Network DVD soundtrack CDs

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CD Review: Network DVD soundtrack CDs
A recent ‘sale’ on the Network DVD website tempted me into getting around to purchasing the soundtrack DVDs for Man In A Suitcase, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), Danger Man (series 1 and 2), Department S and The Prisoner, available only through the website.

The Prisoner set was late arriving, but otherwise I was completely overwhelmed by the massive amount of material (963 new ‘songs’ for my iPod). In the transfer Network had learned a trick from the early days of video: In those early days, the belief was that people only wanted to buy or rent films. So at great tedium and cost, episodes of TV shows were hurredly and largely unsuccessfully cut together to make into film length items. In the case of UFO they put the most ridiculous synthi-music on to cover the lack of continuity, and in Stingray they famously traded the missiles for lasers. Eventually they realised that there was a bigger market (and it was cheaper) if they simply put the episodes exactly as they had them onto video.

In the soundtrack world, the original vinyl album release of the Space:1999 soundtrack album (now highly prized) had a bizarre collection of library music linked by odd bits of original score. Fanderson, the Gerry Anderson fan club, put together a massively more satisfying collection, bringing together whole ‘suites’ of music, as they were created for episodes of the shows, and added relevant library items as they appeared in the show. However, in these collections Network have gone one better, by breaking everything down into very short tracks. The beauty of this is that you can pick out the moments of a certain mood and collect them into your own playlist, rather than have the build up/action adventure music automatically come after the moody suspenseful stuff.

I understand that The Prisoner set is the best selling of them all. This is no surprise given the fanaticism of Prisoner fans, the genius of the series and its music, and the recent death of Patrick McGoohan generating renewed interest. It is unusual in having had the involvement of Eric Mival, actual music editor on the series. This allows the insider’s perspective to be provided, but also steers the collection away from the viewer’s perspective (which would have probably included the library music items that appeared on earlier Prisoner soundtrack albums). Instead it is quite an awesome cataloguing of the whole music creation process.

Biggest shock for me was Robert Farnon’s contribution. In fan circles he was discussed almost comically for taking McGoohan’s request to have a theme like The Big Country (a western film) far too literally. Only in this compilation does it become clear that despite the rejection of his main theme, he produced several interesting musical moments which undoubtedly made a significant contribution to the show.

Wilfred Josephs’ second attempt to deliver a theme led to some of the most haunting music in the show, but his main theme was just too bizarre. I have seen the score and its changing of time sequences and ‘lumpy’ percussion probably did for it. I think he learned the lesson in his later I Claudius theme where the haunting melodies are backed by a solid rhythm.

There is almost the reverse story to the Farnon contribution for Ron Grainer, whose third original Prisoner theme ‘The Age Of Elegance’, only becomes the exciting upbeat number that is now so well remembered, after a sequence of changes that were apparently at McGoohan’s instigation. Here that metamorphosis is catalogued in each version. Mival speculates that it was Grainer’s unhappiness with this process that led to The Prisoner theme on vinyl single being a version much more akin to his original. When I first heard that version I struggled to believe it was the same tune.

Despite Grainer’s pedigree (Doctor Who, Steptoe & Son – believed to have influenced Pink Floyd’s Interstellar Overdrive, and Tales Of The Unexpected), Grainer’s Prisoner theme finds no echo in the incidental music of the show. Only subsequent main composer Albert Elms’ contributions fill out the rest of the story. This was the same situation on Man In A Suitcase, where Grainer wrote the theme and Elms the incidental music. Only now did I finally become clear that this had preceded The Prisoner. In my mind it had always come after simply because I watched it after. Elms’ score is amazing, as is the piecing together of the complete soundtrack from these various components, and the library music, alas not included in this still massive collection.

Edwin Astley was apparently surprised not to be involved in The Prisoner music after having scored McGoohan’s previous two Danger Man shows. In the other soundtracks from Network DVD he shows his masterful command of the TV show, and his music is both delightful and impressive, when you hear how he gave each action adventure series its own distinctive melodies and provided the right backing for every mood and location.

I think these collections really should go with the DVDs, and maybe in more compact later releases they will. For now it is a stunning collection on my iPod.

parsley@gardenrecords.com [www.gardenrecords.com]