31 - The Mark of the Rani

Composer: Jonathan Gibbs
Director: Sarah Hellings

What's the score?
The task of composing the incidental music for this story was originally given to freelance composer John Lewis. Lewis wasn't a completely out-of-left-field choice - he'd worked with Brian Hodgson, recently returned to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, on a couple of experimental albums back in the 1970s under the band name "Wavemaker". Sadly, Lewis succumbed to a terminal illness while working on The Mark of the Rani, and he died with only the first half of his score completed. His music went unused, but his commissioning marks another step in DW's transition from the Radiophonic Workshop to freelance composers.
Jonathan Gibbs was now brought in to score this story in addition to Vengeance on Varos. As he explains in the "Lords and Luddites" documentary on the DVD, Gibbs didn't listen to Lewis' music before composing his own. Presumably director Sarah Hellings indicated which scenes she wanted music on, but Gibbs' score for Part One covers more scenes than Lewis'. Lewis' cues are fewer but longer, and all fall on scenes that Gibbs also scored. In another DVD extra, "Playing with Time", Gibbs explains how he used visual cues instead of a click track in order to make the rhythm of his music more fluid.

Musical notes

• The bucolic opening cue of Part One sets the tone for much of the score, with mid-range synth chords and brassy accents. It's picked up again early in Part Two and reprised in the final cue at the end of the story. The "paa pa-paa" brass phrase is used at various points to represent the Killingworth miners. The sound of brass instruments has long been a form of soundtrack shorthand for "t' North", a musical stereotype based on the popularity and perceived universality of community brass bands in working class industrial towns in Britain, particularly colliery bands in mining communities.
• But the trios of brass notes in these cues take the Northern (or rather, "t' Northern") associations still further. Their "paa pa-paa" rhythm calls to mind the second movement of Dvorak's Symphony no. 9 ("From the New World"), or "Goin' Home" as it's widely known thanks to William Arms Fisher. This classical piece, specifically as arranged for brass instruments, is forever linked to "t' North" in the British consciousness thanks to a long-running TV advert for Hovis wholemeal bread, which featured a delivery boy on his bike in an industrial town (actually filmed in the very Southern county of Dorset!) and a "t' Northern" accented voiceover. The pitch of the notes in Gibbs' cue is wrong for the Dvorak piece - too high - but then the Hovis ad arrangement was higher still.
• The opening cue ends with the Rani's signature phrase, three notes in a high-pitched, kind of strained synth voice. It sounds a bit like the horn synth squeezed up an octave. It's jarringly out of line with the rest of the cue, which helps to point out the alien nature of the Rani, and her phrase is heard several times during the story. 
• The Master, meanwhile, is represented by a deeper horn sound. During his first few scenes in Part One, he has his own signature phrase, an inquisitive four note sequence (the Four Notes of Villainy again!) that sounds not dissimilar to the Rani's theme.
• More otherworldly sounds mark out the signs of the Rani's interference in history. Sightings of the titular Mark itself are accompanied by a tinny jangling sound. There's a harsher high-pitched buzzing chime effect for the Rani's mind-controlling grubs. In Part Two, as she plants her metamorphic landmines in Redfern Dell, Gibbs plays an up-and-down clockwork sound.
• It's well worth listening closely during the scene near the end of Part One in which the Rani discovers the Doctor, masquerading as a miner, among the unconscious humans in her laboratory. As she leans over the Doctor to listen for his Time Lord heartbeats, Gibbs provides a bass synth heartbeat sound, while over the top of this he plays the four-beat rhythm of the DW theme tune bassline disguised in the miners' brass tones.
• We have not one but three "oo-wee-oo" moments in the lead-up to Part One's cliffhanger - two high and fluting renditions as the TARDIS is wheeled to the mineshaft and tipped in, and a more plaintive one as the Doctor himself hurtles towards the shaft on a trolley.
• The DVD release includes the option to watch Part One with a reconstruction of John Lewis' score in place of Gibbs' music. It's quite downbeat and very folky compared to Gibbs' pastoral horns and synths, although perversely Lewis' score feels heavier on the synths as well. Signature sounds range from high fluting organ tones for the Doctor, through a sort of oboe/theremin hybrid for the Rani, to a low harpsichord for the Master. Lewis' musical voice is a very distinctive one, and it's a real shame he didn't get the chance to add it to this season's diverse choir of composers.

