BG3: “Rapture”

     Sorry about the delay in getting the Rapture blog posted. After the holidays, the Galactica schedule kicked in with a vengeance, and combined with the release of my newest album Rest Stop: Music from the Motion Picture, it’s been a crazy 2007 so far! I’ll try to be more current for the rest of the season. 

     Rapture was a tremendously fun show to score. While there were several great action set pieces, the reveal of the supernova, leading to D’Anna’s vision of the Final Five, is among my favorite sequences I’ve scored yet.  

     In order to create the score for this climactic moment in the story, I mashed together three important themes that I’ve been developing over the past few episodes:

 1. The D’Anna / Baltar Theme

     I had previously introduced a very subtle theme for D’Anna and Baltar’s shared religious experience back in Hero and The Passage. With the advantage of knowing that D’Anna’s obsession with the Final Five cylons would lead to major story events, I knew early on that a melodic identity would be necessary for them. I created a variation of Baltar’s theme (see this entry for a detailed description) that was performed on the yialli tanbur.

     Unfortunately, my every attempt to introduce this new theme into the show was drowned out by sound effects or dialogue. There are many times when these elements must be featured over score in order to tell the story. But, hoping for the D’Anna / Baltar theme to poke through the soundscape of Hero, The Passage and even The Eye of Jupiter proved to be wishful thinking. So, basically, the first time you can really hear this theme is in Rapture.

2. The Temple of Five Theme

     For the previous episode, The Eye of Jupiter, I composed a Balinese-inspired “Temple of Five” theme for when Tyrol first discovers the ruins:

     The complex texture of bells, chimes, gu zheng and gamelans pops up again throughout Rapture, but makes its strongest statement as D’Anna surveys the faces of the final five. The simple, mantra-like melody is performed in between statements of the vocal line singing…

3. The Kobol / Roslin / Religious Theme

     Vocalist Raya Yarbrough sang a wordless vocal line at the reveal of the Temple of Five in the previous episode. This time, she’s given a more substantial role in the music. Her vocal lines begin when Tyrol and Lee look into the sky to see the star going supernova. 

The lyrics at this moment are:

Sung in Latin: Omnia illa et ante fiebant, Omnia illa et rursus fient.

English Translation: All of this has happened before, And all of this will happen again 

     I thought this would be a fitting lyrical choice, since we eventually learn that the 13th tribe witnessed a similar supernova four thousand years ago. I have used these lyrics once before, during the discovery of Kobol in the first season, and intentionally tried to connect these two moments with music. 

Once D’Anna’s vision of the Final Five begins, the vocal line returns once again:

Sung in Latin:

•  Vis ingenii
• Mens ignifera urens 
• Manus in tenebris lucis
• In mariti oculo
• Oculi vaccae 

English Translation:

• Intelligence
• A mind that burns like a fire
• The hand that lies in the shadows of the light
• In the eye of the husband
• Of the eye of the cow

     This text comes from the Hybrid’s prophecy spoken to Baltar in The Passage. They are the very words that inspired him to lead the Cylons to the Temple of Five in the first place. 

     This moment was the climax of a long and complex story arc. As you can see, the score smashed together three themes that had been developed in isolation from one another, yet collided to create this singular dramatic event. I had been planning this for about two months (from the moment I scored Baltar and D’Anna’s first scene together aboard the basestar) and was thrilled that the music worked so well against picture. 

     Rapture was a hell of a way to kick start the last half of season 3 and it only gets better from here…

So Say We All,

-Bear