Doctor Who: Series 6 (soundtrack)

Doctor Who: Series 6
Soundtrack album by Murray Gold, Ben Foster and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Released	December 19, 2011 [1]
Recorded	2010-2011
Genre	Soundtrack
Length	2:21:37
Label	Silva Screen Records
Producer	Murray Gold
Doctor Who soundtrack chronology
Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol (2011)Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol2011 Doctor Who: Series 6 (2011) Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani (2013)Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani2013

The soundtrack for series 6 of Doctor Who was released on December 19, 2011.^[1] It is the third 2-CD release that Silva Screen has produced for the new series. The album was initially due for release on December 5, 2011, but was later delayed until December 19, 2011.^[1] Also, on November 1, 2011, Murray Gold and Jake Jackson both posted on their Twitter accounts that they're allowing viewers the chance to suggest different musical pieces from the episodes of series 6 that may have been included on the soundtrack.^[2] On November 24, Silva Screen announced the full track list of the series 6 soundtrack.

Material

For the sixth series of Doctor Who, composer Murray Gold and conductor Ben Foster continued to write variations and rearrangements of themes introduced in the previous season. The Eleventh Doctor's themes, "I Am The Doctor" and "The Mad Man With A Box", were Americanized for the series opener, "The Impossible Astronaut" / "Day of the Moon", along with the Pandorica motif ("I Am The Doctor In Utah", "1969", "The Impossible Astronaut", "Help Is On Its Way", "Day of the Moon", "The Majestic Tale (Of A Madman In A Box)"). The track "Day of the Moon" was the intended score during the massacre of the Silence. It was replaced at the last minute by "The Majestic Tale (of a Mad Man in a Box)."^[3] For "The Curse of the Black Spot", Gold wrote mostly derived themes from pirate folklore, while Halia Meguid performed the Siren’s song, "Deadly Siren".

"The God Complex" had a mostly electronic score. The "Tick Tock, Round the Clock" melody from Night Terrors was incorporated into later scripts such as "Closing Time" and "The Wedding of River Song" by Steven Moffat. Non-UK broadcasts of Series 6 included the short track "Locked On" during a brief pre-titles recap by Karen Gillan. For "The Impossible Astronaut" / "Day of the Moon", "A Good Man Goes to War" / "Let's Kill Hitler", and "The Wedding of River Song", Gold wrote variations of River Song’s theme, "A River of Tears" ("Melody Pond", "Forgiven", "The Wedding of River Song"), while expanding on Amy Pond's themes ("Little Amy", "Amy in the TARDIS" "Amy's Theme") in "The Rebel Flesh" / "The Almost People" and "The Girl Who Waited". Gold also sampled older compositions such as "All the Strange, Strange Creatures" and "The Doctor’s Theme".

Track listing

Reviews

Reviews for the series 6 soundtrack were mostly positive. Writing for The Doctor Who News Page, Stephen Willis, creator of the Doctor Who Fan Orchestra, called the soundtrack "much subtler than any of the previous Doctor Who soundtrack releases. It covers a wide spectrum, but it definitely feels consistent." He attributed much of this success to composer Murray Gold and wrote that the album is "packed with a broad range of moods and genres . . . one that will be a favourite of mine for a long time."

Rob Talbot of Starburst Magazine wrote that he was "bowled over" after listening to the soundtrack. He described Murray Gold as "inventive" and explained that, despite the challenges of composing such varied music, Gold gave his music "a sense of authenticity, like the man lives and breathes his soundtrack heritage and is wearing it like a badge of honor."

Cultbox's Rob Smedley noted the soundtrack as "without a Vashta Nerada's shadow of a doubt, composer Murray Gold's finest work on the series to date." He further listed ten of his favorite tracks. These tracks, as well as those listed in the above reviews and others, are correlative. For instance, many reviewers disliked the "similar-sounding" tracks from "The Rebel Flesh" and "The Almost People", but track-specific reviews remained high for much of the album; "The Majestic Tale" and various songs from the openers and finales were especially praised.

Although fan suggestion on Twitter resulted in "The Majestic Tale" to be placed as a quasi-bonus track on the second disc, some fan response was decidedly negative towards the track's ostensibly lackluster ending. The track length was originally listed as 4:24 by Silva Screen, but the song's release demonstrated a cut-down length of 4:01. Speculation suggests that the track's expected full length would have accommodated the song's ending as heard in "Day of the Moon", which is a choral finale, whereas the "cut-down" track purposefully fades away. Fan reaction is split as to which version would have been preferred.

References