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Music of Star Wars

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John Williams, composer of all seven Star Wars saga films.

The music of the Star Wars franchise is composed and produced in conjunction with the development of the feature films, television series, and other merchandise within the epic space opera franchise created by George Lucas. Released between 1977 and 2017, the music for the primary feature films was written by composer John Williams and, in the case of the first two trilogies, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. Williams scored the seventh episode, Star Wars: The Force Awakens,[1] and has composed the music for Episode VIII, Star Wars: The Last Jedi,[2] and is currently slated to score Episode IX as well. Those latter scores were performed by a freelance orchestra, and mostly conducted by William Ross.

While the reception of his scores to the different episodes varies, Williams' scores for the eight saga films count among the most widely known and popular contributions to modern film music.

Additionally, music for animated television series spinoffs has been written by Kevin Kiner, and further music has been composed for Star Wars video games and works in other media. Michael Giacchino was the composer on the spin-off film, Rogue One. John Powell will score the Untitled Han Solo film.

The scores are played by a symphony orchestra and, in several sections, a choir. They make use of a series of musical themes that represents the various characters, objects and events in the films. Throughout the films, a total of 16 hours of music, Williams has written one of the largest, most rich collection of themes in the history of film music.

Overview

Films

Year Title Composer Conductor Orchestrator Orchestra
Saga Films
1977 Star Wars (A New Hope) John Williams John Williams Herbert W. Spencer London Symphony Orchestra
1980 The Empire Strikes Back
1983 Return of the Jedi
1999 The Phantom Menace Conrad Pope
John Neufeld
2002 Attack of the Clones Conrad Pope
Eddie Karam
2005 Revenge of the Sith
2015 The Force Awakens John Williams
William Ross
Gustavo Dudamel[3] 		John Williams
William Ross 		Hollywood Studio Symphony
2017 The Last Jedi
Spin-off Films
2008 The Clone Wars Kevin Kiner
John Williams (themes) 		Kevin Kiner
Nic Raine 		Kevin Kiner
Nic Raine
Takeshi Furukawa 		City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra
2016 Rogue One Michael Giacchino
John Williams (themes) 		Tim Simonec William Ross
Tim Simonec
Brad Dechter
Jeff Kryka
Chris Tilton
Herbert W. Spencer[4] 		Hollywood Studio Symphony
2018 Untitled Han Solo film John Powell

Television

Kevin Kiner composed the score to the film Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) which led into the animated TV series of the same name while using some of the original themes and score by John Williams. His own material for the film includes a theme for Anakin Skywalker's Padawan learner, Ahsoka Tano, as well as a theme for Jabba the Hutt's uncle Ziro. Kiner went on to score the TV series' entire six seasons, which concluded in 2014. A soundtrack album was released that same year by Walt Disney Records.[5]

Kiner continued his work with the franchise for the animated series Star Wars Rebels (2014), which also incorporates Williams' themes.[6]

Year Title Composer Additional composers
2008–2014 Star Wars: The Clone Wars Kevin Kiner Takeshi Furukawa
David G. Russell
Matthew St. Laurent
Reuven Herman
Russ Howard III
2014–present Star Wars Rebels David G. Russell
Matthew St. Laurent

Video games

Year Title Composer
1998 Star Wars: Rogue Squadron Chris Huelsbeck
2001 Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader Chris Huelsbeck
2003 Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike Chris Huelsbeck
2008 Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Mark Griskey
2010 Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II Mark Griskey
2015 Star Wars: Battlefront Gordy Haab

Style

The scores utilize an eclectic variety of musical styles, many culled from the Late Romantic idiom of Richard Strauss and his contemporaries that itself was incorporated into the Golden Age Hollywood scores of Erich Korngold and Max Steiner. While several obvious nods to Gustav Holst, William Walton, Sergei Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky exist in the score to Star Wars,[7] Williams relied less and less on references to existing music[8] in the latter six scores, incorporating more strains of modernist orchestral writing with each progressive score and making careful use of synthesized sounds and electronic music. The reasons for Williams' tapping of a familiar Romantic idiom are known to involve Lucas' desire to allude to the underlying fantasy element of the narrative rather than the science-fiction setting, as well as to ground the otherwise strange and fantastic setting in well-known, audience-accessible music. Indeed, Lucas maintains that much of the original trilogy's success relies not on advanced visual effects, but on the simple, direct emotional appeal of its plot, characters and, importantly, music.[9]

