Jerry Goldsmith (Coma) Coma

Goldsmith left the first hour of the film completely unscored

Jerry Goldsmith's most radical decision on Coma was restraint. He composed only 42 minutes of music for the film's second half, leaving the entire first hour -- the hospital routines, the domestic arguments, the institutional confrontations, Nancy Greenly's surgery -- in silence. The audience sits inside the ambient hum of the hospital with no musical guidance about what to feel. The strategy forces the viewer to supply the dread from the institutional detail alone. (jerrygoldsmithonline)

Aliya Whiteley at Den of Geek identified the effect: "The lack of music in the first half of the film really works too -- the silence makes you aware of your own breathing as you watch her hide." The absence of score in the investigation scenes makes the score's arrival in the second half -- when Susan enters the Jefferson Institute and the conspiracy turns physical -- land with greater force. (denofgeek)

He stripped out the brass and built the score from strings, pianos, and processed electronics

The orchestration was deliberately alienating. Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks detailed the unconventional instrumentation:

"Goldsmith eliminates a brass section, reduces the percussion, and utilizes four pianos on top of strings, woodwinds, keyboards, and cimbalom to create an alienating environment." — Christian Clemmensen, Filmtracks (n.d.)

The result was a score built on texture rather than melody. Goldsmith used an echoplex machine to process sounds that imitated the metallic ring of surgical instruments, threading electronic noise through the acoustic ensemble. The Filmtracks review described the rhythmic approach as equally unsettling:

"Consistent rhythms are almost nonexistent in Coma, the meter edgy and unpredictable in its shifts." — Christian Clemmensen, Filmtracks (n.d.)

The echoplex -- a tape-delay device that creates cascading repetitions of a sound -- gave the score its signature quality: a two-note motif that loops and decays, evoking the mechanical repetition of hospital equipment. The effect is clinical rather than emotional, matching Crichton's visual approach of fluorescent lighting and long sterile corridors.

The sole exception was a light love theme for the Cape Cod weekend

Amid the atonal suspense, Goldsmith composed one genuinely warm cue: a theme for strings, piano, and acoustic guitar heard during the Cape Cod weekend sequence when Susan and Mark briefly escape the hospital. One reviewer described it as "the only upbeat and playful cue in the score." A disco variant of this theme served as source music elsewhere in the film. The contrast between the love theme and the rest of the score mirrors the film's structural contrast between Susan's domestic life and the institutional horror she is uncovering. (jerrygoldsmithonline)

The score is considered one of Goldsmith's finest thriller works

Coma was Goldsmith's second collaboration with Crichton after the TV movie Pursuit (1972). They would work together again on The Great Train Robbery (1979) and Runaway (1984). The Jerry Goldsmith Online review placed the Coma score in career context:

"One of the composer's finest examples of his thriller scoring technique. A style that is sadly lacking these days." — Jerry Goldsmith Online, jerrygoldsmithonline.com (n.d.)

Jason Shawhan at Nashville Scene called it "a peerless Jerry Goldsmith score," singling it out as one of the film's defining qualities. The Geek Vibes Nation Blu-ray review noted that the 2023 Scream Factory remaster finally did justice to the audio: "Jerry Goldsmith's score sounds excellent and establishes paranoid atmosphere." (rottentomatoes, geekvibesnation)