Music of Star Wars

John Williams sketched the score for his various orchestrations and wrote the music for a full symphony orchestra (ranging from 79 to 113 players overall[lower-alpha 9]

Archived June 16, 2020, at the Wayback Machine

The Empire Strikes Back required 104 players, not including the conductor or synthesizer (rhttp://www.jw-collection.de/scores/tesblp.htmecalls Archived August 7, 2017, at the Wayback Machine) 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 Skywalker 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.</ref>) and, in several passages, chorus (ranging from 12 to 120 singers overall) and a few non-orchestral instruments. The orchestration is not consistent throughout the different films,[lower-alpha 10] but generally, the score makes use of a considerable brass section over a comparatively smaller string section, giving the series its heraldic, brassy sound.

Several of the scores require larger forces, including a large (over 100-piece) romantic-period orchestra, a mixed choir and even a boy choir, although none of the scores call for particularly immense forces compared to larger film or theater works.[lower-alpha 11] Nevertheless, due to added high woodwinds and percussion parts, scores such as Empire Strikes Back and Attack of the Clones call for 106 and 110 players, respectively. The former called for a third harp and fourth bassoon, while the latter (and all prequel scores) utilized a fuller string section. Revenge of the Sith also utilized a second set of timpani. Comparatively, the original Star Wars trilogy and the sequel trilogy films call for much smaller forces of as little as 82 players, and small choral accompaniment in select cues.[lower-alpha 12] The first spin-off film, Rogue One, followed the prequel trilogy's instrumentation, using a 110-piece orchestra and 90-piece mixed choir.

In live performances, the forces are usually greatly reduced: Official Star Wars Concerts were held with as little as 60-piece orchestras and 50-piece mixed choral ensembles or with the choir omitted altogether.[16]

[lower-alpha 13] However, to recreate the nine scores as they were originally recorded, the following instrumentation would be needed:

• Woodwinds: 3 flutes (doubling on piccolos and an alto flute), 2 oboes (doubling on a cor anglais), 3 clarinets (doubling on a bass clarinet and an E-flat clarinet), 2 bassoons (doubling on a contrabassoon).
• Brass: 6 horns (doubling on Wagner Tubas[lower-alpha 14]), 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba.
• Keyboards: Piano, celesta, synthesizer.[lower-alpha 15]
• Timpani: 4–6 kettledrums.
• Percussion: at least three percussionists playing bass drums, tenor drums, snare drums (including guillotine drums, side drums, military drums), timbales, toms (floor tom and hanging toms), triangle, tambourine, cymbals (suspended, sizzle, crash and finger cymbals), tam-tam, xylophones, vibraphone, glockenspiel, tubular bells, and anvil on all episodes. Also required are temple blocks (I), claves (II, V, VI), ratchet (V–VIII), marimba (I, IV, VII–VIII), bongos (I, IV, VII–VIII), congas (I–III, VI–VII), log drums (I, IV, VI–VII), low wood block (IV), bell plates, clappers (IV), steel drum (IV, VIII), boobams (I, IV, VII), medium gong (VI–VII), kendhang, rattle, sistrum, shekere, guiro, bamboo sticks, cowbells, hyoshigi (VI), bell tree (III), one medium Thai gong (VI), three medium chu-daiko drums (II–III, one for VII–VIII), washboard, goblet drum, caxixi (VIII).[lower-alpha 16][18]
• Strings: 2 harps, 14 first violins, 12 second violins, 10 violas, 10 violoncellos, 6 double basses.
• Additional instruments: 1 piccolo, 1 flute, 1–2 recorders, 2 oboes, 1 clarinet, 3 saxophones, 1–2 bassoons,[lower-alpha 17] 2 horns, trumpet, bass trombone, tuba,[lower-alpha 18] set of timpani, five percussionists,[lower-alpha 19] 89-piece SATB choir, 10 basso profundo singers, 30 boys, 1 Tibetan throat singer,[lower-alpha 20] narrator,[lower-alpha 21] 4 violins divided, 2 violas, 2 contrabasses, 1 harp.[lower-alpha 22]
• Non-orchestral instruments: Cretan Lyra and cümbüş (I), electric guitar (II), toy piano (VI), kazzo, highland bagpipes, banjo, didgeridoo (VIII).[lower-alpha 23]

John Williams wrote a series of themes and motifs for certain characters and ideas in each of the Star Wars films. The multiple installments allowed Williams to compose some sixty or seventy themes and reprise some of them extensively, continually developing them over a long period of screen time.

