The long awaited Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular has begun its week long tour of the UK in stunning style, with two magnificent shows at the SSE Wembley Arena in London.

The show gives fans a chance to hear the amazing music Murray Gold has written for the series, played live by a full orchestra, and its an experience no fan should miss.

The music is performed brilliantly by the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales, who have been playing the music on the Doctor Who soundtrack since Christmas 2005, and certainly know their stuff. Their very existence is a tribute to the diversity of the BBC and one which should be celebrated. The orchestra are once more under the sonic baton of Ben Foster, who has orchestrated many of the pieces for the series and who, as well leading the musicians, gets to battle a Dalek on stage.

Peter Davison makes for an affable host, witty and entertaining as he guides the audience through the programme of events. He obviously enjoys the feedback from the live audience as he keeps the show bubbling along. Davison is in a unique position, being not only the fifth Doctor, but the father-in-law of the Tenth, a situation he uses for comic effect.

The music is drawn from the past ten years of the show, with the various suites evoking powerful memories. The show starts with the Twelfth Doctor's theme A Good Man? before recalling the breadth of the series in Wherever, Whenever. The Companions features the themes written for Rose, Martha, Donna and Amy and the first act comes to a stunning climax with Last Christmas.

Part Two kicks off with All the Strange Strange Creatures and The Impossible Girl before 66 Seconds gives the audience a chance to be frightened as a Foretold lurches its way around the arena. The Pandorica Suite is followed by the haunting Abigail's Song from A Christmas Carol which gives soloist Elin Manahan Thomas a chance to shine. The show concludes with This is Gallifrey from The Day of the Doctor and the Death in Heaven Suite.

Of course, there is an encore, and it really is a case of saving the best until last when one of the most evocative, most moving pieces Gold has written for the series, Vale Decem, gets a well deserved outing, complete with images from the entire history of the show.

The tingles really do flow down the spine at the climax of the show, when Foster leads the orchestra, conducting that iconic theme tune, first heard in 1963, and never sounding better than when played by a talented orchestra, in front of an arena full of adoring fans.

The show continues at Wembley on Sunday, with performances following throughout the week in Cardiff, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle and Glasgow.

Ticket information is on the BBC Events Website.

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Reviewed by Martin Hudecek

Series 8 Original Television Soundtrack (Music CD)
Available 18 May 2015

With just a few months left before Series 9 of Doctor Who hits our screens in Britain and across the globe, there is a new soundtrack release once again from musician-veteran Murray Gold. This covers the many exciting stories of Series 8 (along with the last Christmas special).This release certainly offers quantity, with 68 tracks spread out on the  3 CDs, and for the very most part also is one of quality.

Having enjoyed Matt Smith's tenure for the most part - but finding it a small step down from the days of David Tennant - I often found myself tapping my feet to the pleasant harmonies Gold would come up with, but wondering if more scope could have been employed. This new collection certainly offers quite a bit more variety and is a great barometer of just how eclectic Series 8 has been. 'A Good Man?' is the new theme for the latest Doctor and is ebullient; seeming to represent the phase that 'Twelve' is going through as he comes to terms with his new identity and markedly older look for many a regeneration. It recurs throughout various other tracks in the collection and always feels like a 'punch-the-air' moment. My personal favourite variation on the theme is the shrill 'Free Fall' which reaffirms the Doctor's bond with the TARDIS and also has him performing a Superman-eque fall without batting an eye.

There is a generous allotment of music for the Series 8 premiere Deep Breath - an episode which I found watchable but forgettable compared to its bedfellows in the first third of the television run. However as we all now know the identity of the antagonist who presided over a surreal 'heaven' domain, it is quite rewarding to have her theme be established, then somewhat cast aside, only to be authoritively echoed much later on. Clearly Gold was clued into the Moffat Masterplan and such bonds amongst the production team are part of the reason Capaldi's debut worked so well.

Several episodes well enough but don't stand out from their music - perhaps the sign of a smooth integration, which was actually intended -- including Into the Dalek and Flatline. For the most part though each section of tracks has something to offer, and can go from the darkest of moods to the most frivolous. As regards the latter, I particularly enjoyed the Robin Hood escapade themes again on their own. That episode will never go down in the Who hall of fame, but it stands up better than I thought it would, so all credit to Gold and his associates there.

