Friday, November 8, 2019

Score Sample: The Dark Crystal (1982)

2019 brought us a new television series based around the 1982 fantasy adventure The Dark Crystal. The television series outlines the events that lead up to the situation Jen and Kira find themselves during the earlier film. So yeah it is a prequel of sorts, but I'm just happy to see the amazing puppetry and sets brought to life. As a kid, I adored The Dark Crystal, as well as it's younger sister Labyrinth. So I've been enjoying the series quite a bit (still working my way through it at this point).

One thing that I don't think has been improved on is the amazing score from the 1982 film by Trevor Jones. In a lot of ways this is one of those forgotten fantasy scores that really deserves more attention, kind of like the work on Young Sherlock Holmes. Jones created a myriad of themes for The Dark Crystal and nearly every one of them is memorable in some way. He interweaves the themes all through the film and gives the world its own unique flavor.

He wrote a wonderful Overture piece that I'll share today, but really the whole score is worth seeking out for fans of big colorful fantasy adventure scores. It might even be my favorite work by Jones. So here is Overture from The Dark Crystal by Trevor Jones.