Symphonic Star Trek

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Customer reviews

review by: Stargate Fan date: 2008-12-12 rating:
Star Trek at its Best!
The music in this collection is so beautiful. It's great listening even if you are not acquainted with all the themes. It is the best for those who are fans.

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review by: date: 2005-07-23 rating:
Outdated now, but still a good CD to have.
This is a great CD, even if it is outdated (no theme from First Contact, Insurrection or Nemesis.) But this CD is great. The sound effects are annoying, that much we can all agree on, but for those bashing the concert arrangement of the Original Series theme...this is the arrangement by Alexander Courage himself arranged for concert, its performed the same way by John Williams and the Boston Pops on the CD "Out of This World" among other Williams/BPO compilations. I would rank this CD below Silva's "The Star Trek Album" and Varese's "The Ultimate Star Trek", but above Naxos "Star Trek" album. Though, a Star Trek fan should have all of them! and even if your not a star trek fan, this is a good sampler at a cheap price. People selling this for under $5 with shipping! Thats a bargain. Standouts for me are Star Trek II and Generations. The Generations Overture (End Credits) sounds so much better with a larger symphony like the Cincinatti Pops than the orchestra Dennis McCarthy used for the movie.

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review by: date: 2005-02-11 rating:
Not a soundtrack -- but a fine symphony performance
Some reviewers have complained that this CD does not exactly follow the original soundtracks. Well, it's not a soundtrack, it's a symphony performance. If you want a soundtrack, then buy a soundtrack. But, like any "performance of" movie music, This CD is not going to sound exactly like the original. In some places, it sounds even better, especially for the TOS selections, because at the time the TOS music was produced, the recording techniques were not as sophisticated as today. As for the sound effects, they are not intended to be authentic Trek sounds. They're creative uses of orchestral instruments. (I still find myself wondering how they did some of them...) In short, I like this CD for what it is -- a pop performance of some of my favorite music. My only complaint it that it ends with "You will be assimilated." Into what? Trekdom? I would have preferred it to end with Leonard Nimoy saying, "Live long and prosper" -- as the perfect closing "bookend" to his fine narration at the beginning.

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review by: date: 2003-10-12 rating:
An embarassment compared with original Star Trek music.
Erich Kunzel proves he can't even perform the original music without re-arranging the scores and inserting his own instruments and 'special' sound effects into the music to replace those that couldn't be duplicated. Much of the music on this CD has been altered to the point that it is painful to hear, leaving the listener wondering why they inserted sound effects into an otherwise decent orchestration. I'm not talking about the sound effects between each piece, but during some of the music itself.

The little sound effects that also appear between each song are horrid, loud, annoying and embarrassing. Worse yet they sound NOTHING like anything I've ever heard on any Star Trek episode ever.

The only redeeming track is the "Main Theme from Star Trek", even though again it merely resembles the original. It has been pumped up to sound like a big over done Las Vegas show, and is so cheesy that the entertainment derived from it is purely from mockery and humor.

Bottom line - Erich Kunzel is a big old ham and it shows. Save your cash and get your Trek music from authorized sound tracks. In fact, it DOES say on this CD:

"This recording was not created, approved, etc, or endorsed by any entity involved in creating or producing the Star Trek series, etc..."

Enough said.


review by: Just some guy.. date: 2003-03-19 rating:
Great music, stupid effects..
I totally agree w/ other reviewers that mention the lame effects. Although I can't find as much fault in the disc as others. The music is just done too well. The pieces sound truly incredible on a great stereo set. I can't say if this is due to the special Telarc recording or not. Most especially wonderful is track 4: End Title from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The energy in the recording is amazing!

Yeah, w/ a full on soundtrack you get more. But this CD really does hit the highlights of the 'classic' Trek movies and some of the TV bits as a bonus.

My only complaint is that the effects are spread through the music and break things up too much. They are kinda cool the first or second time through, but having them all at the end would let me just hit eject rather than wade through them. At least they are separate tracks I can pick them out using my players program mode. Oh, and the 'Borg' bit at the end: yeah, it is quite probably the lamest thing I've ever heard.. ..Sorry guys!

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