American composer (1919–1990) who scored The Enemy Within and The Doomsday Machine, music that was reused throughout the first two seasons of the original Star Trek.
Sol Kaplan was an American concert pianist and film composer who wrote two original scores for Star Trek.
The first was for The Enemy Within, the first-season episode in which a transporter fault divides Kirk into two halves. The second, for The Doomsday Machine in the second season, is one of the most celebrated of the series: its driving motif for the planet killer and its theme for the obsessed Commodore Decker gave the episode much of its tension.
Because the series recorded new music for only some episodes, Kaplan's cues were tracked into many others, so his work is heard far more widely than his two credits suggest. His film scores included Titanic of 1953 and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.