Vox pop
It's hard to pick a favourite of Gibbs' four DW scores, but I think I like this one the most. Like all his scores, it rewards close and repeated listening, but it's also quite accessible. It's interesting to see what's changed - and what hasn't - in his compositional style since he started working on DW two years earlier.
And with that, we bid farewell to another composer. Jonathan Gibbs' body of work on DW is of a consistently high quality, and although his interests at and since this time lay elsewhere, it's a pity he couldn't have stuck around just a little longer.

Availability

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

30 - Vengeance on Varos

Composer: Jonathan Gibbs
Director: Ron Jones

What's the score?
Jonathan Gibbs was working on the score for this story when he was suddenly given The Mark of the Rani to work on as well. As if this weren't pressure enough, Gibbs reveals in the "Lords and Luddites" documentary on the DVD release of The Mark of the Rani that he had no designated studio of his own at the Radiophonic Workshop at this time, and was using Peter Howell's equipment in overnight shifts in order to complete his assignments. Either circumstance could explain why both scores run shorter than the usual, just over 30 minutes for each story.
Vengeance on Varos provides Gibbs with a futuristic setting to work with, so - as with Warriors of the Deep - conventional melodies are out of favour and unconventional sounds are in. Some of those unconventional sounds will be pressed into use again to signify alien elements in the next story.

Musical notes

• In keeping with the story's desolate setting, Gibbs' score is a frequently bleak affair, with plenty of quiet sustained whines and little metallic flourishes. One notable feature in the more tense moments of Part One is the use of a rattling four-beat rhythm, either with or without a synth tone laid over the top.
• Another prominent recurring element is the Governor's pompous fanfare in synth horns. Vengeance on Varos takes place in a brutal offworld regime where scenes of science fiction characters in violent and dangerous situations are recorded and sold on for the entertainment of the folks back on Earth... It's pushing the point hugely, but it's worth it for a laugh - is anyone reminded of the fanfare BBC Video were using in 1985? The connection wouldn't be out of place in such a knowing, self-aware story as this one.
• Gibbs tackles the hallucinatory scenes of monsters in the Punishment Dome in Part One with some relish. The second instance is the more notable - as the Doctor, like a showman, reveals how a false monster has been conjured up with a pair of lamps and a manufactured stench, Gibbs launches into a lurid piece of fairground calliope music. The first instance, the encounter with an apparently gigantic fly, is accompanied by loud buzzing synths; when the actually tiny fly is revealed, a tinny buzzing sound effect is added to the soundtrack - but Gibbs anticipates this even before the main encounter, hinting ahead of time at the true nature of the fly. 
• This week's "oo-wee-oo" is a particularly long-drawn-out one, as the Doctor collapses from thirst in the Part One cliffhanger. The third note is held for a full thirty seconds, finally slumping downwards when the Doctor does.
• My favourite cue from this story must be the appropriately off-balance piece that introduces the two doomed acid bath attendants. This scene at the start of Part Two also provides a follow-up to my suggestion last week that the incidental music could have accentuated the public's reaction to scenes of violence in this season of DW. Vengeance on Varos comes in for particular criticism here, perhaps not so much over the Doctor knocking the two attendants into the acid (a long-standing misconception - they manage to fall in by themselves while he's busy avoiding being pulled in by them), but more because he reacts with a callous quip in the James Bond style. Gibbs emphasises this with a grim musical chuckle, followed by a mockingly sad reprise of the attendants' theme. It's also worth noting that he uses almost exactly the same "woops, he's fallen in the water" cue that he used over the Part One cliffhanger for Warriors of the Deep when the poor duo topple in.