Star Wars often is credited as being part of the movement that was heralding a revival of grand symphonic scores in the late 1970s. One technique in particular is an influence: Williams' use of a technique called leitmotif, which was most famously associated with the operas of Richard Wagner and, in film scores, with Steiner. A leitmotif is a phrase or melodic cell that signifies a character, place, plot element, mood, idea, relationship or other specific part of the film. It is commonly used in modern film scoring as a device for mentally anchoring certain parts of a film to the soundtrack.[10]

Of chief importance for a leitmotif is that it must be strong enough for a listener to latch onto while being flexible enough to undergo variation and development along the progression of the story. The more varied and nuanced the use of leitmotif is - the better the score. Williams uses his themes to great effect, such as subtly concealing the intervals of the Imperial March theme in Anakin's theme, implying his future.

Also important is the density in which leitmotifs are used: the more leitmotifs are used in a piece of a given length, the more thematically rich it will be considered. Film music, however, has to strike a balance, so as to not become too dense for the audience to follow. John Williams' music of Star Wars is unique in that it is relatively dense for a film score, with about 15 themes used in each two-hour film.

Williams re-recorded some of his suites from the original trilogy with the Skwalker Symphony Orchestra, and later released a collection of suites from the six films into a compliation that played to a series of clips from the films, with sparse dialogue and sound effects.[11] These became the basis for A series of hour-long concerts which featured Star Wars music, Star Wars: In Concert, took place in 2009 and 2010. First performed in London, it went on to tour across the United States and Canada, last playing in London, Ontario, Canada on July 25, 2010. Some of the scores will also be performed as live to-projection shows

Orchestration

John Williams sketched the score for his various orchestrators and wrote the music for a full symphony orchestra (ranging from 84 to 115 players[12]) and, in several passages, for chorus (ranging from 12 to 120 singers) and a few none-orchestral instruments. The orchestration is not consistent throughout the different films, but generally the score makes use of a considerable brass section over a comparatively smaller string section, giving the series its heraldic, brassy sound. The climax of Revenge of the Sith unusually calls for a more balanced string section and an expanded percussion section, whereas sections of The Empire Strikes Back call for an expansion of the woodwind section. The prequel trilogy unusually relies on choir besides the orchestra. Star Wars and The Force Awakens call for much smaller forces.

In live performances, the strings and voices may be augmented depending on the orchestra and choirmaster, and several vocal and wind parts can be omitted, doubled by other players or even synthesized. However, to properly stage the scores, the following instrumentation is required:

  • Woodwinds: 1 piccolo,[13] 1-2 recorders,[14] 3-4[15] flutes (all doubling on piccolo), 3-5[13] oboes, 3-4[16] clarinets (doubling on saxophones,[17] bass and contrabass clarinet), 2-4[18] bassoons (one doubling on contrabassoon).
  • Brass: 6-8[19] horns (first through sixth doubling on Wagner tubas), 4-5[20] trumpets, 3 trombones, bass trombone,[21] 1-2[22] tubas
  • Percussion: 1-2[23] sets (4-8) of timpani, 3-8[24] percussionists on bass drums, tenor drums, snare drums, toms, xylophones and glockenspiel, triangle, tambourines, bell tree, and tubular bells, as well as woodblocks (Ep. VI), temple-blocks and log drums (I), cowbells (VI), marimba, bell plates, clappers, boobams and steel drum, (IV) three medium taikos (II-III, one for VII) and anvil (III, VI).
  • Keyboard: 1-2 pianos,[25] 1 synthesizer.[26]
  • Voices: 88-piece SATB choir, 30-piece boy choir, 12 deep-bass singers (VII), soprano solo (II, III), 1 Tibetan Throat Singer (III).[27]
  • Strings: 1-3[13] harps, 14-16 first violins, 12-14 second violins, 10-12 violas,[28] 10 violoncellos, 6-8[29] double basses

Musical themes in the scores

John Williams wrote a series of themes and motifs for the characters and occurrences in each of the Star Wars films. The multiple installments allowed Williams to compose a large number of such themes and reprise some of them extensively, developing them over a long period of screen time, although his work still falls short of Wagner's use of leitmotifs in the Ring cycle, or Howard Shore's work on the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings films.[31] Both works feature many more themes for a similar or shorter running time, establish thematic identities more clearly, apply them in a more cohesive structure (where all themes and leitmotifs are harmonically and melodically related) and use them in a more nuanced manner.