Williams introduces a considerable, but manageable number of themes in each episode (seven themes on average), attempting to compose main themes that are distinct, long-lined and memorable. Connections between the themes are formed for narrative purposes or, more generally, in the favour of cohesion. As a result, some of the themes play very often: the Force Theme plays over one hundred times in the series.

Each score can be said to have a "main theme", which is developed and repeated frequently throughout the film, and represents the high and low points of the film itself as much as they do narrative elements within the film: for instance, the frequent use of The Imperial March in Empire Strikes Back.[lower-alpha 24] Besides the main theme and a handful of other principal themes, Williams forged several smaller motifs for each episode, which are generally not as memorable and at times interchangeable. As a result of his compositional process, a large number of incidental musical material and themes that are specific to certain setpieces also occur throughout the piece. Williams had designated the music of the main titles to be the main theme of the series as a whole, but there isn't necessarily a main theme for each trilogy. Instead, each trilogy (and to a lesser extent, each film) has its own style or soundscape.[lower-alpha 25]

Williams' Star Wars catalog remains one of the largest collections of leitmotifs in the history of cinema,[lower-alpha 26] although – for comparison – it still falls short of Wagner's use of leitmotifs in the Ring Cycle or even Howard Shore's work on the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings films.[lower-alpha 27] Both works feature many more themes for a similar or shorter running time; and use the themes with greater specificity and variation; where Williams prefers to write fewer themes (to allow him to focus on them better) and use them in a more straightforward manner and sometimes, solely for their romantic effect. Shore and Wagner's themes are also inter-related and arranged into sets of subsets of related themes through various melodic or harmonic connections, whereas Williams prefers greater distinction between his themes.[lower-alpha 28]

Williams scores the films one episode at a time and attempts to base each score on new material as much as possible. Therefore, the Imperial March makes no appearance in the original Star Wars, since Williams didn't conceive of it until he was scoring The Empire Strikes Back, and the same is true of Across the Stars and The Phantom Menace.[20] Other themes get abandoned, like the Droid motive from The Empire Strikes Back or the original Imperial motives of the original Star Wars. Between trilogies, Williams had often changed his way of using leitmotives, moving from long-lined melodies in the classic trilogy to shorter, more rhythmic ideas in the prequel trilogy.

Listed below are about 67 leitmotives, based on primarily on Williams own notes and Frank Lehman's extensive catalogue, but also on Doug Adams et al analyses of the scores. Along with two themes Williams composed for Solo and two more for Galaxy's Edge, his work of the series had accrued as many as 71 leitmotives. The main new theme of each entry is highlighted:

Since neither Williams nor his office ever provided a full list of the leitmotifs used in every Star Wars film, there is some controversy around the exact number of themes, with some taking an inclusive approach that identifies various leitmotifs, even where the composer probably never intended for,[68] and others taking an exclusive, reductive approach.

Some of the more inclusive analyses identify themes that don't actually recur either in discrete cues nor even strewn across one long stretch of music.[69] This is the result of Williams' propensity (in these scores and otherwise) to write material that is either melodic, rhythmic, harmonic or timbral specifically to an individual setpiece or none-recurring plot-element in the film, such as The Battle of Hoth, the Chase through Coruscant, or The Battle of Crait. These individual pieces of music – whether they consist of a full melody, ostinati, diegetic pieces or a certain timbre – have sometimes been described as having thematic significance,[70] occasionally (in fleeting comments) even by Williams himself,[71] but since they do not recur in a different part of the narrative, nor are transformed from or into another motif, they do not comply with the definition of a leitmotif.

