Tag: Don Harper

The scores for Doctor Who‘s 20th century Cybermen episodes seem to have a habit of taking a torturous route to being released in their original form. A bit of clarification is in order: this release contains the original recordings from 1968 by Don Harper (whose handful of other scoring credits include an episode of the BBC2 sci-fi anthology Out Of The Unknown, and stock music used in George Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead), the only music he ever composed for Doctor Who. Better known as a jazz musician, Harper’s services were engaged due to director Douglas Camfield’s curious habit of actively avoiding using Doctor Who’s “house composer” at the time, Dudley Simpson. Though many composers contributed to the 20th century series, there’s not another score quite like this one in the series’ history. Harper’s jazz leanings are on display, along with a very good dramatic instinct for the uniquely eerie music heard throughout The Invasion‘s eight episodes.

Why the clarification? Because Harper also re-recorded this music for the De Wolfe production music library under the title New Decades, which itself was later re-released as Cold Worlds, whereas this release has the original 1968 recordings. (The stories behind Doctor Who’s music can be just as strange-but-true as the rest of its behind-the-scenes lore.) On the one hand, The Invasion’s score sticks out quite noticeably from what came before and after it (the following story, The Krotons, has also been the subject of its own soundtrack release). But Harper has a very good sense of what the show’s “feel” is, and unnervingly dissonant tracks such as “International Electromatics Headquarters”, “The Cyber Director”, “The Cybermen, My Allies”, and “Plans For Invasion”, though brief, make the case that Harper would’ve made a fine addition to the rotation of the series’ musical talent if he had been hired to do so again. A much chirpier tone – almost “smurfy” in a way, and yet very, very 1968 in its feel – takes hold in the track “Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart”, giving the newly-promoted future series regular his own theme music in only his second appearance.

But the story doesn’t end there. Harper recorded a total of barely 20 minutes of music, intended to be used and re-used to track eight 25-minute episodes, and then, somewhat confoundingly, Camfield didn’t even use everything that was recorded. (One almost gets the feeling at times that Camfield would have preferred to skip musical underscores altogether but was coerced into including incidental music by the producers.) Also included are several tracks of effects and sound-design-bordering-on-music by Brian Hodgson of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, intended to provide additional musical options; tracks 15-34 are Harper’s unused score cues. Also tracked into the episode is a track by John Baker of the Radiophonic Workshop, “Time In Advance” (simply titled “Muzak” here), originally composed for an Out Of The Unknown episode of the same name. Baker’s work – with a lovely jazzy piano overdub sitting on top of an abstract yet tuneful radiophonic backing – sits nicely alongside Harper’s own jazz influences and doesn’t seem out of place. (I’ve never made a secret of the fact that “Time In Advance” is one of my all-time favorite pieces of classic Doctor Who music, so consider this reviewer’s biases fully on display here.)

With the brevity of the tracks presented, and the brevity of the score overall, it’s something of a minor miracle that this album tops out at just over an hour (thanks in large part to some of the lengthy, looped background sound effects tracks), and it’s a bit mind-boggling that a majority of the tracks presented have no story context, as they were left on the cutting room floor. So very much like the later Revenge Of The Cybermen release (perhaps not coincidentally the next TV outing for the Cybermen), a lot of what’s on the disc was never actually heard in the show itself. Harper achieves a great deal with very limited resources (the liner notes indicate that he never had more than five players, six if he too performed, presumably achieving a denser sound with overdubs), so it’s nice to hear his work free of the context of the show itself. It’s a pity so much of it went unused; some of the material that was left out is some of the most distinctive and enjoyable of the lot. Clearly, the Cybermen can’t have nice things.

1. Doctor Who (new opening theme, 1967) (0:52)
2. The Dark Side of the Moon (Music 2 Variation) (0:33)
3. The Company (Music 7) (1:31)
4. Hiding (Music 8) (4:54)
5. International Electromatics Headquarters (Music 3) (0:16)
6. Muzak (2:46)
7. The Cyber Director (Music 5) (0:08)
8. The Cybermen, My Allies (Music 7) (0:27)
9. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Music 12a) (1:22)
10. Plans for Invasion (Music 8) (1:25)
11. Mysteries (Music 12) (1:31)
12. Fire Escape (Music 11) (1:11)
13. The Dark Side of the Moon (Reprise) (Music 2) (0:31)
14. The Cybermen, My Allies (Reprise) (Music 7, looped) (1:07)
15. Music 4 (Trapped in Gas Chamber – v. 1 & 2) (1:29)
16. Music 9 (2:20)
17. Music 10 (2:00)
18. Music 13 (0:05)
19. Music 14 (0:15)
20. Music 15a (0:04)
21. Music 15b (0:20)
22. Music 15c (0:04)
23. Music 15d (0:20)
24. Music 15e (0:16)
25. Music 15f (0:04)
26. Music 15g (0:04)
27. Music 15h (0:23)
28. Music 16a (0:04)
29. Music 16b (0:05)
30. Music 16c (0:06)
31. Music 16d (0:07)
32. Music 16e (0:04)
33. Music 16f (0:08)
34. Music 16g (0:05)
35. Part of TARDIS disappears (0:25)
36. All of TARDIS disappears (0:24)
37. TARDIS take off slow and painful (2:13)
38. International Electromatics Headquarters Exterior (10:33)
39. International Electromatics Headquarters Interior (6:26)
40. Computer Background (0:21)
41. Computer Whirrs (1:01)
42. Electronic Eye (2:37)
43. Cyber Director Appears (2:26)
44. Cyber Director Constant (7:51)

Released by: Silva Screen Records
Release date: September 14, 2018
Total running time: 1:01:15