling, but the more melodic material, lovely as it is, feels quite familiar. Next season will see Howell's work on DW undergo a radical change; this is just a small step towards that change.

Availability

• The BBC DVD release includes the full isolated score as an audio option.
• Doctor Who - The Music included one track from this story, a one-minute cue called "TSS Machine Attacked". It's the cue from Part Four that plays when the Trickster makes Adric lose control of the TSS.

9 - Four to Doomsday

Composer: Roger Limb
Director: John Black

What's the score?
Roger Limb's second DW score is similar to his first in terms of style and timbre, but adds brassy tones for emphasis in the more dramatic moments. Setting the trend for this season, the music is broken up into shorter and more frequent cues. As with The Keeper of Traken, Limb's music becomes sparse in the latter two episodes, especially during expository scenes; he remains notably quiet while Bigon is explaining the plot to the Doctor in Part Three. When it does make itself known, however, the music in the second half of the story is a lot more assertive than in the first half.

Musical notes

• Part One opens with an establishing model shot and a bold fanfare; after this, Limb's music moves into the background for the rest of Parts One and Two.
• Several echoey, jangly cues play while the Doctor and his companions explore the laboratory in Part One. Similar echoey sounds are heard over the scene in Part Three in which Nyssa is hypnotised.
• Whenever Monarch is heard scheming or loses his temper, the music spoofs him with croaking bass synth notes, sounding something like a bassoon. It's a suitably froggy sound for an alien villain who's repeatedly described as frog-like.
• Four pieces of diegetic music feature during the cultural presentations in Parts Two and Four: didgeridoo music for the Aborigines, tuned chimes for the Mayans, clashing cymbals and drum for the Chinese dragon dance, and a fast tattoo on a tenor drum for the Greek gladiatorial contest. The Millennium Effect website identifies the Aboriginal music as coming from a 1963 BBC programme called Adventure: Quest Under Capricorn - presented by David Attenborough and with the subtitle "The First Australians", this programme can be found on the BBC iPlayer website (UK readers only!). Millennium Effect also notes the mention of The Royal Hunt of the Sun by the National Theatre on Four to Doomsday's documentation - as The Royal Hunt of the Sun was a 1964 play about 16th century Mesoamerica, it's safe to assume that this was the piece used for the Mayan dance. It's a fairly safe bet that the Greek drums and Chinese dragon music were taken from stock too.
• Unusually, Limb provides a lengthy structured cue - a kind of angry march - for the scene in Part Four in which Monarch sends his ministers to put an end to the Doctor's spacewalk. Note the frog-bassoon at the start of the cue as Monarch shouts out his orders. Because this kind of structured piece is generally so rare in Limb's work for DW, it's all the more remarkable and welcome here.

Vox pop
Like Roger Limb's previous score, this is one that I don't think I'd appreciate in isolation, but a serviceable backdrop for the TV episodes. The use of the deep croaking synths to represent the Urbankans and the echoey "space" music for early scenes in the deserted lab suggest a burgeoning sense of narrative in Limb's work, which is a pleasing development (and sadly, one that won't be followed up over the next couple of seasons). This score has a few memorable cues - the opening fanfare and the bombastic march in Part Four are the stand-outs - although overall the hit rate isn't great. Still, this is possibly the most surprising and rewarding of Limb's early scores.

Availability

• The BBC DVD release does not include the full isolated score, but does have a compilation of about six and a half minutes of Roger Limb's music over the photo gallery.
• Two tracks represented this story on Doctor Who - The Music: "Exploring the Lab", which combined the opening cues for Monarch's spaceship and the Doctor inspecting the lab with sound effects from Dick Mills; and "Nyssa is Hypnotised", from the scene in Part Three.