Vox pop
This is a solid but unassuming score at first glance, but it's grown on me with repeated listens. There's enough accessible material in the mix to act as a gateway for the more ambient and discordant elements. Considering the pressure under which it was composed, it's a highly proficient piece of work.

Availability

• The original BBC DVD release did not include the option of listening to the isolated score; this was rectified with the release of the special edition DVD.

22 - Warriors of the Deep

Composer: Jonathan Gibbs
Director: Pennant Roberts

What's the score?
Were it but for the interruption of The Five Doctors, this would be another instance of one composer bridging the gap between seasons. In fact, barring the transition from the Radiophonic Season 22 into the mostly freelance Season 23, this is the only time on the Radiophonic Workshop's watch that musical continuity across seasons is broken.
Not that it matters much - Jonathan Gibbs is attentive to the needs of whichever story he's working on and keen to experiment, and so the score for Warriors of the Deep is very different from the "olde worlde" strains of The King's Demons. It's futuristic and heavy on the action - some might even call it hyperactive. There's a fair amount of repetition in the score; Gibbs relies less on melodic themes than on repeated structural elements, with short phrases passed between the tuned and percussive synth "instruments" in a way that often feels like call and response.

Musical notes

• A variety of watery sounds - bass burblings, undulating echoes and submarine hull clankings - feature in exterior underwater scenes and in scenes set inside the Sea Devils' hibernation chamber. They come across as a more accessible interpretation of Malcolm Clarke's The Sea Devils score. These sounds are most prominently used in Parts One and Two as the Silurians travel to the underwater Sea Devil installation and then on to the Sea Base. It's a stretch, albeit a thematic fit for the story, but there may be hints of the chords of Holst's "Mars, Bringer of War" in the more brooding passages in Part One.
• The first notable repeated element of the score is the stuttering drum sound that introduces the Sea Base crew and is liberally used throughout the story to punctuate any action inside the Sea Base. It's often intercut with cyclical patterns of stabbing synth sounds in the treble range.
• The second notable element is the pair of identical notes. Gibbs starts out with one pair followed by a higher pair, usually repeated with some additional development in the repetition. Before long they've become groups of three pairs (first pair, higher pair and lower pair). The pairs first appear in the scenes of Nilson and Solow scheming in Part One, but are also heard as the Doctor creeps into the Sea Base in Part Two, as various pairs of characters escape from captivity and crawl through air ducts in Part Four, and in a disparate variety of other contexts. 
• There's the merest ghostly echo of the theme tune in Part Two when the Sea Base security staff discover the TARDIS.
• The Radiophonic Workshop's vibraslap - remember it from Meglos? - is put back into service here as the signature sound of the Myrka in Part Three. It may be meant to represent the creature's electric sting - there's certainly a loud rattling blast when it kills Solow. The lumbering beast also gets a tremendous funereal march that's far better than it deserves. The march is recycled after the Myrka's death, without the vibraslap, as the Silurians and Sea Devils parade through the Sea Base towards the bridge.
• The Sea Devils also have a five-note fanfare that goes through several variations during the story, reaching its most triumphant expression in Part Three as they force their way into the Sea Base. The first clear occurrence of it is at the start of Part Three as the Myrka makes its grand entrance as the vanguard of the Sea Devils' strike force. Faster, quieter and inverted variations pop up elsewhere during Parts Three and Four. (Not to be confused with the recurring five-note motif Malcolm Clarke employed in his score for The Sea Devils, although it may be that there's a subtle homage here. Fun fact: Malcolm Clarke's five-note motif is a direct reference to the first five notes of the "Dies irae" from Berlioz's Requiem!)
• In the chaotic fight for control of the Sea Base towards the end of the story, the Silurians succeed in setting off a nuclear missile countdown; this scene is scored with an energetic action cue overlaid with descending wailing sounds that might suggest falling missiles to the listener.
• I said above that this score is a far cry from Gibbs' previous score, but there is just one moment in which something very like the avant garde sci-fi Kamelion cues from The King's Demons can be heard. It's the penultimate cue from Part Four, the one that plays when the Doctor links his mind into the synch-op machine to abort the missile launch. Kamelion was also a machine that the Doctor had to struggle to control with his mind, so there's a clear connection here.

