(CBS Primetime, 1959 - 1965) [One of the most notable fantasy/science fiction anthology programs in TV history was created by veteran radio/TV writer Rod Serling, who narrated the opening, and even appeared before a few of the early episodes introducing the story ala "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." The quality of the writing and other production values including music was evident throughout this show's six-season run. Along with original underscores, some tracking (using pre-existing library tracks) was done in accordance with an agreement between CBS and the musicians' union. So too were elements of the 2nd-season Theme which had been written by French avant-garde writer Marius Constant. These elements appeared in the CBS "Foreign" Music library, which was largely composed and recorded overseas for tracking in CBS Dramas and Westerns. Following the release of "Twilight Zone: The Movie" in 1983, CBS attempted to revive the TV series for the 1985 - 1986 season under the title "The New Twilight Zone", with new color episodes and a THEME which was a broad (and weak) improvisation on Marius Constant's THEME #2 by the rock group, "The Grateful Dead" (Jerry Garcia et al.) The color series revival only lasted one season, and went into short-lived reruns after that.]
[above is the title as filed for copyright... aka: "Twilight Zone Main Title/Closing Theme"; aka: "Twilight Zone Theme Main Title"; aka: "Twilight Zone Theme End Title"; This imaginative piece, which was only used for the first season of the series, uses an imaginative technique of alternating polytonal harmonies -- Chords of E minor above a D# minor which alternates with the D# minor above the E minor in the lower notes...and all of this shifting over a changing bass line of G, E and C# for a very unique uncertain effect...to match the misty visual opening. In Herrmann's manuscript in the CBS Collection at UCLA, the Closing Theme uses the same score as the Main Title, but has a second ending which extends the piece a few more bars, resolving finally on a unison E bass note; The THEME Herrmann composed has a decided similarity to many of the compositional devices used in the beginning of the movement "Neptune, The Mystic" from "The Planets" Suite (composed 1914 - 1917) by Gustav Holst in England; Herrmann was quite an Anglophile, and even lived in that country toward the end of his life; In his biography "Heart At Fire's Center" it is described how Bernard Herrmann had access to many scores (like "The Planets" no doubt) and other pieces available to study at the CBS Network music library for which he served a long and fruitful apprenticeship as a young conductor and writer of scores for radio drama...] Composer: Bernard Herrmann (ASCAP/BMI) 1978 Publisher: April Music Inc. (ASCAP) 2000 Publisher: EMI-Blackwood Music Inc. (BMI) c/o EMI Music Publishing of New York, NY [1st registration filed in 1959]: Unpublished Copyright Date: Feb. 9, 1959; EU 561 560. Unpublished Renewal Date: May 22, 1987; RE-337-981. [2nd registration filed in 1960]: Unpublished Copyright Date: Jan. 26, 1960; EU 610 447. Unpublished Renewal Date: Dec. 19, 1988; RE-407-945. Recordings:
[aka: "Etrange No. 3 (M & E Title)"; aka: "Twilight Zone Theme"; Verified as the THEME in TV Guide article "Looking For A Lost Chord?" April 28, 1962, pp. 12-13; In 1960, CBS Music Director Lud Gluskin was asked to find a new Main Title/End Credits THEME for the second season of the series, to replace the original THEME written by veteran radio/TV/film scorer Bernard Herrmann. The problem was thought to be that the Herrmann theme was considered "too down" according to music supervisor Don B. Ray, quoted in the book "TV's Biggest Hits" by Jon Burlingame. However new visuals had been created, with some bizzare items floating around in the style of a Salvador Dali abstract painting, so that required a new scoring approach...if for no other reason; So several new THEMEs were commissioned and recorded for CBS including two new THEMEs submitted by Bernard Herrmann, one by Jerry Goldsmith, another by Leith Stevens, and a few other writers familiar to CBS; but none of these was deemed suitable...