Instead, Williams introduces fewer themes in each episode, and focuses on making each of his principal themes long-lined and melodically distinct from the others, so as to increase their memorability, although he does forge small connections between some of his themes, usually (but not always) for a narrative purpose. Each score can be said to have a "main theme", which is is repeated very often in the score, often to a very unusual extent (such as the freqency in which the Imperial March is revisited during Empire Strikes Back) and developed. Besides the main theme and a handful of other principal themes, Williams forges several smaller motifs for each episode, which are generally less memorable and often interchangable.

Williams' use of his themes is in times romantic rather than strictly thematic,[32] the themes sometimes being used randomly because their mood fits a certain scene: For Instance, the theme for Luke is also used as a generic "heroic theme", in conjunction with various characters, without any connection to its namesake. Leia's theme is used for Ben's death, which has little to do with the princess (although she is present in the scene), Yoda's theme is used in Cloud City, Duel of the Fates used over the entire finale of Episode I (rather than just the lightsaber duel) and in a riding scene in Episode II and than again in an unrelated duel in the third episode, the Droid and Arena marches used in Episode III for the Imperial forces. Multiple uses of the Force/Ben-Kenobi theme are also non-thematic.[33]

Since Williams writes the themes to one episode at a time, the scores don't have a particularly cohesive structure. Each trilogy and, to a certain degree, each individual score has its own leitmotifs (while revisiting some earlier themes), often in overlapping roles: each trilogy has a specific action ostinato motif, and Return of the Jedi has both the triumph fanfare motif and the rebel fanfare, for much the same function. Alternativelly, some motifs appear in just one score although being perfectly applicable to others, such as the Droids motif (limited to Empire Strikes Back) and the Imperial motif (limited to the original). Other motifs are dropped at a certain point, such as Anakin's theme being all but abandoned after Episode I. Also to the detriment of this composition technique is that Williams is uncapable of foreshadowing motifs for later installments. For instance, the love theme for Anakin and Pamde, having been only concieved during the composition of Episode II, does not appear even in embryonic form, during the score for Episode I. The same can be said for the absence of the Imperial march in the original Star Wars.[34]

Even when leitmotifs do carry over between the scores, it is very hard to chart a clear direction as to their development, since no such overarching direction was laid out from the outset. The Force theme, for instance, completes its development in the original, having turned from a reverent motif into a triumphant march. It even makes grand appearances in the prequels (particularly Episode III) only to appear later in a more subdued form even at the heroes' most triumphant moments. In fact, some of the themes that cross over change their meaning between Episodes. For instance, Ben Kenobi's theme from the original was repurposed throughout Empire Strikes Back as a theme for the Force and lost any specific connection to Kenobi by the time Phantom Menace was scored. The opening crawl and closing credits music was originally designed as an "overture" for the main themes (of Luke, the Rebels and a hint of Leia) but became so iconic that was reused in all episodes, even ones that have little to do with Luke and nothing to do with Leia and the Rebels, thereby eliminating their function as an overture and repurposing that particular variant of Luke's theme as the main "Star Wars theme".

Since the prequels were composed later, they ironically feature greater forces and a more dense and nuanced thematic structure compared to the original, if only by virtue of the fact that they have both their own stock of leitmotifs as well as those of the originals to work with. On the other hand, many of the thematic ideas of Episodes I and II are more rhythmic (due to Williams' evolving musical style), and many of them are applied to locations and situations in the narrative, whereas the scores for the original trilogy and the sequel trilogy (which is modelled after the original) focus more on themes for characters. Each trilogy has its own soundscape, but not its own overarching theme.

Some of Williams themes are intentional lifts or nods to other compositions such as Dies Irae and Stavinsky's Rites of Spring, and the identification of those melodic cells as themes within the construct of the score in debatable. Also potentially dubious are pieces of music reprised only once within the context of a prequel (such as the reprisal of the sand people music) or pieces of recurring music with no particular thematic significance like the end-cap of the closing credits of the original and Return of the Jedi. The music of the Flag Parade is also questionable.

