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In a 1963 episode of The Outer Limits called “The Sixth Finger,” Gwyllm Griffiths (David McCallum) volunteers for a scientist who has found a way to advance man’s evolution by over one million years, thereby creating human supergeniuses with an aptitude for rapid learning and enhanced mental capacity. The final script was ten minutes too short for its time slot, so the production team had to come up with an inexpensive way to fill that space. Since Gwyllm has mastered mathematics, series co-creator Joseph Stefano felt that the next logical step would be mastery of music. Stefano immediately wrote a five-page insert in which Gwyllm plays several preludes and a fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book I since he felt they represented musical genius. The production team chose Glenn Gould’s then-new recording of the pieces, notable for Gould’s rapid performance speed. Gwyllm then mimed playing at this accelerated pace to represent his sudden musical adeptness. Studies have been conducted on Bach as a musical genius, the virtuosity necessary to play his music, and Gould’s virtuosic, intellectual performances of Bach’s music, but none have examined all three in tandem, especially in the context of a television episode. This essay discusses Bach’s music as an embodiment of virtuosity and as a cultural representation of genius in “The Sixth Finger.” The choice to use Bach’s music in the visual context of television adds another dimension to the concept of genius, exemplifying both virtuosity and a specific composer whose music transcends time.

“ There is Nothing Wrong With Your Television Speakers” From 1963-1965, American viewers were not in control of their television sets. The new show that controlled their televisions was called The Outer Limits, created by Joseph Stefano and Leslie Stevens, and was broadcast on the ABC network. The series, lasting only a season and a half with a total of 48 episodes, changed the face of science fiction and fantasy television. While a successor to anthology shows such as Thriller (NBC, 1960-1962) and Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond (ABC, 1959-1961), and contemporaries with The Twilight Zone (CBS, 1959-1964), The Outer Limits painted a much different, yet bleak, picture of the future. With a sine wave on screen accompanied by an acousmatic Control Voice, the show promised that it would control the horizontal, the vertical, and all that the viewer would see and hear. A distinct characteristic of the show in the first season is that any damage done to the universe had to be corrected by the episode's conclusion, even if only by the Control Voice narration by Vic Perrin. The Control Voice forces our attention onto the screen, highlighting its unusual function and using its distinctly unusual purpose to demand intense attention while simultaneously increasing the audience's level of paranoia. This opening sequence, Jeffrey Sconce demonstrates, is invasive and unmatched by any other show before or since. We become passive, yet adventuring spectators, that by virtue of watching and taking part in the show's sojourns into uncharted territories. The Control Voice's closing narration often emphasizes that the episode's message is not as obvious as it seems throughout the episode. Each of the episodes culminates with someone or something gaining a new insight, along with thoughtful commentary. J.P. Telotte believes that “ The Outer Limits demonstrated that science fiction was hardly a monolithic story type, certainly not just the space opera, and that, far from being a niche form, it could effectively address and broad spectrum of the television audience.” Among its entertainment value, this Cold War era show essentially frightened viewers not of would happen, but what could happen given the trajectory of science and the tendencies of the human race.

Nathan Van Cleave was the most prolific composer for The Twilight Zone , composing a total of twelve original scores for both half-hour and hour episodes. Although he composed so many scores for this and other series, it is remarkable that his music has not received more attention in and out of scholarly circuits. Van Cleave worked predominantly as Aaron Copland's orchestrator for his film music as well as his composer for scores such as The Colossus of New York (1958) and Robinson Crusoe on Mars ( 1964). This chapter will bring to light an understanding of his original scores for The Twilight Zone and seeks to understand him not simply as an arranger and orchestrator, but as a composer as well. Van Cleave worked at CBS from 1935 until 1942 as an arranger and composer for the radio scores of Lyn Murray, Ray Block, and Robert Emmitt Dolan. As Chapter 3 alluded to briefly, much of what Fred Steiner learned about scoring came from Van Cleave: He had a certain method for arranging, as I recall, actually kind of a logical one. Sketch out the melody, make a separate chart deciding which colors you would use in what part of a song, start off with full strings and then the next eight bars maybe go to woodwind. All this would be laid out on a separate piece of paper. He would go through and put the melody in, next go back with the bass and the other parts and then fill in the harmonies and the percussion parts. The piano part was usually laid out and entered last, but we used certain shorthand. Van Cleave's sketches seem to indicate this method and by examining at Steiner's sketches for The Twilight Zone , we can see that he also took the same approach. But unlike other composers, Van Cleave did not always do his own orchestrations. Larson states that “Van Cleave and Steiner would go on to have an especially fruitful collaboration orchestrating each other's work on CBS television shows like The Twilight Zone and Gunsmoke , neither man taking credit in such cases.” Fred Steiner often orchestrated Van Cleave's music for the series from thematic material that he had already composed, with Steiner remaining uncredited for his work and Van Cleave often reciprocating for Steiner.