Listen is probably the most cerebral of all the episodes Moffat was credite with writing onscreen, and often had some eerie silences and a bleak sense of foreboding. But once again Gold knew just when to flip the switch and give some more immediate atmosphere with gentle instrumental pieces. But when a bit of bombast and sheer electricity is the order of the day, then look no further than the music for Mummy On The Orient Express and the Series 8 multi-part finale. As for the Last Christmas sections - representing a Yuletide episode I much preferred to the 2012 and 2013 efforts - then Gold is very much at his peak level, relishing the twisty-turny narrative and disturbing themes that story so adeptly conveyed. As a result the third CD contains almost all the 'top 10' of the sixty-and-eight total.

Almost all the tracks deserve multiple listens to do them justice and they are easily recalled in a person's 'inner ear' without straying into the irritatingly catchy type of music.

This whole awareness and care/attention is commendable indeed, but probably no less than one would expect given the composer's pedigree and substantial experience on Doctor Who, a show so full of versatility nowadays, that I myself hesitate to use sc-fi/fantasy to label it.  

I would hazard a guess that the many Who aficionados out there confidently expect more excellence from team 'Moffat-and-co', as they to add more layers to the onion that is Capaldi's Time Lord. The soundtrack once again will likely rise to the occasion. .

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Reviewed by Phillip Serna

The Day of the Doctor / The Time of the Doctor
Music by Murray Gold
The BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Conducted by Ben Foster
Silva Screen Records
24 November 2014
Available to order now from Amazon UK

On November 23rd 2013, Doctor Who celebrated its 50th anniversary with a stunning array of events culminating in the global simulcast of the much-anticipated story, The Day of the Doctor. In time for the 51st anniversary, Silva Screen Records has released an impressive 2-disc set of Murray Gold’s scores to The Day of the Doctor and The Time of the Doctor, the swan-song for Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor. Since Doctor Who’s revival in 2005, Murray Gold’s music has grown as synonymous as the TARDIS and the Daleks – becoming as iconic as the experimental, electronic and chamber music from the show’s rich and varied past. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Crouch End Festival Chorus, and conductor/ orchestrator Ben Foster deserve as much praise as Murray Gold for what can only be described as a thoughtful and outstanding entry into the Doctor Who musical canon. The production on this release delivers nothing short of impressive, and on a purely technical level, this release will not disappoint even the most discriminating listener.

Looking backwards as well as forwards, Murray Gold’s score to The Day of the Doctor represents a culmination of the entirety of the revival-era of the show. Surprised by callbacks in the score, in ‘Nice Horse’ the cue opens with woodwind timbres evocative of Geoffrey Burgon as the Zygons are revealed. With greater use of synthetic elements throughout, there are a few calls back to the Radiophonic Workshop era, especially during ‘We are the Doctors’, ‘The Moment has Come’ and the ‘Song for Four’ that closes the story. For aficionados of leitmotivic film scores, Murray Gold delivers a rich thematic world for the Doctor. As war rages over the second city of Arcadia, strains of Gold’s ‘This is Gallifrey: Our Childhood, Our Home’ from Series 3 can be heard punctuating the battle by the low brass. In addition to the thematic material representing the 10th and 11th Doctors, John Hurt’s War Doctor is represented by music associated with Christopher Eccleston’s damaged 9th Doctor. The use of U.N.I.T.’s theme from Series 1 is balanced well against music evocative of political espionage films, filled with electronic elements and suspenseful repetitive string ostinati. The theme for the Moment in ‘Who are You’ and ‘The Moment has Come’ incorporates elements from Rose’s piano theme from Series 1 as well as the novel use of reverse delay on piano and clarinet, a technique that Gold used to great effect in the Series 5 stories The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang. The only unsettling or controversial moment in the score is during the pivotal ‘The Moment has Come’ in which the Doctor struggles whether to deploy the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. Here, the music is filled with Middle-Eastern timbres, scales and microtonality punctuated by the icy timbre of the hammered dulcimer. A musical association between the story’s subtext of genocide and real-world violence is likely not intended, but does resonate beyond the score and the world of the fiction. Perhaps this encapsulates the strength of this score where popular music elements, electronic timbres, symphonic timbres, and non-Western timbres coexist in a series whose messages are primarily inclusiveness and pacifism.

While the cues ‘He Was There’, ‘No More’ and ‘The War Room’ are among the most exciting cues on the release, it is unusual that ‘He Was There’ differs from the transmission version omitting the choral elements - an interesting album variation. The closing ‘Song for Four/ Home’ is interesting in that it represents Murray Gold’s original intentions differing significantly from the transmission version of The Day of the Doctor. I, for one, would have enjoyed hearing both versions on this release, perhaps including the transmission version as bonus tracks on the second disk. The absence of Gold’s arrangement of Ron Grainer’s theme that closed The Day of the Doctor, however, is puzzling but understandable if there were licensing issues with Ron Grainer’s theme through his publisher Erle Music/Warner Chappell. It is important to note that the Doctor Who theme, existing in various re-orchestrations by Murray Gold, have not been included in Silva Screen releases of Murray Gold’s scores since Series 5. The omitted opening theme, as realized by Delia Derbyshire, is still available on a variety of recent Silva Screen releases.

