Jerry Goldsmith/Awesome Music

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Jerry Goldsmith was a very prolific composer so awesome he even scared the hell out of his peers. He was known for his thunderous, percussive orchestrations; his love for strange musical instruments, and his inventive integration of synthesizers as the "fifth element" of the orchestra. His varied and impressive works include:

Star Trek

The five incredibly awesome end credits which also served as concert suites:


    • Universal Logo Fanfare. (Best movie fanfare after Alfred Newman's Twentieth Century Fox Fanfare.)
    • When Randy Newman's score for Air Force One was deemed too parodic and not serious enough, Goldsmith was called in and gave us this epic, rousing, chest-thumpingly patriotic theme.
    • The Wind and the Lion. A homage to cinema's Golden Age of grand, sweeping epic music in the style of Lawrence of Arabia.
    • Lionheart; Grand, noble and memorable music and the last one Goldsmith made for Franklin Schaffner before the director passed away.
    • Capricorn One. Bad. Ass.
    • Goldsmith's pounding, percussive main theme for Total Recall will kick your ass. And you will like it.
      • DoomdoomTSS DoomdoomTSS DoomdoomTSS Doom TSSSS TSSSS... how the hell can nothing but damn drums sound so awesome?
    • The Mummy. Goldsmith's score has everything you could wish for: a massive orchestral feast with lengthy sustained and stop-start action combined with epic thematic material and sweeping love themes.
    • The Blue Max; reportedly, the producers wanted a Germanic composition out of Goldsmith. They even introduced Goldsmith to the project with scenes incorporating a "temp track" from Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra. The result was one of the greatest war scores ever in history and is considered to be the first of Goldsmith's epic scoring achievements.
    • MacArthur and Patton. Totally awesome and memorable marches were composed by the maestro for the two highly decorated generals in history.
    • Especially Patton:
    • First Knight. Nothing less than EPIC from the maestro.
    • Wild Rovers. One of Goldsmith's brilliant Western scores.
    • Take A Hard Ride. Goldsmith created what is arguably the most attractive Western theme of his career; a symphonic representation of Americana as close to Elmer Bernstein's styles as he would get mixed with Ennio Morricone's experimental new sounds.
    • 100 Rifles. One of Goldsmith's complex, highly-layered music with creative array of traditional Latin instruments mixed directly with his bombastic, brassy style and making this a more intelligent multi-cultural listening experience than some of his other Westerns.
    • Rio Conchos.
    • Lonely are the Brave, Recommended for the assignment by Alfred Newman (he never even met the young composer in person), Jerry turned in a score that ranks with the best of the best in the western genre. Bernard Herrmann, who attended one of the recording sessions of Lonely Are the Brave, described the Goldsmith music as being too good for the film.
    • The Edge. For those who loved the sound of horns, this is one Goldsmith score where the instrument is used massively throughout.
      • Finale. Another nice, jazzy number.
    • Leviathan. Goldsmith captured the mystery and excitement of the deep underwater magnificently. This is what you should listen to if you wanna go deep sea diving.
    • The Swarm. The exuberant, driving piece of chopping strings and pounding timpani, quite simply a knockout score and style that remains as potent today as it ever was.
    • Powder. soft and sensitive, lovely in its harmonic appeal, this is a project for Goldsmith that simply furthered his lengthy pursuit of assignments that involve highly personalized character adversity.
    • The Russia House. One of the few Goldsmith scores with jazz elements.
    • Alien. If the terror of the unknown has a theme music, this should be it.
    • Twilight Zone: The Movie. The other Spielberg movie where Goldsmith was chosen to be the composer (and the only time Goldsmith scored footage Spielberg actually directed).
    • Basic Instinct. Arguably the steamiest, sexiest most erotic score ever made for film. Alluring, sensual but with a sense of foreboding and danger, Goldsmith was the master at capturing the atmosphere effectively.
    • "Ave Satani" from The Omen. Ominous Latin Chanting as ominous as it gets.
    • Damien: Omen II (Main Title and End Title.) Terrifying musical follow up to The Omen.
    • And if you like your chanting a little more operatic, try the main title of The Final Conflict, as well as the end title.
    • The Sand Pebbles. One of the most beautiful love themes ever. Proof that Jerry Goldsmith wasn't always good for thrilling, suspenseful and action-packed music.
    • Papillon. A lush, memorable theme made up of Strings, Piano and Woodwinds dominate this heartfelt score from one of the composer's most personal works.
    • Chinatown. Goldsmith was only given ten days to write and record the score after the original composer was kicked out. Considering the very short time frame he was given, it's amazing how Goldsmith could still come up with such an amazing and haunting score.
    • A Patch Of Blue. One of Jerry Goldsmith's simple yet beautiful scores.
    • Poltergeist. One of the only two films where Goldsmith has worked with director Steven Spielberg. And Goldsmith brilliantly created a war between the sweetest, most innocent lyricism and the darkest, most treacherous atonality possible.