The re-use of storylines from radio plays on early television was not uncommon; indeed, much of the television programming of the 1950s and early 1960s consisted of repurposed radio scripts. Columbia Presents Corwin 'Moat Farm Murder' (Bernard Herrmann, 18 July 1944) was among the many radio programmes from the 1940s that had music featured in The Twilight Zone. Of the radio plays to feature music in the series, 'Moat Farm Murder' provided more cues than any other CBS radio score. Cues from 'Moat Farm Murder' are found in eleven episodes of The Twilight Zone (CBS, 1959–1964). The use of music from radio dramas and their re-uses in television has thus far not been examined. This essay looks at the composition of the 'Moat Farm Murder' radio score and Corwin's collaboration with Herrmann in it, as well as the re-use of radio music in The Twilight Zone. Through this case study of 'Moat Farm Murder', better knowledge of how the CBS Stock music library was used, in tandem with the way in which other similar network and production company cue libraries worked.

Franz Waxman composed over 150 film scores, the most famous of which is Billy Wilder’s film noir Sunset Boulevard (1950). The film plot bears a striking resemblance to Rod Serling’s teleplay for The Twilight Zone, “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine” (1959). Waxman, composer of the film, was approached to compose a score for a television episode that was what many term a shortened version of Wilder’s film for the small screen, but with supernatural elements. This article serves to remedy the dearth of literature on this topic and to form an examination of the ways that Waxman conceived of music to accompany films with similar themes but on different screens. Through this comparison of the two scores, a clearer picture of Waxman’s approaches to composing music for moving images will be presented.

This paper examines the aural conceptions of futuristic dystopias in episodes of The Twilight Zone, focusing on one specific episode, season five’s “Number Twelve Looks Just Like You.” I examine how the music director of CBS conceived of the future, aurally representing these episodes as having an affinity with the premise of Brave New World by reusing its radio score by Bernard Herrmann. As a result, I will explore the use of the radio score in the episode and the ways in which dystopian futures were aurally represented in the series.

One of most enigmatic figures in mythology is Helen of Troy. The portrait that ancient authors and scholars alike paint is that of a woman with an uncertain history and a name marred by generations, both contemporary with her life, as well as those contemporary with ours. Each of these stories has an agenda in that each writer means to portray Helen in a certain light: none of these works manages to keep a neutral or ambivalent tone in Helen’s depiction. Since the story of Helen’s life is so ambiguous, classical scholars tend to be uncertain as to the veracity of the adventures that each author has Helen embark upon and exactly which of the accounts, if any, are true. As a result, many of these accounts cause a high level of duplicity among scholars, since she is often subjected to both blame and praise. Regardless, all of these sources send the same message: women are dangerous and are not to be trusted, and that they are responsible for all that is wrong in society. Helen, of course, is, and rather unfortunately so, the archetype. In contrast, seventeenth-century Venetian opera portrays Helen quite differently, usually as a victim of circumstances beyond her control. This treatment differs from the way the ancient writers depict her. This article examines the various portrayals of Helen in ancient and early modern writings, and compares them to seventeenth-century Venetian operatic portrayals. The origins and reasons for this phenomenon are also investigated.

During the rise of Italian immigration to the United States between 1870 and 1930, the sceneggiata, a musical theater genre popular in Naples, began its tenure in the theaters located within predominantly Italian neighborhoods of the United States. The sceneggiata revolved around specific Neapolitan songs and was one of the few types of entertainment available to Italian-American immigrants in their new homeland. . I propose that the elements of Italian immigrant identity found in sceneggiate allowed these works to serve as a means to showcase popular Neapolitan songs and to allow the immigrants to retain their culture and Italian identity in their new land while struggling to build new identities as Italian-Americans.