(they were eventually incorporated into the CBS Cue Library and used to score episodes of "Twilight Zone" and other shows...) Finally in desperation, Lud Gluskin tried splicing together two short cues written by a French Avant-Garde classical author Marius Constant -- who had composed them for CBS to use as backgrounds for episodes of "The Twilight Zone", and then recycled in the network cue library. CBS had a policy in those days to have music composed and recorded overseas to skirt US Musician Union re-use fees which were 100% of the original session fee for any subsequent re-use. This policy was intended to keep producers from using recordings over and over, but it had the opposite effect -- inspiring producers and networks to find alternatives and music packagers who recorded outside the U.S. so they could use "track" (re-cycle) cues... Such commissioned cues were available to be shared by any CBS series which needed them. The internal title for this cue library was the "CBS Foreign Library". The cues which Gluskin spliced together were originally named "Etrange 3 (Strange No. 3)" and "Milieu 2 (Middle No. 2)". They were so fragmentary and unusual that they had not been used much. These were two of the six short dramatic cues Constant wrote and recorded with a small ensemble featuring a two guitars, percussion including bongo drums, a saxophone and French horns. They had never been designed to be a Main Title or End Credits THEME. Spliced together by Gluskin, their unique qualities appealed to Serling, who was looking for something different. So TV history was changed when they became the new "Twilight Zone" THEME from the 2nd season on...and now the most recognized by the bi-tonal guitar motif which opens "Etrange 3." In 1982 correspondence with Marius Constant, he explained that in 1959 he composed six cues at the request of Lud Gluskin "for a few hundred dollars" to be part of the CBS Music Library; He knew they were intended for their first use on a new show described by Gluskin as "strange, incredible, bizarre, fantastic"; Marius Constant went on to write that it wasn't until much later that he learned that two of his cues had been spliced together to become its Main Title and End Credits THEME for this popular U.S. Television series; Hopefully his ASCAP performance royalties as well as any mechanical royalties from future recordings helped soothe his astonishment. The copyright for these two cues used as "The Twilight Zone" THEME was not filed by April-Blackwood Music in New York until 1979 when interest in TV Themes was being revived by new recordings and publications. In 2007, an item on eBay was advertised as "source of Twilight Zone", a 1964 piano transcription of an earlier piece Constant wrote for a chamber ensemble, "Ponant 19: Five Variations on the theme of Distress" (in French: "Ponant 19: Cinq Variations sur le theme de l'Angoiss.") This work had an alternate title when filed for U.S. copyright in 1963: "Ponant 19: Dance Movement for solo piano and 19 instruments" (in French: "Ponant 19; mouvement choregraphique pour piano principal et 19 instruments.") Unfortunately, a careful examination of this work does not find any similarities with the cues Constant wrote for the Gluskin "competition" that were adapted as "The Twilight Zone Theme." All that can be said for "Ponant 19" is that it was written in the general compositional idiom Constant used at the time. But the two pieces have no themes nor motives in common. In cue sheets appearing on the website of the Bernard Hermann Society the two music cues used for the Marius Constant THEME are listed with their corresponding CBS library numbers, as in this excerpt from an episode entitled, "Little Girl Lost". Note that "Etrange #3" only takes the first 9 seconds, and "Milieu #2" takes the other 21 seconds: 13. Twilight Zone Theme - End Title Etrange #3 0:09 composed by Marius Constant; CBS library no. 11-58-813A Milieu #2 0:21 composed by Marius Constant; CBS library no. 11-58-811-16B Interesting to note a variation (perhaps due to the episode running long in editing) that the Main Title of episode "Little Girl Lost" only used Etrange #3 by itself...and NOT the cue Milieu #2. Another cue sheet for episode "I am the Night, Color Me Black" shows the Main Title Theme using both cues, as does the End Title Theme.] Composer: Marius Constant (ASCAP) 1978 Publisher: April Music Inc. (ASCAP) 2000 Publisher: Aspenfair Music Inc./Special Account (ASCAP) c/o CBS Television, of New York, NY [as "Twilight Zone (theme)" -- part of a Performing Arts copyright for a TV movie filed as: "King Nine Will Not Return, Episode of The Twilight zone including Twilight zone theme", by Cayuga Productions, Inc.]: Copyright Date: Nov. 23, 1979; PA 54-066. [Published sheet music first appeared, released by April-Blackwood Publications and Distributed by Bradley Publications, with a copyright notice date of 1979 on the sheet music]: Published Copyright Date: Aug. 18 1980; PA 76 746. Recordings:
[an improvisation on Marius Constant's opening 2-guitar riff by members of the rock group, "The Grateful Dead" which was used briefly for the 1985 revival...] Composers/Arrangers: Jerome J. ("Jerry") Garcia (ASCAP), Michael S. ("Mike") Hart (ASCAP), William ("Bill") Kreutzmann (ASCAP), Philip ("Phil") Lesh (ASCAP), and Robert Hall ("Bob") Weir (ASCAP) 2000 Publisher: Aspenfair Music Inc./Special Account (ASCAP) c/o CBS Television, of New York, NY Copyright Date: [no separate registration found; probably an arrangement of the Marius Constant THEME above] Recordings: