The Best of Star Trek: 30th Anniversary Special

by

Various Artists

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My wife, Kitty, was not a Trekkie when we met four years ago. She's come around a bit... she still doesn't like frightening foam faces (e.g. Klingons, Ferengi), but she enjoys Janeway's combination of humility, empathy, and reasoning. She also sees some virtue in Tuvok's near-pure logic, while wrestling with inner emotions.

But despite the foam faces, whenever DS9 or Voyager airs, she is just like me: During the opening score, DROP EVERYTHING; unplug the phone, turn down the lights and raise the volume.

The Star Trek scores and orchestration goes way beyond the power and imagery of each television series. They evoke tears as sure as Paganini or Brahams. Which contemporaries can match the classical emotion and orchestral presence of Voyager and the hauntingly beautiful, deeply emotional DS9!... John Williams of Star Wars/ET fame? Andrew Lloyd Webber (JC Superstar/Cats/ Evita/Phantom)? Perhaps.

For more than 5 years, I have searched for a single collection of ALL Star Trek TV themes (even when there were only 2 or 3 shows). Still, the Boston Pops has not released all 4 themes on one CD. But now we have all four, and there are two CDs to choose from! (The other is Telarc 8038 - Cincinnati/Kunzel). But this 30th Anniversary Special is much truer to the opening season orchestrations - the ones still used by DS9 and Voyager. I'm not certain why it is not the EXACT performance used on the series, but it is certainly close enough (and slightly longer; after all there is no TV commercial to deal with).