Musical themes in the original trilogy

Across seven films, with an average ten new themes per film, Williams has accumulated a catalog of 60-70 leitmotifs (not including the themes of the spin-offs and Television programs) one of the biggest collections of leitmotifs in the history of cinema. The motifs are as follows:[35]

First appearance in Star Wars (A New Hope)

  • "Star Wars theme"[37][38]
    • "Star Wars B theme"[33][39]
    • Luke's theme: the more subdued variation of the main title theme, as heard in the films. It is used as a theme for Luke, but also as a theme for heroism in general, applied in times for Anakin, the Rebels and Han Solo. There is also a Scherzo variation in Episode VII.
  • "Rebel Fanfare"[33]
  • "Ben Kenobi's Theme": With further installments, this became more of a theme for "The Force" and a main theme for the series.[33]
  • "Princess Leia's Theme"[33][40]
  • "Imperial Motif"[33]
    • "Death Star Motif"[33]
  • "Action ostinato"[33][39]
  • "Sandspeeder motif"[41][39]
  • "Jawa Theme"[33]
  • Fate motif: lifted from "Dies Irae".[42][39]
  • "Space Battle Motif"[33]
  • "The Throne Room"[33][39]

First appearance in The Empire Strikes Back

First appearance in Return of the Jedi

Themes in the prequel trilogy

First appearance in The Phantom Menace

First appearance in Attack of the Clones

First appearance in Revenge of the Sith

Themes in the sequel trilogy

First appearance in The Force Awakens

Themes in the spin-offs

Michael Giacchino, the composer of Rogue One

The first Spin-Off score, written by Michael Giacchino, utilizes several themes from John Williams, mostly for their romantic sweep (like the Force theme and hints of the main theme). It has its own catalog of themes, independent from Williams', including a new, third theme for Darth Vader and the Empire, although Giacchino also quotes both the original Imperial motif and the Imperial March.

First appearance in Rogue One

  • Jyn's Theme.
  • Hope Theme
  • Guardians of the Whills Theme
  • Imperial Theme
  • Krennic's Theme
  • Cassian's Theme

[79][80][81]

Concert suites

Instead of offering a full recording release, Williams releases a condensed score on album, where the music is arranged in the vein of a concert program. This involves several concert suites where a specific theme is developed continuously throughout the piece and some of these suites are presented over the closing credits.

From the main Episodes

From Star Wars (A New Hope)

[82][83][84]

From The Empire Strikes Back

[85][86][87]

From Return of the Jedi

[88][89]

From The Phantom Menace

[90][91][92]

From Attack of the Clones

  • "Across the Stars"

[93][94][95]

From Revenge of the Sith

[96][97][98]

From The Force Awakens [99]

  • "Rey's Theme"
  • "March of the Resistance"
  • "Scherzo for X-Wings": Uses Luke's theme.
  • "The Jedi Steps"

[100][101][102]

From the Spin-offs

From Rogue One

  • "Jyn Erso and Hope Suite"
  • "The Imperial Suite"
  • "The Guardians of the Whills Suite"

[103][104][105]

Diegetic music

Diegetic music is music "that occurs as part of the action (rather than as background), and can be heard by the film's characters".[106] In addition to the orchestral scope that was brought on by John Williams' musical score, the Star Wars franchise also features many distinguishing diegetic songs that enrich the detail of the audio mise-en-scène, some written by John Williams, some by his son, Joseph and some by various other people.[107]

From A New Hope

  • "Cantina Band" and "Cantina Band #2". Written by John Williams, it is played in the Cantina on Tatooine. It is written for solo trumpet, three saxophones, clarinet, Fender Rhodes piano, steel drum, synthesizer and various percussion, including boobams and toms. According to the Star Wars Customizable Card Game, the diegetic title for the first Cantina band piece is "Mad About Me". The liner notes for the 1997 Special Edition release of the Star Wars soundtrack describe the concept behind these works as "several creatures in a future century finding some 1930's Benny Goodman swing band music ... and how they might attempt to interpret it". This piece also appears on an all the outtakes easter eggs on the DVDs from episode I and II and on the bonus disc of the 2004 original trilogy DVD set.

From Return of the Jedi

  • "Jabba's Baroque Recital". Mozart-esque John Williams composition (featuring a synthesized harpsichord) played while 3PO and R2 first arrive and play Jabba the message from Luke Skywalker.
  • "Lapti Nek". Written by Joseph Williams and translated into Huttese, this is played by the Max Rebo Band in Jabba the Hutt's palace (in the original cut of the movie).
  • "Jedi Rocks" (composed by Jerry Hey). This was composed to replace Lapti Nek for the 1997 Special Edition of the film.
  • "Max Rebo Band Jams". Heard twice in the film, once after Jabba sends the Wookiee Chewbacca to jail, and again on Jabba's Sail Barge (hence its title). A recording of the first can be found on the official Star Wars Soundboards.
  • "Ewok Feast" and "Part of the Tribe". By John Williams. Heard when Luke and company were captured by the Ewoks and brought to their treehouses.
  • "Ewok Celebration". The Victory Song, whose lyrics were written by Joseph Williams, can be heard at the end of the original release of Return of the Jedi.
  • "Victory Celebration". By John Williams. The Victory Song at the end of the Return of the Jedi 1997 re-edition.

From The Phantom Menace

  • "Tatooine Street Music". Joseph Williams wrote four separate pieces of unusual, vaguely Eastern sounding source music for the streets of Mos Espa.
  • "Augie's Municipal Band". By John Williams. Music played during the peace parade at the end of the film. It is closely related to the emperor's theme, but isn't an outright quote of it.

From Attack of the Clones

  • "Dex's Diner"
  • "Unknown Episode II Source Cue". A second source cue is credited to Joseph Williams' name for Episode II, but is not heard in the film.
  • "Arena Percussion". Originally meant to accompany the Droid Factory sequence, Ben Burtt's attempt at composition is instead shifted to the arena, replacing the predominantly unused John Williams cue "Entrance of the Monsters."

From The Force Awakens

Reception

Awards

The score of the original Star Wars film of 1977 won John Williams the most awards of his career:

He also received the 1977 Saturn Award for Best Music for both the Star Wars score and his score for Close Encounters of the Third Kind.[113]

Williams's score for the 1980 sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, also earned him a number of awards:

The Empire Strikes Back was also nominated in 1981 for Best Original Score the 53rd Academy Awards (the award was won by Michael Gore for Fame).[116]

Williams's subsequent Star Wars film music was nominated for a number of awards; in 1984 his score for Return of the Jedi was nominated for Best Original Score at the 56th Academy Awards.[117] His compositions for the prequel trilogy also received nominations: the score for The Phantom Menace was nominated for Best Instrumental Composition at the 2000 Grammy Awards[118] and Revenge of the Sith was nominated at the 2006 Grammy Awards for Best Soundtrack Album.[119]

In 2005 the 1977 soundtrack for Star Wars was voted as the "most memorable film score of all time" by the American Film Institute in the list AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores, based on the assessment of a jury of over 500 artists, composers, musicians, critics and historians from the film industry.[120]

In 2016, John Williams was nominated for Best Original Score, his 50th overall nomination, for his score to Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Certifications

The soundtracks to both Star Wars and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace have been certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, for shipments of at least 1 million units, with the albums for The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones being certified Gold (500,000 units).[121] The British Phonographic Industry certified Star Wars and Episode I as Gold for shipments of over 100,000 units in the UK.[122]

