Doctor Who: Series 5 (soundtrack)

Doctor Who: Series 5
Soundtrack album by Murray Gold, Ben Foster and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Released	November 8, 2010 [1]
Recorded	2009-2010
Genre	Soundtrack
Length	2:11:45 [2] 2:19:43 (iTunes Version)
Label	Silva Screen Records
Producer	Murray Gold
Doctor Who soundtrack chronology
Doctor Who: Series 4 – The Specials (2010) Doctor Who: Series 5 (2010) Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol (2011)

The soundtrack for series 5 of Doctor Who was released on November 8, 2010, and is the second 2 disc edition to be released by Silva Screen Records since the series was revived in 2005. As with the Specials soundtrack, iTunes UK offered two bonus tracks and a digital book download. Series 5 introduced several new themes, most of which were introduced in The Eleventh Hour. Such new material included two new themes for the Doctor, entitled I Am the Doctor and The Mad Man with a Box; along with multiple themes associated with Amelia Pond, and River Song.^[3] The longest track is "Kiss the Girl", at 5:14, and the shortest is "Paint" at 0:35.

Material

The two-disc album contains 63 select pieces of Murray Gold’s incidental music from the 2010 series of Doctor Who, as well as two bonus tracks sold on iTunes UK. Just like the other four albums preceding it, the soundtrack’s vocal numbers were largely performed by Melanie Pappenheim, Yamit Mamo and Dorie Jackson, while the fully orchestral pieces were performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. For tracks such as "The Beast Below", "The Vampires of Venice", "Cab for Amy Pond", "Amy in the TARDIS", and "I Am the Doctor", the group vocals were done by the Crouch End Festival Chorus. For the series’ new opening sequence, Gold rearranged the Doctor Who theme for the third time, including the track’s bridge section that he had originally excluded during the first season. Gold notes in the album’s booklet that "Steven Moffat wanted a new theme. I wanted it to sound a bit reckless. I got it a big brass riff at the front, and a sped-up tempo".

As well as the theme song, most of the recurring themes for the season were introduced in the opening episode, "The Eleventh Hour", including Amy’s childhood themes ("Little Amy", "Can I Come With You?", "Little Amy: The Apple", "Amy in the TARDIS") and the Eleventh Doctor’s themes, "I Am the Doctor" and "The Mad Man With A Box", replacing tracks previously associated with the Ninth and Tenth Doctors ("The Doctor’s Theme" and "The Doctor Forever"). After the track debuted in "The Eleventh Hour", multiple variations of "I Am the Doctor" appeared in every episode of the fifth series, from "The Eleventh Hour" to "The Big Bang". For the sixth and seventh series, Gold continued to write variations of "I Am the Doctor", until the Eleventh Doctor's swan song, "The Time of the Doctor".

Like most of the series’ ongoing themes, "The Mad Man With A Box" debuted during "The Eleventh Hour", and spoke about the Doctor’s unique relationship with his TARDIS. The track contains several vocal lines by Melanie Pappenheim, but they're omitted from the fully orchestral arrangement used in the series. Her partner, Yamit Mamo also lent her own vocals for "Can I Come With You?", and the track’s subsequent variation, "Amy in TARDIS". But unlike most of the other tracks on the soundtrack, "Amy’s Theme", debuted in the second episode of the season, "The Beast Below", during Amy’s first trip to the distant future. In the album’s booklet, Gold states that "Amy’s Theme" ‘evolved’ after she first traveled with the Doctor, in the same way as Rose Tyler’s theme from the first (2005) and second series (2006). For "Amy’s Theme", Pappenheim performed the track’s main vocal lines, while the Crouch End Festival Chorus performed the closing section.

For "The Time of Angels" / "Flesh and Stone" and "The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang", Gold replaced River Song’s ethereal-like themes from the fourth series (2008), with more militant and synthesized tracks such as "River’s Path", "River Runs Through It", and "A River of Tears". For "Victory of the Daleks" and "The Hungry Earth" / "Cold Blood", Gold also rearranged "The Daleks", and composed a new theme for the Silurians. Along with the "The Daleks", Gold continued to write variations of "All the Strange, Strange Creatures", "The Doctor’s Theme", "Corridors and Fire Escapes", "March of the Cybermen", "A Special Sort of Bus", "The Runaway Bride", "Final Days", "A Dream of Catastrophe", "Evolution of the Daleks", "Midnight", "The Greats of Past Time", "A Pressing Need to Save the World", "All in the Balance", "The Song of Song", "The World Waits", and "The Cybermen", though only some of these variations were featured on the soundtrack.

On July 24–25, 2010, conductor Ben Foster, vocalist Yamit Mamo, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales performed variations of several tracks from Series 5, including "Doctor Who XI", "Down to Earth", "Little Amy", "Fish Custard", "I Am The Doctor", "The Mad Man With A Box", "The Beast Below", "Amy’s Theme", "Victory of the Daleks", "Battle in the Sky", "Signora Rosanna Calvierri", "The Vampires of Venice", "The Majestic Tale (Of a Mad Man in a Box)", "The Silurians", "With Love, Vincent", "Beneath Stonehenge", "The Pandorica", "Words Win Wars", "The Life and Death of Amy Pond", "The Patient Centurion", and "The Same Sonic", during the 2010 Doctor Who Prom.

Track listing

References