The latest Silva Screen offering is probably the best one so far at least of the few that I have. The performances are getting better as time goes by. I always felt that their brass section needed a little more practice at times, however, they perform splendidly throughout. The first disc is a reasonably good selection of classic and not so classic Sci-Fi cuts. Starting with the obvious, 2001, which is well performed although I don't think I really need another copy of it! The well known tracks from Apollo 13, The Right Stuff, Capricorn One, The Empire Strikes Back are all fairly faithful to the originals, although the tempo in Apollo 13 seemed to lag a little at times I felt. The concert version of Han and Leia's theme from Empire is a nice addition as for some reason John Williams never felt any need to write a concert arrangement for the original soundtrack, which is a shame as it nicely mixes the love theme with Leia's theme. The track from Species gives a taster of this unreleased (I think!) score and uses some interesting spooky female choral effects, much in the same manner as music from the Alien films does. The End Title from Alien complements the selection from Species nicely. Enemy Mine features a lengthy suite that mixes "Golden Age of Hollywood" style music with weird synth effects to produce a track I rather avoid to be honest. I just don't think Sci-Fi is Berstein's cup of tea.
Disc two starts with a well performed pair of tracks from Alex North's famous uncompleted and unused score from 2001. The Dawn of Man sequence makes a nice, more modern, variation on Richard Strauss' piece that was used. The Space Station Docking is a light waltz to mimic the delicate procedure of the docking, capturing the mood just perfectly. Much of the rest of disc two is fairly redundant for most Sci-Fi music enthusiasts who, in all likelihood, will have most of the selections from Star Trek television and film. The Main Title from Star Wars is pretty lacklustre in performance with some rather erratic tempo changes with much of it taken rather too slowly. It also seems a little out of place on the second disc really. Highlights of this disc include the long, concert arrangement of the theme from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine which is different from the kind of "pop" expansion on the original single and opts for a more symphonic approach. I believe that this was written especially for this collection, at least this is its first performance. The middle section of this tracks uses a soft variation on the theme and then surges to a jubilant climax, the length of which is rather short and makes the whole thing seem to end rather abruptly, especially on first hearing it.
The "overture" from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn cleverly mixes Horner's eerie opening with the end titles. The point where they cross over isn't perceptible and even after repeated listening, I'm still not sure where it occurs. The two selections from The Next Generation & Deep Space Nine are very nice indeed. McCarthy's track from DS9 is typical McCarthy, nice, inoffensive and a little boring. Tasha's Farewell is long but very beautiful and probably benefits from being able to use late nineties synthesisers rather than late eighties which I always felt plagued Ron Jones' Star Trek music a little. The selection as used in the Star Trek: 30th Anniversary TV compilation by Jones was nice, apart from his rather dated sounding synth effects. However, his orchestral composing is very good indeed and is certainly the highlight of this cue and makes it heartbreakingly beautiful. The other titles and themes from the films are good, especially the Star Trek: Generations overture which is probably the best performance of it yet, certainly beating the original simply because has so much more dynamic range.
This compilation is a tough call. While soundtrack novices will like it for the good selection it contains, especially from Star Trek, those with many of the soundtracks may not see the point getting it, indeed I was a little hesitant. However, the performances are all good and I got it for the price of a single CD and there is at least a single CD's worth of good music on it and so was well worth buying anyway.
Rating ~ 
Disc One ~ Total Time: 74:41
Disc Two ~ Total Time: 64:14