References

  1. ^ "John Williams to Record Star Wars: The Force Awakens Score", StarWars.com, Retrieved November 30, 2015
  2. ^ For this film, he was asked to compose and produce some of the music during the film's editing, which is unusual for Williams who usually only composes once he sees the finished film.
  3. ^ "Dudamel Conducts Some Music for New 'Star Wars' Film". The New York Times. December 15, 2015.
  4. ^ according to the closing credit roll
  5. ^ "'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' TV Series Soundtrack Announced". Film Music Reporter. November 4, 2014. Archived from the original on December 23, 2015. Retrieved December 23, 2015.
  6. ^ "Kevin Kiner to Score 'Star Wars Rebels'". Film Music Reporter. April 21, 2014. Archived from the original on December 23, 2015. Retrieved December 23, 2015.
  7. ^ That particular score was first intended to be tracked with existing music from the classical repertoire or from older film scores, as was the case of 2001: A Space Odysey, which inspired George Lucas to write the film. After Williams convinced Lucas to have an original score (which would excel a tracked score in that it will have set themes for characters, Williams argued), those musical pieces were used as a temp track and Williams followed them closely, turning portions of the score into an homage to earlier film score and to romantic music in general.
  8. ^ Nevertheless, Williams has in times stuck close to Lucas' tracked music. Episode III, in particular, was probably tracked heavily with music from the lord of the rings films, as evident in the resemblance of Anakin's Dark Deeds to "The Treason of Isengard". http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/articles/2005/11_Apr---FSM_Forum_Star_Wars_Episode_III.asp http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/11905-where-did-jw-get-his-idea-for-anakins-dark-deed/ Also similar are the choices of orchestrations in the strings and the use of taiko drums and anvils.
  9. ^ Burlingame, Jon (February 8, 2012). "Spielberg and Lucas on Williams: Directors reminisce about collaborating with Hollywood's greatest composer". The Film Music Society. Archived from the original on December 23, 2015. Retrieved December 23, 2015.
  10. ^ It should be noted that using a leitmotifs merely as a "stand-in" for a character would be a devolved form of using leitmotifs, compared to the operatic practice. A theme can be used symbolically, such as hinting at Darth Vader's theme when the decision to train Anakin is made in Episode I.
  11. ^ This DVD, released with the Revenge of the Sith soundtrack, was based on Williams' practice of releasing a suite of an Episode's main theme as a single-CD release ahead of the film's release, and having it be played live or played along to a music video for the film at hand.
  12. ^ Episode III required 109 players (not including the conductor) due to expanded string and percussion sections. http://www.jw-collection.de/scores/epi3_stuff.htm http://soundtrackfest.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/John-Williams-London-Symphony-Orchestra-Star-Wars.jpg The Empire Strikes Back required 104 players, not including the conductor or synthesizer (rhttp://www.jw-collection.de/scores/tesblp.htmecalls) due to the inclusion of a fourth flute, and sections that required a third harp, five oboes overall, an added piccolo and eight percussionists overall. If the Empire Strikes Back is to augmented with the string section size of Revenge of the Sith or the Skwalker Symphony Recording, it would require about 112 players and a small women choir. A Star Wars in Concert production that would follow the orchestration of the recording, would have to feature some of the expansions of the various episodes, requiring about 110 players, as well as the mixed choir and possibly the bass choir.
  13. ^ a b c The third harp is only called for "Battle in the Snow" in Episode V, as are the added piccolo, two added oboes, and two added percussion players. The Skywalker Symphony only uses one.
  14. ^ The recorder is used in Episode I only for Shmi's theme, and in Episode VI for the Ewok theme.
  15. ^ Only in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
  16. ^ Star Wars and The Force Awakens only require three clarinets as well as the recording performed by the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra.
  17. ^ for the Cantina band only. The saxophones can be played by different players, set apart as a off-stage band.
  18. ^ Star Wars settles for two bassoons, as does the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra, and only The Empire Strikes Back calls for a fourth bassoon, used only for Bobba Fett's theme.
  19. ^ All episodes besides Attack of the Clones and The Force Awakens call for eight horns.
  20. ^ The Skywalker Symphony Orchestra recording features a fifth trumpet.
  21. ^ The bass trombone is called for all episodes besides Star Wars. The Skywalker Symphony omits it as well.
  22. ^ The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones only uses one tuba (http://www.ultimateeditionsoundtrack.com/lso.htm) as does the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra recording.
  23. ^ two sets for Revenge of the Sith only.
  24. ^ The prequel trilogy and Return of the Jedi require six percussionists. Episode IV requires only three and The Force Awakens requires four. The Empire Strikes Back requires eight just for "Battle in the Snow."
  25. ^ Most of the films feature one player on a piano and one on celesta, doubling on an electric piano. For "Battle in the Snow" and "Bobba Fett's Escape", both players are on pianos. The Skywalker Symphony uses one player doubling on celesta and electric piano.