Despite these relatively minor criticisms, The Day of the Doctor remains an excellent release, if only slightly imperfect. The Time of the Doctor, however, succeeds a great deal in presenting a very different and cohesive musical narrative - marvelously balanced with the transformation of Gold’s ‘I Am the Doctor’ into a Christmas call-to-arms. The inclusion of sleigh bells, glockenspiel and celeste only enhances this magical Christmas-parable, filled with Ben Foster’s lush and cinematic orchestrations, with a sound mix favouring the low strings. The Time of the Doctor‘s score feels more intimate and personal, mirroring its sensitive and sentimental story. The differences between the constancy of The Time of the Doctor and the bolder experimentalism and scope of The Day of the Doctor makes for a multi-layered experience with its contrast set to 11 – offering many rewards upon repeat listens.

Highly Recommended. Rating 10/11

Dr. Phillip Serna is co-host of the Adventures in Time, Space and Music podcast.

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Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular
Music from the BBC Television Series
BBC Worldwide
Plenary Hall, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre
1st February 2014, 7.30pm

Reviewed by Tim Hunter

Back in 2012, the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular proved immensely popular and successful at its first international outing with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. So popular that the following year it went to Sydney, and this year, it has returned to Melbourne, and will travel to Brisbane in Queensland and then across the ditch to Wellington in New Zealand. In each city, it will be collaborating with their respective symphony orchestras. In front of an enthusiastic crowd of 5,000 people – ranging in age from eight to 80, if not even younger – at the Plenary Hall in the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, the concert was nothing short of spectacular. Not only was it a wonderful celebration of Murray Gold’s original music for Doctor Who, it was also a fitting tribute to the TV show that turned 50 last year.

This year’s concert was largely based on the 50th anniversary Doctor Who at the Proms. The majority of the music came from the last four years of the show, covering Matt Smith’s time as the Doctor. Conductor Ben Foster, with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, kicked things off with the blood-racing theme for the Eleventh Doctor, ‘The Madman With a Box’, with vocals supplied by soprano Antoinette Halloran, and other recent themes soon followed, including a medley of the companions’ themes for Rose, Martha, Donna and Amy, ‘Abigail’s Song’ from the 2010 Christmas Special, A Christmas Carol, the song from The Rings of Akhaten, Clara’s theme, ‘The Impossible Girl’, and music from The Name of the Doctor and The Time of the Doctor.

It wasn’t all about Matt Smith though. The Classic series was well represented too. Of course, hosting the concert was Peter Davison, the Fifth Doctor, or Doctor 005 as he called himself. He was immediately charming, relaxed, funny and clearly enjoying himself. Throughout the evening, he slipped in witty asides about his time as the Doctor, and engaged in some cheeky repartee with Foster that at one stage involved a cricket bat, a bunch of celery, and a score for Earthshock – The Opera. Davison wasn’t the only Classic Doctor to have a presence. Via the marvels of pre-recorded video, the wonderfully barmy Tom Baker featured in two segments speaking directly to the audience, and there was also the nostalgic ‘Classic Doctor Who Medley’, with music from all seven Classic Doctors. Most memorable though were the groovy 60’s sounds of The Tomb of the Cybermen and the evocative score for City of Death.

Apart from the thrills and emotions of the live music, the other exciting element was – naturally – the presence of aliens and monsters roaming the auditorium and the stage. Like last time, this included Silurians, Cybermen, the Silence, the Ood, Vampire Girls, Judoon and of course the Daleks, playing it up with Foster as they took over the hall. But new and welcome additions included the new Cybermen from Nightmare in Silver, ther impressive presence of Ice Warrior Skaldak from Cold War, and the Whisper Men from The Name of the Doctor.

If there was one thing that didn’t quite live up to expectations, it was Gold’s new song, ‘Fifty’, a tribute to the 50th anniversary. While it’s a beautiful song, sung wonderfully by Halloran and tenor Paul McMahon, the lyrics weren’t particularly easy to make out. Just as well they’re printed in the glossy programmes! Overall though, it was a visual and aural triumph, a perfect tribute to Doctor Who and Gold’s music and received rapturously by the audience of fans and their families, many of whom came dressed for the occasion, despite the heat, with plenty of bow ties, fezes and a whole lot of Doctor Who t-shirts. The Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular was an event that won’t be forgotten quickly.

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