STEPHEN HAWKING’S UNIVERSE – Sheridan Tongue

Original Review by Alan Rogers

Sheridan Tongue has scored music for many UK dramas and TV documentaries. 2010 saw the transmission of two documentary mini-series that featured his scores. One was Wonders of The Solar System (the companion series to 2011′s Wonders of The Universe (reviewed here)). The other was Stephen Hawking’s Universe (aired in the US with the title Into The Universe With Stephen Hawking), a Discovery Channel science documentary mini-series written by Hawking and narrated by actor Benedict Cumberbatch (who incidentally played Hawking in the TV film, Hawking). Having episodes with titles such as “Aliens”, “Time Travel” and “The Story of Everything”, Stephen Hawking’s Universe has grand ambitions and comes across more science fiction than science fact due to the emphasis of the documentary on the physicist/cosmologist’s speculations and “what ifs?”, speculations that are based on theories extrapolated from current thinking. Tongue’s score is also ambitious in scale, using a 56-piece orchestra alongside electronic elements and providing a grand cinematic and dramatic score.

The album begins with “Into The Universe” and includes the music used during the introduction of the show. Tongue sets his stall out early with music full of bold brass fanfares alongside string ostinato figures. It is clear that the music is not only going to support the on-screen visuals, it is also going to grab the viewer by the scruff of the neck and drag them through Hawking’s universe. Ostinato figures – and rhythm in general – feature prominently throughout the score, driving the visuals forward and adding a sense of the dramatic. “Time Travelling”, “The WOW Signal” and “Alien Ocean” all feature ostinato patterns, fuelling the music onward. Tongue does add interest to these rhythms by varying their instrumentation; both between instruments of the orchestra (e.g., strings in cues such as “Time Travelling” and “The WOW Signal” and keyboards in cues such as “The Endless Waltz of Galaxies”) and also between the orchestra and various electronic sounds (e.g., “The WOW Signal” and “The Mad Scientist Paradox”).

WONDERS OF THE UNIVERSE – Sheridan Tongue

Original Review by Alan Rogers

Carl Sagan’s influential early 1980s documentary series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage is one that I remember watching avidly. I particularly remember the use of Vangelis’ music as the title theme – I even bought the vinyl record that the BBC released as a single. From a score perspective this show used a wide variety of musical styles as underscore. The music of Vangelis played side-by-side with the music of classical music greats such as Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi and Holst and more contemporary composers such as Alan Hovhaness. An eclectic mix indeed. Jump forward in time roughly thirty years and we come to Wonders of The Universe, a four-part TV series hosted by physicist Brian Cox. Each of the four episodes focuses on a specific “wonder” with the goal of explaining and understanding questions such as “Why are we here?” and “Where do we come from?”

Sheridan Tongue’s specially-composed music for Wonders of The Universe mirrors the music used in Cosmos in that, on the evidence of the soundtrack release of the music used in BBC documentary series, it comprises of a series of music tracks that do not share a common denominator other than they all appear on this soundtrack. This does mean though that there is bound to be something here for most peoples’ musical taste. Tongue’s classical training and experience with cutting edge technology are brought together to produce a score that is firmly based in contemporary electric guitar and drum combinations (e.g., “Wonders of The Solar System” and “Mini Solar System” could easily be B-side instrumental tracks). (Perhaps I have just found an aspect of the music that links them together?) Each track spends a couple of minutes repeating and exploring the musical ideas contained within them. Listening to them away from the visuals, there’s very little connection to anything akin to an emotional response – but instilling emotion into the visuals, it can be argued, is not the job of music used in a documentary. However, the use of low register solo strings does tend to give some tracks a hint of calmness (“Connected”), sadness (“A Star Must Die” and “Death of A Planet”) and tenderness (“Death of A Planet”). A bed of electronic “twinklings” and ostinato flute effects are suggestive of a “Symphony of Light”.