Fantastic Voyage

Music by Leonard Rosenman

 

 

 

 

 

Leonard Rosenman was one composer that updated the musical concept of film music to modern standarts. Admittedly atonal, the music for Fantastic Voyage (1966) was of vital importance for personality of the classic science fiction by Richard Fleischer.

Even the sound approach to the film was original: the first 20 minutes does not have musical support at all, only some effects in the opening credits. The music starts after the miniaturization of scientists and the injection of submarine Proteus in the human body. Rosenman then presents the main theme with the appropriate atmosphere of wonder and discovery. The music ingeniously suggests large spaces with "distant" sounds of instrumental groups while constructs confinement in the nasal sound of wind instruments.

 

"The score appears quite busy with many contrapuntal voices. This deals with the constant background of many creatures living in the human blood, as well as the various scenes in veins, heart, lungs ... " – L. Rosenman

 

Suspenseful moments as The Chart and Pulmonary Artery delivers musical places never visited before and action moments as in Cora Trapped and Get the Laser, disorient the listening with its antagonistic blocks of "own will". Fantastic Voyage is simply one of the most original soundtracks ever created for a movie. The edition of Film Score Monthly is the first edition of this work ever, it was never previously available even in vinyl. The CD also includes the film's opening vignette, composed of library sound effects of 20th Century Fox that were extensively used in TV series such as Lost in Space and Time Tunnel, which gives a curiously nostalgic touch to an edition containing symphonic material so progressive.