  26. ^ By Episode II, the synth part was doubled by the second keyboard player.
  27. ^ Malone, p. 34. Williams only uses the SATB choir in Episodes I-III and only for the Sith theme (I), "Duel of the Fates" (I-III), "Jedi Funeral" (I, III), "Grievous speaks to Darth Sidius" (III), "Anakin's Dark Deeds" (III) and "Duel of the Heroes" (III). For "City in the Clouds", "Victory Celebrations", "Anakin's Betrayal", the finale of Attack of the Clones and the underwater scenes of The Phantom Menace, he uses the women parts. For the Emperor's theme, he only uses the bass parts, and for Snoke's theme (VII) he doubles those parts. The boy choir is used in the finale of The Phantom Menace and in "Yoda and the Younglings" and "Anakin's Dark Deeds". A solo soprano is used in the finale of Attack of the CLones and in "Padme's Ruminations", and a solo Tibetian throat singer is used in "Palpatine's Teachings."
  28. ^ Episode III calls for a fuller string section of 30 violins divided and 12 violas, as does the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra recording.
  29. ^ Episodes I-III and V-VI call for eight contrabasses. Episodes IV and VI call only for six.
  30. ^ Used only for "Tatooine Street music", composed by Joseph Williams, John's son.
  31. ^ Williams wrote 60-70 themes for 14 hours of cinema, with an average of ten new themes per film and an average of 15 themes used in each film overall.http://starwarsmusic.pashamusic.com/leitmotif.html Howard Shore wrote over 160 leitmotifs for 21 hours of cinema in the Middle Earth films, of which he uses 25 or more in each film. Richard Wagner wrote 176 leitmotifs for the 15-hour Ring cycle.
  32. ^ Using leitmotifs as a suggestion of mood or emotion rather than as themes, is a common practice for all composers in symphonies, operas and especially in film. Nevertheless, classical and romantic composers (and even some film composers like Howard Shore in his Lord of the Rings and Hobbit cycle) are generally much more strict with the application of leitmotif than Williams. In fact, Williams often writes leitmotifs for a romantic use, like his action ostinatos.
  33. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Doug Adams, Sounds of the Empire: Analysing the themes of the Star Wars Trilogy, in: Film Score Monthly (Volume 4, number 5), pp. 22-47. There have been explanations for either occurrence but they are all quite tenuous: Since the princess is present at Ben's death, her theme is said to "represents Luke's and the Princess' reaction to leaving Ben behind" (Star Wars, Liner Notes) although the romantic explanation has been favored by Adams and Mike Mattisimo, the creator of the liner notes. Yoda's theme in Cloud City is said to denote Luke gaining courage as he "remembers Yoda's teachings and tries to apply them in this", but the theme is later used in relation to Leia's attempt at retrieving Han, giving more weight to the outright dramatic explanation.
  34. ^ a b c d http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/phantom_menace.html
  35. ^ The Most comprehensive and reliable list of themes regards the first four film scores, and was done by Musicologist Doug Adams for FilmScoreMonthly, who claims to offer an analysis of "all of Williams’s themes from the first Star Wars trilogy", although a few small motifs have since been identified as well. The themes of Episode II were also covered in further issues, as well as by Karol Krok in FilmsonWax, who also reviewed the themes of the "original" trilogy. Faleel from JohnWilliamsFans composed a list of timestamps for themes of all episodes, although that includes many labels for otherwise incidental music.
  36. ^ a b Larsen, Peter, and Irons, John (2007). Film Music, p.168. ISBN 9781861893413.
  37. ^ http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/star_wars.html
  38. ^ http://www.movie-wave.net/titles/star_wars.html
  39. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Whether or not this counts as a leitmotif is debatable.
  40. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20081020230931/http://www.moviemusicuk.us/starwacd.htm
  41. ^ Williams mentions that in the score "there is a kind of travelling version of the landspeeder motif which is that bouncing horn figure." Faleel lists several occurances of this motif.
  42. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Faleel, The Thematic Material of the Star Wars films.
  43. ^ a b Larsen & Irons (2007), p.170.
  44. ^ http://www.movie-wave.net/titles/empire_strikes_back.html
  45. ^ http://starwarsmusic.pashamusic.com/leitmotif.html
  46. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20090929014718/http://www.moviemusicuk.us/empirecd.htm
  47. ^ http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/empire.html
  48. ^ http://filmsonwax.thedigitalfix.com/themes-of-star-wars-trilogy/
  49. ^ https://www.jwfan.com/?page_id=4585
  50. ^ Larsen & Irons (2007), p.171.
  51. ^ http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/jedi.html
  52. ^ a b http://web.archive.org/web/20080307054714/http://www.moviemusicuk.us/jedicd.htm
  53. ^ a b http://starwarsmusic.pashamusic.com/classification-of-leitmotifs.html
  54. ^ a b c d e f g h Doug Adams, A Return or a New Hope? In: Film Score Monthly, Volume 4, number 7, p. 32-34.
  55. ^ For the first Star Wars, Williams choose to close the end credits with a variation of the Throne Room theme "which ends in a blaze of wonderful brass" (Star Wars Liner Notes). This figure was reprised with Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith, and is also the new Lucasfilm opening fanfare.
