Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: david bradley, doctor who, indiana jones, john williams, Murray Gold, peter capaldi, russell t davies, star wars, steven moffat

Doctor Who: Murray Gold Told Twelfth Doctor's Tale with These 3 Themes

In honor of the Doctor Who @60: A Musical Celebration concert, we look at how Murray Gold told the Twelfth Doctor's story in three themes.

Composer Murray Gold is one of the major players and unsung heroes of Doctor Who. Some critics might say his compositions were too bombastic and huge, but his music was the biggest change in the show when Russell T. Davies recruited him to become the composer in the series' revival in 2005. His scores, accompanied by a full orchestra, afforded him the types of epic soundtrack you might hear in John Williams' soundtracks for Star Wars and Indiana Jones. His compositions were increasingly ambitious, layered, and complex as the series went on, especially the more the showrunners trusted him, and he worked themes and characters into music to accentuate them.

Doctor Who @ 60: A Musical Celebration will be broadcast on BBC Radio 2 this Sunday, but the full concert is already available to stream online worldwide. Key compositions from the series will be presented, including scores by Gold and Segun Akinola that cover the individual Doctors' companions' themes. The BBC has used Doctor Who as a gateway drug to get children interested in Classical Music for years now, especially when Gold's soundtracks were often influenced by various classical composers' work the same way John Williams' was. Remember when Doctor Who at the Proms was a thing? The BBC Proms is a big deal every year, an annual concert festival celebrating Classical Music at the Royal Albert Hall in London is a unique institution of British life, and Doctor Who was a part of it for a while.

A Life Told in Music

As a preview for Doctor Who @ 60: A Musical Celebration, we decided to look at how Murray Gold told the Twelfth Doctor's (Peter Capaldi) arc in three musical themes introduced in each of Capaldi's three seasons. His Doctor's personal dilemma was whether he was a good man, how he could be a good man, and a final acceptance of his life and death before he regenerated into another person.

"A Good Man?", introduced in Series 8, is the Twelfth Doctor's theme. Brooding, uncertain, quizzical, then erupting into action as The Doctor finally decides to act. In his first series, the newly-regenerated Doctor questions whether he's a good man after a previous lifetime fighting a war and admitting that he has killed.

"I am a Good Man" is a variation and reconfiguration of "A Good Man?", heard near the end of the Twelfth Doctor's life and story in his and showrunner Steven Moffat's final story, the Christmas Special "Twice Upon a Time." On a quiet battlefield in the Somme during the First World War, where an armistice was temporarily declared on Christmas Day, the Doctor has convinced the dying First Doctor (David Bradley) that they are doing good, and the First Doctor leaves in his TARDIS to regenerate. This was the last theme Gold composed for the series before his return for the upcoming 60th Anniversary Specials.

"The Shephard's Boy," a theme first introduced in Series 9 in the episode "Heaven Sent" but remixed with parts of other themes throughout the three seasons, becomes a final musical summation of the Twelfth Doctor's life, accompanying his final speech to his upcoming successor and Capaldi's farewell to the role.

You can hear the live orchestral concert versions of these themes in Doctor Who @ 60: A Musical Celebration on BBC Sounds.

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