34 - Revelation of the Daleks

Composer: Roger Limb
Director: Graeme Harper

What's the score?
Once again Roger Limb is assigned to score a story directed by Graeme Harper - the last time either of them would work on DW during its original run. Limb builds on his previous score, adapting elements from The Caves of Androzani and adding to them, creating something bigger and more adventurous. Plaintive and ethereal high synth sounds form the bedrock of this score.

Musical notes

• Revelation of the Daleks is quite an operatic story, with its characters undergoing various grandiose tragedies, killing each other off or commenting on the action as if standing in for the chorus. Here, Limb takes the synth moaning sounds he used on The Caves of Androzani and ramps them up into exaggerated wails; these operatic wailings punctuate his score, usually signalling moments of shock or sudden violence.
• Once again, Limb uses shuffling snare drum beats to liven up action scenes - everything from the gunfights in the catacombs in Part One down to the Doctor being apprehended by the Daleks early in Part Two. Snares and wails combine in the scene in Part One in which the Doctor wrestles with a mutant; as they tumble down a hill, Limb also sets his high-end synth notes tumbling.
• Character sounds are plentifully used here, more so than is usual in a Limb score. A rattling tambourine sound seems to represent the bodysnatchers, based on its use throughout most of Part One, but its reappearance in scenes such as the Part One cliffhanger and the face-off between Kara and Orcini in Davros' lair in Part Two suggest it's actually a signature sound for the Tranquil Repose mortuary. It may be meant to generally signal underhand dealings at Tranquil Repose. 
• Other character sounds include the growling, snarling sting used for Davros and the Daleks; the "Last Post" phrases performed in synth trumpet when Orcini reminisces about his days in the Grand Order of Oberon, and when he asks the Doctor to return his medal to them; and the rather lovely Laurel and Hardy stuff that plays when the double act of Takis and Lilt interact with the officious Tasambeker.
• Lovelier still are the mournful melodies that lead into the Doctor's apparent death at the end of Part One and into Jobel's death scene in Part Two. Picked out in high synths with soft beats, these are real standout cues. The Part One cliffhanger is picked up in Part Two with the cheeky tolling of a funereal bell (not the cloister bell, it should be noted), another nice touch.
• I've got a real soft spot for the sound used for the DJ's "concentrated beam of rock an' roll!" which he uses to blow up a couple of Daleks. (Presumably this is Dick Mills' work rather than Limb's - either way, it's included in the isolated music track on the DVD.) It's an almighty howl of feedback - surely the best and aptest sound ever used for a sonic weapon in DW.
• Speaking of the DJ, the Millennium Effect website has the full details of the pop songs used in his scenes elsewhere in the story.

Vox pop
Although this isn't quite the last hurrah for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, it feels like the end of an era. It's the end of the last season to be musically dominated by the Workshop - next season, the freelancers take over. Happily, Roger Limb is on the top of his game here, and Season 22 goes out on a high note. So does Limb - he started on DW on a story that suited his abstract leanings, he went through a prolonged lull during Peter Davison's tenure, but he bows out with as fine a score as any produced during these five years under the Workshop, finer even than his work on The Caves of Androzani. Paired with the right director, he might have gone on to even greater heights.

Availability

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