Vox pop
A confident start to the season. Although not a personal favourite of mine, it's a smarter score than the first hearing might suggest - the more I listen to it, the more I seem to find in it. This is one that definitely benefits from being listened to in isolation.

Availability

• The BBC DVD release includes the full isolated score as an audio option.
• Doctor Who - The Music II included a suite of music from this story.

20 - The King's Demons

Composer: Jonathan Gibbs (with lute compositions in Part One by Peter Howell)
Director: Tony Virgo

What's the score?
There's a tangled story behind this score, but the DVD production subtitles are there to talk us through it. Peter Howell was initially assigned to work on The King's Demons, and he began by writing the pieces to be played on set - or rather, to be recorded beforehand by lutenist Jakob Lindberg, and then mimed to by the actors. These included the music played in the opening scene of Part One by a minstrel (actually Lindberg himself - he isn't exactly credited for his cameo, but he does get a crew credit alongside Fight Arranger John Waller), and the King's song performed by the false King John.
Howell then had to back out of scoring The King's Demons in order to focus on other commitments, and the assignment was handed on to BBC Radiophonic Workshop newcomer Jonathan Gibbs. Gibbs thus ended up composing all the incidental music for the story, but he did take some inspiration from Howell's song, and Lindberg was brought back into the studio to provide some more lute sounds. A drummer, Tim Barry, was also called in to perform on the soundtrack - this time next year the Radiophonic Workshop will have a synthesizer that can do snare drum rolls, but at this point they have to employ a session musician.

Musical notes

• As noted, the lute music that opens Part One is not part of the incidental music (and thus not included in the isolated score on the DVD). The first incidental cue in the story plays over the start of the joust scene, and comes across as an ostentatious piece of scene-setting. Synthesized recorders, shawms and horns are added to the lute and drums - look how gosh-darned medieval we are, the music seems to say. In fact the feel of the composition is more Renaissance than 13th century, and the snare drum is anachronistic, but there's an air of heritage park historical re-enactment about the story, so it's not as out of place as it might be. And given the later revelation of the King and his champion as fakes, we might even argue that this subtle wrongness in the music is entirely appropriate.
• The King's song is also not part of the incidental score, having been played during the filming of the banquet scene in Part One, with the false King John singing and "playing" along. (Perhaps I should have put "singing" in inverted commas as well...) Gibbs doesn't make use of the lute composition that opened Part One in his score, but he does use the King's song as a motif in the immediate next cue as Sir Gilles threatens Sir Geoffrey Lacy. There's also a tinny high-pitched reprise at the moment that Kamelion is revealed in Part Two (one for the dogs and small children there).
• The use of synthesizers notwithstanding, Gibbs stays in character until the end of Part One, when the revelation of the Master thoroughly breaks the medieval atmosphere. All-out electronic sounds and weird oscillations burst free in this cue. The scenes in Part Two that feature Kamelion in his robotic form also feature some notably "alien" musical cues, in contrast with the conventional melodies that precede them.
• The downbeat cue that plays as the Master reappears in the castle dungeon in Part Two sounds mysteriously like part of the Oompa-Loompa song from the Gene Wilder film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Vox pop
A promising DW debut for Jonathan Gibbs. The story allows him to play with historical and futuristic musical forms side by side, and he proves to be comfortable with both. A solid and pleasant score to round off the season.

Availability

• The BBC DVD release includes the full isolated score as an audio option.
• Doctor Who - The Music II included a suite of music from this story.