Mark Snow: Materia Primoris The X-Files Theme (Main Title) Piano solo sheet music

Mark Snow

Mark Snow (August 26, 1946) is a prolific American music composer for film and television. He graduated from the Juilliard School in New York. He was a co-founder of the New York Rock & Roll Ensemble.

One of his best-known compositions is the theme song for the sci-fi television series The X-Files, which reached number two on the UK Singles Chart, but he also composed the theme song for another Chris Carter series: Millennium. He also provided the soundtrack for both shows, a total of 12 seasons of work. The X-Files typically uses more instrumental music in its soundtrack than most shows with its characteristics.

Mark Snow also composed the Smallville soundtrack and music for various video games such as Siphon Filter: Dark Mirror and Giants: Citizen Kabuto. He has been nominated for 12 Emmy Awards and has won 18 ASCAP Awards.

Mark Snow also composed music for the Twilight Zone series.

Mark Snow’s soundtracks sometimes feature excerpts from Witold Lutoslawski, a 20th-century Polish composer. For example, the third episode of the Nowhere Man series contains a passage for piano and flute by Lutoslawski (‘Les espaces du sommeil’) as baritone and orchestra, and an episode of The X-Files contains an excerpt from his Nowhere Symphony.

Mark Snow’s Works

Interview: Mark Snow on X-Files: I Want To Believe

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The X-Files Music

The X-Files had already produced one of the most interesting pop soundtracks of the 90s before the cult TV series made the leap to the big screen in 1998. Like its cinematic counterpart, The X-Files movie soundtrack is similar to its small screen incarnation – only bigger, brighter and better produced.

It might make for a great movie, but it means the soundtrack just isn’t quite as original as Songs in the Key of X. There are still a few odd selections that preserve the offbeat feeling of the series, but in the Overall the collection is full of big names and alternative quasi-stars.

For the most part, everyone involved lands on the right dark vibe, but a few – like Tonic, Better Than Ezra’s ‘One More Murder’ and Filter’s ‘Hey Man, Nice Shot’ – revamp Three’s ‘One’ Dog Night – doesn’t quite deliver.

Others, like X’s cover of The Doors’ ‘Crystal Ship’ and alternative quasi-stars and Sting and Aswad’s reworking of ‘Invisible Sun’, are well-intentioned but unsuccessful.

Nonetheless, there are some great moments here. Björk’s ‘TheHunter’ (also on Homogenic – the only track here that isn’t exclusive) is a chilling masterpiece, William Orbit remixes Sarah McLachlan’s ‘Black’ into a haunting trip-hop, ‘More Than This by The Cure is an unexpected gem, Cardigans reveal their dark side, Noel Gallagher’s beautiful ‘Teotihuacan’ is a Primal Scream track by another name, and Ween’s ‘Beacon Light’ – by far the catchiest here – brilliantly sends off Mulder’s search for truth and the entire X-File fan base.

These cuts make the mediocre, the lackluster and the bad tolerable and are enough to make The X-Files the best alt-rock soundtrack of the summer of 1998. Granted, it’s not exactly a win, but it’s when even a win.

On the European version, they added a bonus track, ‘Tubular X’ by Mike Oldfield. It is a cover of the main theme from The X-Files composed by Mark Snow, done in the style of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells album. This track played in theaters during the opening credits of the UK version of the film. However, this sequence was excluded from the DVD version that was released in the United Kingdom.