  56. ^ http://www.movie-wave.net/star-wars-the-phantom-menace/
  57. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Karol Krok, The themes of the Prequel Trilogy, Films-on-wax.
  58. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20080307054734/http://www.moviemusicuk.us/phantmcd.htm
  59. ^ http://starwarsmusic.pashamusic.com/leitmotif.html
  60. ^ a b c http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/attack_clones.html
  61. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20090929014510/http://www.moviemusicuk.us/aotccd.htm
  62. ^ http://www.movie-wave.net/titles/attack_clones.html
  63. ^ http://www.jwfan.com/?p=3417
  64. ^ Mikko Ojala lists both the Mystery motif, the Conflict variant and the Kamino variant as separate motifs. John Takis separates the two as well.
  65. ^ a b c John Takis, Star Wars Episode Tunes: Attack on the Score, Film Score Monthly, pp. 18-23.
  66. ^ a b c d Analysed by Mark from JohnWilliamsFans.
  67. ^ http://starwarsmusic.pashamusic.com/leitmotif.html
  68. ^ http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/revenge_sith.html
  69. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20081022015000/http://www.moviemusicuk.us/revengesithcd.htm
  70. ^ http://www.movie-wave.net/titles/revenge_sith.html
  71. ^ http://starwarsmusic.pashamusic.com/leitmotif.html
  72. ^ a b http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-star-wars-force-awakens-music-score-john-williams-20151217-story.html
  73. ^ a b c d e f g h https://moviemusicuk.us/2015/12/21/star-wars-the-force-awakens-john-williams/
  74. ^ http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/25913-the-force-awakens-complete-score-breakdown-chronological-order-film-spoilers-allowed/&page=15
  75. ^ a b c d e f g http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/force_awakens.html
  76. ^ John Williams refers to a "more ruminative part" besides Kylo Ren's main theme, which he though of as a "relative of Darth Vader."
  77. ^ http://www.movie-wave.net/star-wars-the-force-awakens/
  78. ^ http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/please-your-platter-4-new-limited-edition-star-wars-force-awakens-vinyl-sets
  79. ^ http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/rogue_one.html
  80. ^ http://www.movie-wave.net/rogue-one-a-star-wars-story/
  81. ^ https://moviemusicuk.us/2016/12/20/rogue-one-michael-giacchino/
  82. ^ http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/star_wars.html
  83. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20081020230931/http://www.moviemusicuk.us/starwacd.htm
  84. ^ http://www.movie-wave.net/titles/star_wars.html
  85. ^ http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/empire.html
  86. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20090929014718/http://www.moviemusicuk.us/empirecd.htm
  87. ^ http://www.movie-wave.net/titles/empire_strikes_back.html
  88. ^ http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/jedi.html
  89. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20080307054714/http://www.moviemusicuk.us/jedicd.htm
  90. ^ http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/phantom_menace.html
  91. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20080307054734/http://www.moviemusicuk.us/phantmcd.htm
  92. ^ http://www.movie-wave.net/star-wars-the-phantom-menace/
  93. ^ http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/attack_clones.html
  94. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20090929014510/http://www.moviemusicuk.us/aotccd.htm
  95. ^ http://www.movie-wave.net/titles/attack_clones.html
  96. ^ http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/revenge_sith.html
  97. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20081022015000/http://www.moviemusicuk.us/revengesithcd.htm
  98. ^ http://www.movie-wave.net/titles/revenge_sith.html
  99. ^ http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/force_awakens.html
  100. ^ http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/force_awakens.html
  101. ^ https://moviemusicuk.us/2015/12/21/star-wars-the-force-awakens-john-williams/
  102. ^ http://www.movie-wave.net/star-wars-the-force-awakens/
  103. ^ http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/rogue_one.html
  104. ^ http://www.movie-wave.net/rogue-one-a-star-wars-story/
  105. ^ https://moviemusicuk.us/2016/12/20/rogue-one-michael-giacchino/
  106. ^ The dictionary definition of 'Diegetic' at Wiktionary.
  107. ^ Hutchinson, Sean (November 11, 2015). "Alien Musicians in 'Star Wars,' Ranked". Inverse. Archived from the original on December 30, 2015. Retrieved December 30, 2015. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (Archived page contains a JavaScript that replaces article with page not found message. To prevent this stop page loading as soon as article text is visible.)
  108. ^ Raftery, Brian (December 21, 2015). "The 9 Best Songs Ever Played in a Star Wars Movie". Wired. Condé Nast. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved December 22, 2015.
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  119. ^ "Grammy Award Nominees". Billboard: 60. December 17, 2005. Retrieved January 19, 2013.
  120. ^ "Star Wars Tops AFI's List of 25 Greatest Film Scores of All Time". AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores. American Film Institute. Retrieved January 19, 2013.
  121. ^ "Star Wars - Gold & Platinum". Recording Industry Association of America. Archived from the original on January 8, 2016. Retrieved January 8, 2016.
  122. ^ Certified Awards Search - BPI
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