Last time, we said – only half joking – that the experience of putting together the first season's soundtrack taxed our friendship. (Miera, interestingly, remembers us saying that a second soundtrack wasn't going to happen. We have no recollection of such a statement. ;) ) This second time around, though, we had a whole new set of challenges. This time we were both more aware of what things the other was likely to go for, but we also had to find new music that was consistent with the things we selected last time.

Like the second season, our second soundtrack delves into new ideas, exploring in music the new places we visited and introducing new people. Enjoy the collection, and by all means, explore the artists whose music appears here. They're some of our favorites, and we hope you find something you like among our selections.

Alliances

Among the authors, Alliances has become code for "that time we went crazy and wound up with twelve drafts." We just kept adding more and more things we wanted to do, and it didn't help that we had an entirely new culture to introduce. Eventually we excised an entire subplot (the Laura/Carson plot that appears in "Outlaws and Thieves") for the sake of our sanity and story length.

Ironically, choosing music for this story was pretty simple. Saché had come across recordings by the Folger Consort, which provides the suite selected here. The madrigal "Say, Love" conveys some of Radek's simultaneous affection for Elizabeth and frustration with her ultimate rejection.

Vigil

Last time around we listened to so much of James Newton Howard's movie scores that Mel was in a screening of Defiance for all of thirty seconds before thinking "I wonder if this is a James Newton Howard score?" Lo and behold, it was, with the bonus of violin solos performed by Joshua Bell, one of Saché's favorite performers. Music from this source appears a few times in this season's soundtrack.

Meanwhile, the second track doesn't exactly fit in the moment of "Vigil," but a musical introduction to Caldora would be incomplete without taking a moment for the princess.

Outlaws and Thieves

Back when we were working on the Season 1 soundtrack, this was one of the first tracks that we agreed upon. Mel is a big fan of Sting, and she had long thought that someone (*coughcoughSaché*) ought to make a Vala vid using "Saint Agnes and the Burning Train". The song is playful and irreverent, much like everyone's favorite con artist.

Midnight on the Firing Line

Surprisingly, Cameron was difficult to find music for. Eventually we came upon this piece, which is actually from a Christmas collection, but the deep voice of the viola combined with simple melody and harmony seemed perfect.

The second selection, from the soundtrack of Master and Commander, recalls the midnight surprise attack the Caldorans mounted against the Goa'uld forces at the Otero River.

Precipice

The surprising and sad development in Laura and Carson's marriage in this story was a difficult needle to thread. It proved even more difficult to find the right music for them at that point – regret tinged with hope. It wasn't until Mel found a collection of John Dowland's music for solo lute that we discovered a little piece called "Aloe." (There may have been an undignified squeal of delight and even some jumping up and down in the store when Mel made this find. She refuses to admit it.)

It's worth noting that the text selected here for Marcus as his courtship with Kate dissolves, "Can she excuse my wrongs?", was supposedly written by the Earl of Essex, Robert Devareux, about Queen Elizabeth I. Though Dowland's music is lovely, we imagine that the lyrics did not go over well, especially considering that Essex's head was eventually separated from the rest of him.

And lastly, Miera may be shocked at this, but we found a John Williams composition that actually works in this context. ;)

Aloe
by John Dowland
performed by Jakob Lindberg
from John Dowland: Complete Music for Solo Lute

Can she excuse my wrongs?
by John Dowland
performed by Sting and Edin Karamazov
from Songs from the Labyrinth

Can she excuse my wrongs with Virtue's cloak?
Shall I call her good when she proves unkind?
Are those clear fires which vanish into smoke?
Must I praise the leaves when no fruit I find?

No, no; where shadows do for bodies stand
Thou may'st be abused if thy sight be dim.
Cold love is like to words written on sand
Or to bubbles which on the water swim.

Wilt thou be thus abused still
Seeing that she will right thee never?
If thou canst not o'ercome her will
Thy love will be thus fruitless ever.

Was I so base, that I might not aspire
Unto those high joys which she holds from me?
As they are high, so high is my desire;
If she this deny, what can granted be?

If she will yield to that which Reason is,
It is Reason's will that Love should be just.
Dear, make me happy still by granting this,
Or cut off delays if that I die must.

Better a thousand times to die,
Than for to live thus still tormented;
Dear, but remember it was I
Who for thy sake did die contented.

Ultimatum
(original title: Destiny's Path)
by John Williams
from the soundtrack of Memoirs of a Geisha

The Mire

We seem to be following a general pattern. If the story was easy to write, the music is hard to find. If the story was difficult, the music is easy. In this case, if the story involved lots and lots of action, the perfect music is on the very first album that either of us consulted.

The Summit

In many subtle ways, the summit between Elizabeth and Landry was a measure of loss. The Caldorans had just survived a massive invasion, but not unscathed, and it marks the beginning of Elizabeth's isolation from those she has relied upon for so long. This selection from the soundtrack of Firefly takes a moment and reflects the immense changes of the last few months on both sides of the mountains.

From the Ashes of Our Fathers

Miera's work conveying the destruction of Cheyenne and desperation of her citizens in "From the Ashes of Our Fathers" was so powerful that we knew immediately that we had to find something equal to the task. Saché found in her collection the song "Away," which manages to convey the hurt of love departed, a metaphor for the city and a somewhat more literal meaning for John, coping with the knowledge that he could have seen Elizabeth again had duty not called him away.

For John, who is lifting a city out of ruin as he stands as the last in his father's lineage, we have selected a solo performance by Yo-Yo Ma, "Appalachia Waltz." (Interestingly, Saché initially vetoed the idea, having only heard the original trio arrangement, which is very different in tone than the solo version. However, Mel had heard him perform this piece live and kind of insisted that Saché take another look.)

Once and Future

Some of you may recall that in the notes of the first season soundtrack, Saché mentioned a piece which she desperately wanted to use for a Ren vid, which Mel subsequently vetoed for John and Elizabeth's first kiss. This is the song. It has eventually found a home as a piece for Radek and Jeannie, in their clandestine affair.

Collapse

The first selection for "Collapse" comes from the same group that performed "Away," featured earlier. "Fowles in the Frith" is haunting and plain, and here it represents Elizabeth, as she has grown more and more isolated from her loved ones and faces the opposition of the college alone.

Our selection for the Sodan is perhaps the least like anything else in the collection, but the idea of drums seemed to work well for a nomadic people with heavy influence on military honor, and the East-meets-West infusion of the Silk Road Project struck us as the right sound.

It's hard to sum up a story like "Measure Every Grief" in just a handful of musical selections, but eventually these three stood out. Again we hear from James Newton Howard (and hope he does another movie soon, as we seem to be quite attached to him in these projects), along with John Dowland. The third has an element of rejuvenation and rejoicing to it – perfect for a kiss that everyone was waiting for, us included.

As with last time, we wanted a song that would stand for the whole season. We'd actually talked about it when we did the last soundtrack and decided on a particular song. This wasn't it. Have we mentioned that Mel is very picky? And a big fan of Sting? ;)