    • Islands in the Stream. Acknowledged by the maestro as his own personal favorite.
    • Sleeping With The Enemy. The lofty woodwind solos over tingling electronics and high strings (and other lightly pulsating woodwinds) are gorgeous and soothing, with the theme and its instrumentation an absolute trademark 1990's Goldsmith in style, and the simplicity of the melody will cause it to remain in your head long after the score is over.
    • L.A. Confidential. Features traits of both the maestro's 1970's noir jazz style and some of the non-descript action of the 90's. Considered to be the spiritual successor to Chinatown.
    • I.Q. A little homage to "Twinkle, twinkle, little star,".
    • Two of the maestro's efforts at scoring animated films (and actually his only two, since Looney Tunes: Back in Action mixed live action and animation):
    • Mulan. Goldsmith provided an ethnically heroic and heart-pounding adventure score, rich with its own themes and creative use of percussion and synthetics.
    • The Secret of NIMH - Main and End titles.
    • Supergirl.--easily the best aspect of that film, along with casting Helen Slater.
    • The Burbs. Goldsmith at his wackiest, most ridiculous.
    • Rudy: Best sports music soundtrack ever:
    • Hoosiers. This and Rudy are both considered to be the greatest sports music of all time.
    • While Goldsmith's entire Deep Rising score is excellent, the real standout is his kick-ass Main Theme.
    • Most of the music from Explorers is great. Especially as the theme music swelled as the Thunder Road was lifting off and Dick Miller was watching it with this look of total awe:
    • Under Fire. Simply one of Goldsmith's top best action scores.
    • The Ghost And The Darkness. One of Goldsmith's finest scores from the 90s.
    • Gremlins. This is Goldsmith's more memorable 80's score at a time when the composer fully immersed himself with synthesizers and electronic equipment.
    • Gremlins 2.
    • Small Soldiers. Another Goldsmith-Dante collaboration.
    • The Great Train Robbery. Both the Main and End titles are fantastic.
    • King Solomon's Mines. Not intentionally a tongue-in-cheek parody of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
    • Legend. One of the finest examples of Goldsmith's integration of electronics and large orchestra.
    • Medicine Man A lively mix of light comedy and drama, and calls upon a host of ethnic sounding electronic effects and percussion, it never ceases in its creativity.
    • Congo - Goldsmith collaborated with Lebo M who is best known for arranging the African chants in The Lion King.
    • The Sum Of All Fears - A much more varied and experimental effort than anything else that Goldsmith had produced in that late period of his career.
    • First Blood. Goldsmith perfectly captured the tragedy of Rambo's loneliness with the precision of his stalking and evasion techniques.
    • Rambo: First Blood Part II. Goldsmithian action music at its best.
    • Rambo III. Fans of Goldsmith's action music will not be disappointed as Rambo wages another one man war erupting during a series of thunderous cues with virtuosi playing from brass, percussion and winds.
    • The 13th Warrior. Has some of the heaviest Goldsmith orchestration you could wish for.
    • The Shadow. Hits Elfman like proportions but is without doubt quintessential Goldsmith.
    • Masada. Epic music for a television miniseries.
    • So is QB VII.
    • The Boys from Brazil. Highlights of this score is the Viennese waltz suggested by Franklin Schaffner to Goldsmith.
    • Planet of the Apes has Jerry Goldsmith's ground breaking avant-garde musical contribution. Goldsmith's score to Apes has quite rightly passed into legend and deservedly holds a classic status.
    • Love Field, a largely forgotten film about segregation, this is among the maestro's more enjoyable, lesser-known scores of the 1990's.
    • And another stirring, sentimental love themes from the film Forever Young.
    • From Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend which join the ranks of Goldsmith's best ass-kicking brass and percussion ruckus. The score is brilliantly mixed with ultra-cute, sensitive tone and explosive Rambo-style, fierce action music.
    • Tora! Tora! Tora! Goldsmith's ethnic scoring abilities are second to none; it's a complex score filled with some of the most avant-garde writing you are likely to ever here from the composer, barring perhaps Planet of the Apes.
    • The Haunting. It's quite sweet in places and the Carousel proves to be an interesting opening; a score meant to be far more creepy rather than scary.
    • Looney Tunes: Back In Action; his last film score. Despite his advancing age and the ravages of his sickness, he still showed that he is still capable of composing rapid fast slapstick cartoonish music which will make Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn very proud. You could also hear snippets of his previous scores sprinkled in.


--- His non-film score works include:

    • Another rousing Fanfare, Fanfare For Oscar. (Specially commissioned for the Academy Awards ceremony.)
    • Soarin'. The soundtrack Goldsmith wrote plays throughout the entire attraction, who is said to have come down from his first ride in tears. He love the ride so much he would've done the score for free.
    • Fireworks (A Celebration of Los Angeles). A concert piece he wrote for his beloved city.
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