This is beautiful. Horns are essential in Star Trek. In this case, I have always seen DS9 as a city in space, a colony that reaches for both the heavens and the depths of hell, with its pylons, as the trumpets announce the presence of the city. The strings, in both the opening, and eventually using the same notes as those trumpets, give me the same excitement of that music so many years ago, when DS9 was in its infancy. It is a beautiful piece for a tremendously rich show of characters and themes that struck accord with this one human being. What does everyone else take away from this rendition?
I love that they emphasized the lilting quality of the melody. I suspect that Dennis McCarthey was trying to do something like Aaron Copland, something very "American," very folksy. This arrangement pushes the theme more in that direction.
I have the City of Prague Philharmonic CD of Western themes and it's pretty awesome; I'm sure anything they do with Trek will be just as good.