Even when some of these figures do recur, it is often unclear whether they are substantial enough to be assigned with thematic significance, as these instances often includes material that is incidental in nature, such as several figures used in the finale of The Empire Strikes Back; material that is purely rhythmic or timbral like various "bouncing" horn figures for Luke's landspeeder search in the original Star Wars,[71] material that is of a generic nature, such as his use of "mournful homophonic" choir in The Last Jedi for climactic moments; or material that is part of Williams' stylistic choices as a composer, more than a thematic statement unique to the series. For instance, his use of tritones often denotes mystery, a device he uses for the droids landing on Tatooine and again in the concert arrangement of "The Throne Room."[24]

In fact, sometimes the supposedly recurring material is similar, but not in fact identical. A good example would be the variety of gestures relating to the dark side, following a piece of music used in the opera-house scene. Lehamn however clarifies that those alleged following statements are "similar but inexact" to the earlier gesture.[26]

Sometimes, the recurring material is question is not part of the original composition but is rather tracked after-the-fact, or at least lifted, from existing material into a different section of the film, or from material that is recapitulated in a concert piece or end-credits suite. This includes the Podracing fanfare and the ostinato accompaniment of the Rebel Fanfare,[24] which otherwise does not appear isolated from the unabridged theme more than once; the mournful writing for French horn at Shmi's funeral, the Arena March from Attack of the Clones[43][26] etc.

Michael Giacchino, the composer of Rogue One

The first Star Wars Anthology score for Rogue One, written by Michael Giacchino, utilizes several themes (and recurring interstitial material) from John Williams, mostly for their Romantic sweep (such as The Force Theme and hints of the Main Theme). It has its own catalog of themes, independent from Williams' material, including a new, third theme for the Empire, although Giacchino also quotes both the original Imperial Motif and The Imperial March.

Instead of offering a full recording release of a particular film, Williams typically releases a condensed score on album,[lower-alpha 37] in which the music is arranged out of the film order and more within the veins of a concert program. These album releases typically include several concert suites, written purely for the end credits or the album itself, where a specific theme is developed continuously throughout the piece. Williams also re-edited some of his existing cues after the fact in order to "concertize" theme on the behest of conductors such as Charles Gerhardt. Five of the eight films also have unique credit suites that feature alternate concert arrangements of themes and/or a medley of the main themes of a particular film.

Diegetic music is music "that occurs as part of the action (rather than as background), and can be heard by the film's characters".[86] 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 of this diegetic music was written by John Williams; some by his son, Joseph; and some by various other people.[87]

From Star Wars

• "Cantina Band" and "Cantina Band #2". Written by John Williams, it is played in the Mos Eisley 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 outtake easter eggs on the Episode I and Episode 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 (John Williams' son) 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).[lower-alpha 44]
• "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 Khetanna (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, featuring a player on Cretan Lyra and Cumbus, and a solo, wailing female vocal.
• "Augie's Municipal Band". By John Williams. Music played during the peace parade at the end of the film, it is a sped-up, attenuated trumpet and boy choir composition. It is closely related to the Emperor's Theme, but is not 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

• "Jabba Flow" and "Dobra Doompa". Written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and J. J. Abrams, these songs were played at Maz Kanata's castle.[89]

From The Last Jedi

• "Canto Bight". Written by John Williams, it appears when Finn and Rose first arrive to the casino planet of Canto Bight. It is written in the style of big-band jazz and is stylistically akin to the "Cantina Band" music from Star Wars. The track features solo alto saxophone, two baritone saxophones, solo clarinet, trombones, kazoo, muted trumpets,[lower-alpha 45] Fender Rhodes piano, bass, synthesizers, steel drums, and various percussion, including washboards and goblet drums. The track briefly quotes "Aquarela do Brasil" (which also features hi-hat and ride cymbals) by Ary Barroso as a reference to the 1985 Terry Gilliam film Brazil, and includes a brief piano statement of Williams' and Johnny Mercer's theme from The Long Goodbye.
• "Caretaker party music": source cue of an unknown composition (possibly by Williams), which features highland bagpipes and a didgeridoo, and accompanies a deleted scene from the film.

From The Rise of Skywalker

• "Lido Hey": Written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and J. J. Abrams and performed by Shag Kava, a musical moniker for Miranda and Abrams. Plays as the main characters participate and traverse the Festival of Ancestors on the desert planet Pasaana.
• "Oma's Place": Performed by Ricky Tinez and J. J. Abrams. Plays as the main characters enter a bar owned by Oma Tres (featuring composer John Williams in a cameo role) on the planet Kijimi.

From Solo: A Star Wars Story

• "Chicken in the Pot". Written by John Powell, it is performed on Dryden Vos' yacht when Solo reunites with Qi'ra and first meets Vos.

• The Official Star Wars Music Site (Archived)
• Complete Catalogue of the Musical Themes of Star Wars