“Star Trek” fans are still abuzz about the music for the final season of “Picard.” That’s because Stephen Barton and Frederik Wiedmann’s lavish symphonic score references several themes from the 57-year history of “Trek” movies and TV shows.
Barton, who scored seven of the 10 episodes and collaborated with Wiedmann on the finale, says the idea belonged to showrunner Terry Matalas. “Early on, we talked a lot about the ‘Star Trek’ we grew up with. It was a moment in the franchise to take a step back, look at the bigger picture and say, how can we honor this?”
Matalas has “an incredible and vast knowledge” of “Trek” music, says Wiedmann. “He’s as enthusiastic about film scores as we are – which, in the end, was extremely helpful to us because Terry had a very clear idea of where to go with the music.”
Jerry Goldsmith’s themes for “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (originally written for 1979’s “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”) and 1996’s “Star Trek: First Contact” are ubiquitous, but there are also quotes from the music of James Horner in “The Wrath of Khan” (1982), “The Voyage Home” by Leonard Rosenman (1986), “The Final Frontier” by Goldsmith (1989), “The Undiscovered Country” by Cliff Eidelman (1991), Dennis McCarthy’s “Generations” (1994), Goldsmith’s “Voyager” theme (1995) and, of course, Alexander Courage’s original “Trek” fanfare from 1966.
While these musical Easter eggs were fun for aficionados to identify, there was also a huge amount of original music to write. The orchestras ranged from 70 to 82 musicians at each session.
“It’s just a huge effort,” says Wiedmann, “because everything had to be composed and recorded with a big orchestra every two weeks.” In fact, that’s why he was brought. Barton had written four and a half hours of music for the first six episodes and, as he puts it, “I was just dead”.
Barton composed themes for the USS Titan, the ship that Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Riker (Jonathan Frakes) commandeer in their quest to confront the changelings that threaten Starfleet; a family motif for Picard, Crusher (Gates McFadden) and their mysteriously empowered son Jack (Ed Speleers); and a darker colored piece that represents the plot.
Matalas called on Wiedmann for three of the last four episodes, but almost failed to log in – that “monumental, life-changing email”, as Wiedmann puts it, went to a spam folder. Fortunately, Matalas contacted the composer’s agent and signed him up for immediate service.
Wiedmann’s contributions include a seven-minute neoclassical piece for the villainous Vadic (Amanda Plummer), as well as music for the Borg and a motif for Jack and Picard.
In total, the two composers wrote and recorded more than seven hours of music in four months, and both consider this a high point in their careers. “‘Next Gen’ is the show I grew up with, and to be given that is just a crazy honor,” says Barton.
Wiedmann adds: “When you decided to become a film composer at 12 or 13, the only thing you dreamed of was to work on ‘Star Trek’ or ‘Star Wars.’ It’s as good as it gets.