Hear the Music of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks Played by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra

With Twin Peaks com­ing back to our TV screens next year, fans want to know who’s com­ing back from the orig­i­nal cast and crew. The same could be said for com­pos­er Ange­lo Badala­men­ti, whose theme music for the series still evokes shots of sawmills, high water­falls, rustling pines, and a deep, dark sense of mys­tery com­bined with the pangs of doomed romance.

In this selec­tion from an August 19, 2016 con­cert from the Dan­ish Nation­al Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra, under the baton of Antho­ny Wee­den, Badalamenti’s score is giv­en a chance to stand alone as a com­po­si­tion with­out the visu­als. Bathed in red light, the orches­tra looks appro­pri­ate­ly Lynchi­an, and all that’s miss­ing is a large red cur­tain and zigzag floor­ing. The arrange­ment hews close to Badalamenti’s, though his small com­bo from the orig­i­nal sound­track gets expand­ed to a full orches­tra, with ket­tle­drums, glock­en­spiel, harp, and con­cert bells. How­ev­er, when “Lau­ra Palmer’s Theme” segues into the title theme, the two-note twang is still played on elec­tric gui­tar. (You can’t mess with that!)

In this con­text, Badalamenti’s nods to Bernard Hermann’s Ver­ti­go score are even more appar­ent, espe­cial­ly in the del­i­cate, swelling love melody that is always in dan­ger of sad col­lapse. The con­cert also fea­tured selec­tions from oth­er great tele­vi­sion sound­tracks, includ­ing Game of Thrones, Home­land, Break­ing Bad, Six Feet Under, and more. The whole con­cert can be watched here.

“We had a fab­u­lous time per­form­ing it —a very spe­cial part of the evening,” Antho­ny Wee­den is quot­ed as say­ing on the go-to Wel­come to Twin Peaks site. And he added, “I can’t wait for the new series!”

Nei­ther can we, Mr. Wee­den.

via Wel­come to Twin Peaks

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Play the Twin Peaks Video Game: Retro Fun for David Lynch Fans

David Lynch Draws a Map of Twin Peaks (to Help Pitch the Show to ABC)

Hear the Music of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks Played by the Exper­i­men­tal Band, Xiu Xiu: A Free Stream of Their New Album

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.