Murray Gold: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 21:08, 27 December 2017

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Murray Gold was the composer for the revived series of Doctor Who from 2005-2017 as well as some episodes of Torchwood in series 1 and the entirety of series 4. He was also the arranger of the BBC Wales versions of the "Doctor Who theme" as heard on Doctor Who, Doctor Who Confidential and Totally Doctor Who, as well as the composer of the Torchwood, Torchwood Declassified, Sarah Jane Adventures and Sarah Jane's Alien Files theme music.

Doctor Who

Gold's most prominent work for the DWU has likely been new arrangements of the "Doctor Who theme". He has arranged multiple different versions of the theme for broadcast (including three distinct opening theme arrangements, plus another version that was only used in trailers and promotions in 2005) and several more for live performance. Gold has therefore created more official arrangements of the theme than any other Doctor Who franchise composer.

Gold was assigned as Doctor Who's composer in 2004 after an email from Russell T Davies who asked him to work on the show. Gold immediately took up the offer. The music from Series 1 was composed and created by himself using sampled instruments and created in his digital music studio workstation in his London Hampstead flat. All of the music was created digitally, except for Gold's use of the Crouch End Festival Chorus for heavy choral parts, most notably the Dalek motifs. He went on to form a good relationship with the choir, as demonstrated in his further use of them in the following seasons.

Shortly after the airing of Series 1, Gold proposed that the music should be written and adapted to be performed fully orchestrally. The producers agreed and Gold began his involvement with Ben Foster and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. The 2005 Christmas Special was the first episode to feature orchestral music. However, many minor pieces continued being created digitally by himself using sampled instruments up until around Series 3.

In 2007, Gold moved to, and still is mainly based in New York, though he often travels between New York and the UK. As shown in a 2008 Confidential episode, recording sessions of music were viewed by him through a digital video link in order for him to communicate with Ben Foster and the orchestra.

Gold has also written seven non-score based lyrical songs for the series: "Song For Ten" (The Christmas Invasion), "Love Don't Roam" (The Runaway Bride), "My Angel Put the Devil in Me" (Daleks in Manhattan), "The Stowaway" (Voyage of the Damned), "Song of Freedom" (Planet of the Ood and Journey's End),"Vale Decem" (The End of Time) and "Abigail's Song (Silence Is All You Know)" (A Christmas Carol). Murray Gold also appeared, in a cameo role, as a guitarist in Voyage of the Damned. (DWMSE 20)

He was interviewed about his DW music by "Sound On Sound" magazine in the June 2007 issue. (See [1])

Gold stayed on as house composer for the 2010 season of Doctor Who and created a third major rearrangement of the theme tune, bringing in a short new melody at the beginning of the theme.

The televised version has had the bassline lowered dramatically so as to make the intro's lightning effects audible, which has prompted complaints to the BBC.[source needed]

He also contributed to the charity reference book Behind the Sofa: Celebrity Memories of Doctor Who.

In 2017, Gold decided to step down as composer with the episode Twice Upon a Time.

Soundtrack releases

Several soundtracks for Gold's Doctor Who work have been released. He has been active in the production of each release.

Additionally, two soundtracks for spin-off series Torchwood have been released since 2008, with Murray Gold working alongside fellow Torchwood composer, Ben Foster, on the initial release.

Spin-offs

Gold has written the theme for both Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, as well as Torchwood Declassified and Sarah Jane's Alien Files which featured re-arrangements of the themes of their parent series. Although two Torchwood CDs have been released, none have been released for SJA as of 2011.

He has not been heavily involved in the incidental music scores for the spin-offs. With the exception of a few early episodes in the first series of Torchwood, he has mostly only scored the parent programme. However, he was the main composer for Torchwood: Miracle Day.

Relationship with RTD

Gold has enjoyed a long working relationship with Russell T Davies and has in scored virtually all of RTD's productions since 1999, including Queer as Folk, The Second Coming with Christopher Eccleston and Lesley Sharp, and Casanova with David Tennant, Shaun Parkes and Nina Sosanya.

Other work

Despite a close relationship with RTD, Gold is far from "RTD's composer". He has gained notoriety on a variety of non-RTD projects. For instance, he started work on the TV series Shameless at about the same time as Doctor Who, and has been scoring both series for the same amount of time. In the early 2000s, his theme music for Clocking Off — a show that featured the talents of actors Christopher Eccleston, Lesley Sharp and Sarah Lancashire, and director Geoffrey Sax — was RTS-nominated. More recently, he was the composer on David Tennant's Single Father mini-series and of the Suranne Jones/Lesley Sharp police procedural, Scott & Bailey.

Awards

Though nominated four times for different projects, including Doctor Who, Gold has never won a BAFTA award. He has, however, won a Royal Television Society Award for his work on Queer as Folk.

Credits

Music

Title music

External links

Footnotes

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