Tristram Cary Has Died

[Si Hunt]

Original Doctor Who composer, died at his home last night.

Will be forever remembered for his brilliant "Daleks" score.

Si.

[Dirk Gently]

Oh no! He was one of my favourite composers & I think one of the best the series ever had. The Daleks' Master Plan would not have worked as well with out him.

R.I.P Tristram.

[Anthony Williams]

Some of his original scores were brilliant - The Daleks, most notably (especially since it was reused!)

RIP

[Antony Cox]

Having recently been sent a copy of his Doctor Who CD courtesy of the CD-R King (thanks, CD-R King ), I must admit that I found it very hard going and had to switch it off after not very long. Saying that, incidental music is never designed to be listened too in isolation, and in fact his music works very well in its proper context.

However, I would hesitate to describe his DW scores as music; most of the early stuff is far more ‘ambient sounds’ than a proper music score – in fact it’s hard to tell where the ‘music’ leaves off and the sound effects begin.

Having said all that, overall he was a great composer (I recently watched The Lady Killers which he scored and it’s excellent) and obviously it’s sad when anyone dies.

RIP Tristram.

[SiHart]

It seems we've really got to the time when we're losing all the pioneers who worked on the eraly (and not so early) days of the show.

While I'm not a huge fan of his work in general (his electronic music was pioneering but not necessarily easy to listen to or like), he was a great influence on music on a wider scale, particularly electronic sounds where he was one of the first to work in that field. His Doctor Who work crosses into both the electronic and the conventional and works well for the stories he wrote for (aside maybe from The Mutants)- with Marco Polo and The Daleks' Masterplan being really beautiful scores in many places... and even The Gunfighters would be less atmospheric without the infamous Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon.

He had a great career and was really influential.

RIP

Si xx

[Rob McCow]

RIP Tristram - one of the pioneers of electronic incidental music!

[Pip Madeley]

That's a shame.

[Wayne]

I think Ant's comments about his 'Devil's Planet' music are pretty accurate, but i really like it. Innovative & atmospheric.

Anyway, RIP Tristram.

[Larry]

another sad loss to the world of Doctor Who - R I P

[SiHart]

Here's some more details about his career, from OG:

Classic Series composer Tristram Cary has died at the age of 82, at his home in Adelaide, South Australia.

Cary worked on many of the earliest stories of Doctor Who, providing incidental music for some of the most memorable episodes. He scored the very first appearance of the Daleks in 1963 and his last contribution for the programme was for The Mutants in 1972.

Cary holds a unique place in contemporary music. While serving as a wartime naval radar officer in 1945, he independently conceived the idea of electronic and tape music, and was a world pioneer in this field. His work ranged from concert and entertainment musical repertoire to pure electronic music and from instrumental solos to orchestral and choral works covers.

He provided the scores for many well known British films including the Ealing comedy The Ladykillers in 1955 and the Hammer productions of Quatermass and the Pit in 1967 and Blood from the Mummy's Tomb in 1971.

Cary was a citizen of both Australia and Britain, and in 1991 was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to Australian music. In 1999 he received the SA Great Music Award for the year, and in 2001 he gained the degree of Doctor of Music at Adelaide University.

Si xx

[Andrew Curnow]

I don't know whether you'd call it music or not, but no question that his incidentals added an awful lot of the potent atmosphere to that first Dalek story. The early episodes especially benefit enormously from the eerie, alien soundtrack.

[Antony Cox]

It seems that Doctor Who was blessed with at least 3 great Australian composers - Dudley Simpson, Tristram Cary and Ron Grainer.

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

Isn't Paddy Kingsland Australian too?
Or have I got that wrong?

[Captain Tancredi]

Oddly enough I've just been watching 'Blood from the Mummy's Tomb' this evening- quite a haunting score (probably one of the most even things in a very uneven film) on conventional instruments.

As regards Australian composers working on Who, I wonder whether it wasn't a case of Australia in the 1960s being something of a cultural backwater, so if you wanted to compose you needed to relocate somewhere- and similarly the idea of music written by Australians being performed by conventional orchestras would have been strange at the time, so film and television would have been something of a natural home.

[Dirk Gently]

Isn't Paddy Kingsland Australian too?
Or have I got that wrong?

He doesn't sound very Australian to me.

[Wayne]

Oddly enough I've just been watching 'Blood from the Mummy's Tomb' this evening- quite a haunting score (probably one of the most even things in a very uneven film) on conventional instruments.

I love that score, & it's one of my favourite Hammer films.
Nice role for Hugh Burden as well.