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Music Conducted By
Jerry Goldsmith

Orchestrations By
Arthur Morton

Recorded By
-

Performed By
-

Albums Produced By
Doug Fake

Label
Intrada MAF 7142

Previous Release(s)
Intrada
Special Collection Volume 21

WB LP/Crescendo CD
(Re-recording)

Year Of CD/Film Release
2015/1978

Running Time
59:48

Availability
Normal Release

Reviewed By
Brandon Moore

Cues & Timings


1. Main Title (1:11)
2. Abort 1 (1:33)
3. Abort 2 (0:34)
4. Capricorn Control (0:27)
5. Mars 1:20)
6. Docking (2:49)
7. Working Overtime (0:45)
8. We Have Landed (1:01)
9. The Message (3:54)
10. Kay’s Theme [Trio Source] (3:38)
11. Elliot Is Missing (0:14)
12. The Letter (2:57)
13. Break Out (5:07)
14. The Desert (0:30)
15. Bedtime Story (2:36)
16. The Helicopters (1:07)
17. Hide And Seek (1:25)
18. No Water (2:48)
19. Flare No. 1 (0:30)
20. The Long Climb/Flare No. 2 (3:54)
21. The Snake (3:34)
22. To Bru From Kay (1:49)
23. The Station (5:31)
24. The Celebration (1:41)
25. End Title (2:07)

Score Total Time: 53:30

Bonus Tracks

26. Fanfare Source (0:13)
27. Docking (Original) (2:50)
28. Break Out (LP imitation) (3:05)

Total Extras Time: 6:12
 



Soundtrack Ratings

Disappointing

Functional

 Average

 Good

 Excellent

 Outstanding

Capricorn One
 
Capricorn One remains one of Jerry Goldsmith's most iconic and influential scores. Practically every score the composer wrote during this time of his career seemed to be setting new ground. Goldsmith continued in a way that Bernard Herrmann did as he centred the music pulse of what is essentially a chase film around an ostinato. The score draws upon an asymmetrical meter (11/8 or 3/4 + 5/8) with a pounding bass line, a rhythmical approach that would influence much of his work to come.

The Main Title introduces the driving theme of the film that will represent the government's cover up of a fake NASA Mars landing. Goldsmith pieces together one of his most brutal openings ever with four levels of activity happening in the music, a driving ostinato in the timpani and low brass, parallel triads chiming in with multiple pianos and bells, muted sustains in horns with strings and finally violins coming in on a sharp line of counterpoint. The orchestration is unique as Goldsmith completely drops the woodwinds from the score, writing for a larger string section that is often divisi. A large brass section is also used along with percussion and four pianos. The rhythmic pattern of Goldsmith's main theme is unnerving with an unstable interval of a minor sixth bouncing in the bass. Glorious brass continue the chiming major chords which outline the ostinato interval. Everything about the score is crisp and to the point, intensely set on accomplishing its goal, matching the government's cover up in the film and the relentless pursuit of the three astronauts who decide to resist and escape.

Intrada's new release of the original soundtrack recording reveals the exposition of the score and how the ostinato theme grows with newly released connective material. Complexities in orchestration are evident in Abort 1 and 2 with some exciting use of brass, synth, pizzicato and piano stabs as the astronauts are forced to leave the launch pad early in the film. These two cues and The Docking (a sequence dropped from the film) contain an important development of the ostinato with added notes in the bass line.

Another thematic idea in the score is Kay's Theme written for the wife of the mission's pilot commander Charles Brubaker (James Brolin). In The Letter the first strains of Kay's Theme are stated in a scene where she reads a letter to her husband written by their son. Thinly muted strings and harp play with the ostinato creeping under with tremolos and low piano as mission control worries about the commander possibly exposing the cover up. A beautiful slow and expressive version of Kay's Theme plays over soft strings and piano in Bedtime Story.

In We Have Landed and The Message the score continues with the dark and moody atmosphere as Goldsmith appropriately avoids any pomp for the fake Mars landing and the music explores the conflict the astronauts face as they are forced to lie to people all over the world. The trumpets perform the major triads as the President's speech begins over the reveal of a sound stage where the landing is being filmed. In Break Out the ostinato begins marcato in the low strings, prepared piano, and low brass as the astronauts begin their escape from the compound. Crosscutting takes place between the head of the NASA program James Kelloway (Hal Holbrook) delivering the final lie that the astronauts perished in re-entry and the exciting escape of the three men in a Lear Jet. Goldsmith's adrenaline pumped action begins with strings swirling over the modulating ostinato and brass counterlines that build to a climactic major chord as they clear the runway minus a wheel from the landing gear.

The score features a significant characteristic of Jerry Goldsmith's structure and style. The frequent use of starting and stopping of phrases and extreme subito dynamic changes dominate the score. The Long Climb contains unique string phrases that mirror each other slowly, starting and stopping note by note perfectly capturing astronaut Willis' ordeal up a cliff face. In The Snake, the search helicopters close in on Brubaker as he soon becomes the only astronaut left and the score kicks into a higher gear as he enters a cave. The cue is a gold mine of musical effects as crosscutting begins back and forth from the snake to the helicopters arriving while the French horns whale the minor 6th with trombone growling behind.

The Desert introduces the shifting two note motif in the strings with some of Goldsmith's textures reminiscent of Planet of the Apes. The Helicopters and Hide and Seek contain some of the hardest pounding of low brass on the ostinato with string trills and tremolos clear in the mix. The final scored confrontation with Brubaker and the men hunting him occurs at The Station. Trumpet chords play out the desert motif in full as the abandoned building comes into view. An anguished string version of Kay's Theme is heard as the motorcade arrives to take her family to the astronauts' funeral. In one of the action highlights of Goldsmith's entire career, pizzicato with building piano can be heard as Brubaker breaks into the station only to lead to the foreboding ostinato as the helicopters arrive and the pilots get out to search station. An exciting dance between brass and strings rip as Brubaker hits one of the pilots and leaps out a window to make a mad dash for the crop-dusting plane that's arrived to help him. The spectacular chase in the sky between the helicopters and crop duster is un-scored.

In The Celebration, Kay's Theme begins lightly on piano as Brubaker pulls up in a car behind the funeral. As everyone notices Brubaker running toward the group, Goldsmith's score grows with a stirring crescendo, Kay's Theme fully developed, and the music comes to a moving close with a rare string and piano flourish as major chords cadence in the brass. The music then segues directly into the End Title with the main ostinato theme over red on black credits, continuing with a middle section on Kay's Theme followed by trumpets transitioning back into the theme for an unresolved ending on the ostinato.