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The Empire Strikes Back is probably my favorite score and I have always wanted to study it in depth. The sketches are floating around but are cryptic and difficult to read due to extremely small handwriting, short score conventions, parts switching staves, and the fact that it was designed to quickly get the ideas on paper rather than readability. I have some downtime so thought I would typeset the music. My first effort is “R12P1 - Losing a Hand”. Typesetting this music has made me reach a few conclusions since it forces detailed examination of everything on the sketch: 1. Being an orchestrator for John Williams must be the easiest job in the world. All the details are already in the sketch. Not just the notes but also the phrasing, dynamics, string bowings, the voicings, instrumental doublings, hairpins, percussion, ornaments, etc. It is actually unnecessarily detailed. Just by typesetting the music as JW sketched it, the music we hear in the final recording is clearly revealed. This is a far cry from most working composers today who either use samples or extreme short cuts (to be kind). 2. JW likes parallel harmonies, chord substitutions, sequences and many other classical and jazz techniques influences. Basically he is extremely fluent musically in a wide range of techniques deployed with skill and craftsmanship (yes, I knew this before). 3. There are mistakes in the sketch but they are obvious. For example, in vader’s Imperial march, there was a note indicated as F natural that should be an F#. What he has in the sketch seems to have been fixed in the recording but any professional orchestrator would have caught this minor error I am sure. Occasionally there are missing accidentals or a missing beat, but this in no way detracts from the quality of the score it is just so massively accomplished. 4. I used to hear a pretty big style evolution between “Star Wars” and “Empire Strikes Back” but see that “Empire” is more of a direct evolution than I previously thought. The strange music at the start after Luke looses his hand and before Vader says "I am your father" reminds me of the music when Ben Kenobi was deactivating the tractor beam. 5. Interestingly, tempo is not indicated but rather timings are. This means that he didn’t conduct statically but conducted in musical gestures as long as they lined up at important moments with pops and streamers. This results in a more “operatic” quality with molto rubato. The phrases are sometimes stretched or compressed though it still lines up at important moments. I can imagine this was a complex recording to perform. 6. There are a lot of great melodies that only appear for specific events – for example, what is the “dramatico” theme in the horns at bar 44 when Luke is hanging under cloud city? Where did that come from? It is a great theme but isn’t heard before and not related to another theme as far as I can tell. Empire is full of that and I just love the pedal and how this all gradually evolves from dramatic to heroic. I wonder why JW didn't just use a tragic version of the Luke theme here rather than something entirely new? It takes me about one hour to typeset a full page of sketch which consists of two 8 bar staves. The music is very tiny and extremely thoroughly detailed and I am trying to capture it all with reasonable results. Next I will either try to tackle “Hyperspace” or “Clash of the Lightsabers” two favorites of mine since I first saw the film in 1980. We already have some of the other music such as “Han Solo and the Princess”, “The Asteroid Belt”, “Yoda” but were missing a lot of the final dramatic musical moments. I hope to have the entire third act typeset in a month or two. So this would be everything starting with “Carbon Freeze” to the end. Score and MP3 (not realistic quality, just a straight output from Sibelius so don't get too hung up on sound quality) can be downloaded here.

It's not a battle, Jason. Sheesh. Monumental.

Jason, the English are rising! You have a mutiny on your hands of you dont deal with them. Ban them...ban them now!

Pfffff absolutely man! Actually, this is another show I caught because of you (spoiler free as well!!), so thanks

That is the best one! They're all very good apart from the daft synthetic reincarnation one. Great series which I need to buy.

This sucks. If this level of suck were a Twinkie, it would be the size of Manhattan. Rest in peace.

I think this is one of Giacchino's worst.

Good point. Also reminds me of 'The Indianapolis Story' from JAWS. Is this strange music (the ESB cue) octatonic in nature? Williams seems to like his 6ths (both major and minor) and tritones for these Bartokian, muted string moments. Yeah it's one of my favourite Williams devices, also used to good effect in 'Uncovering the Ark' from Raiders. Regarding its usage in 'Losing a Hand', I remembered something I wrote about that a few years back in a thread here. (forgive the copy & paste ha) Another thing I find fascinating at how Vader's character is given more depth in Empire is how Williams seems to represent his twisted desperation and need of finding Luke and the posibility of having a relationship with him. Listen to the music from the scene where Vader and the Emperor communicate and then the music just after Luke's hand is cut off. For me it's no coincidence in how Williams scored these 2 scenes, I feel that each are from Vader's perspective, it's almost a terrified, twisted excitement. The rising and falling high strings are struggling so much to make sense of themselves and perfectly represent Vader's obsession with Luke. Unfortunately, no words I can write will do justice to how I feel this to be the case. Just listen to the music instead ....also, not only do I think this perfectly underscores Vader's twisted obsession but it actually evokes feelings of pity for him, I think it's another Williams masterstroke. At the start of the film it mentions Vader obsessed with finding Luke but when he speaks to the Emperor, the Emperor says there is a great disturbance in the force and that they have a new enemy ....not 'new' to Vader though and it's Vader's suggestion to 'turn' Luke and have him as a powerful ally. The same later when Vader asks Luke to join him. It's so clear that Vader's feeling towards Luke go way beyond his duty to the Emperor and it's these feelings I feel Williams has scored so well. What kind of screws this up a little is the altered Emperor dialogue in the newer versions of Empire. http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=18758

I just have to say excellent work and a big thank you for taking on this monumental job, karelm. Absolutely right about the parallel chords. Funny thing, they're almost always minor chords - why is that? Perhaps they're better for creating a feeling of suspense or action?

Dear Karelm, Thank you so much for your educated post. I am not a musician but this is wonderful information and offers great insight even for the layman. Thanks also to everyone else who contributed. I love this forum!

Frozen's songs are pretty overrated. It's a mishmash of various genres that just don't go together well, especially in film. The score is largely insignifcant. Pleasant enough, functional in the picture but unremarkable. It lacks interesting thematic or textural features, relying on the song tunes but not integrating them as intelligently as Beck's predecessors in the Disney animation genre. Some of the Norweigan vocals are kind of cool, but are never consistently used to give the score a voice or flavour of its own. As it is, it's rather anonymous and will be forgotten by the next year.

There's no hope for this one.

If Eve Retrieve doesn't pique your interest then just give up on life.

Shawshank, dude.