This is one of the greatest scores of all time, unsettling, agitated, suspenseful, eerie, all with a driving, modern energy. Like Herrmann's music for The Day the Earth Stood Still, if Goldsmith's Planet of the Apes had been composed for the concert hall, the course of "classical" music would be very different.

Some of the staccato piano and snare drums work anticipates Goldsmith's First Blood score. Though this is a sci-fi movie, Goldsmith relies heavily on acoustic instruments, generating weird sounds through the use of unusual percussion and unusual writing for conventional instruments.

Tape delays are deployed subtly and effectively, in "The Searchers", for instance.

This CD release of the complete score concludes with a suite of Goldsmith music from Escape from the Planet of the Apes, a much friendlier and groovier concoction that nonetheless connects to the previous gnarly masterpiece.