Qui-GON29

I was curious about that as well. If memory serves, both TFA and TLJ had their piano sheet music published within a week or so of the theatrical release.
 
|| Warning || entering tin-foil hat territory... ||
 
I've been thinking about a few interesting & at first seemingly unrelated features of the TROS soundtrack/score/production (forgive me if someone has already leaped to these conclusions). 
Delay of sheet music publication. Inclusion of The Imperial March in a prominent position in the End Credits suite. Relatively minimal screentime of the highly publicized Sith Troopers in the theatrical cut. Repeated inclusion of unknown minor march in promotional material, at first in the Anthony Daniels TotalFilm tweets, then rather conspicuously at the start of the livestream of the premiere (to my ear & taste, I would've sworn this was a new Williams work and concert suite from the upcoming score).  Given the above, is it too wild to speculate that JW composed a theme for these Sith Troopers, but developments in the film's edit led to it being cut out entirely? Rolling with this idea a bit, the 3 or 4 brief shots in which the troopers appear all happen while other thematic material is already underway - it seems plausible to me that those short moments wouldn't include quotes of those themes and so the idea would then be left absent entirely (this is not even to grapple with the liberal repositioning of cues in the final cut).
 
Looking at a somewhat similar situation - the score to TFA and John's motif for the First Order - with the score to Hux's speech dialed out (along with perhaps other edits), there are to my count only 2-3 appearances of the theme (as the shuttle takes Poe to the star destroyer, as the resistance discuss their battle plans, and as the x-wings come out of hyperspace for the bombing run). The motif was effectively held back from a place of prominence in the final cut and not surprisingly left completely out of the set of ongoing themes going forward in the trilogy.
 
For the sake of argument (and again, please forgive the theorizing), let's say this is what happened - a removed March of the Sith Troopers.  For me, the above peculiarities start to fit together. With the theme making zero appearances in the final cut, JW pulls it from the soundtrack and from the other key spot where he features his new concert suite material - the end credits. The new theme is replaced with The Imperial March there (the motif of which at least appears several times in the score).
 
Continuing with all this speculation, whenever this change was made it was soon enough to hit the release window for the digital and physical versions of the soundtrack. But is it possible that the sheet music publication had to operate within a different window and Hal Leonard weren't able to correct the physical books in time? We already know that the Art of TROS book as well as the novelization have both been delayed (along with the sheet music, much later than the releases for TFA and TLJ). 
 
Take this all in the spirit of wild conjecture  Looking forward to the piano arrangements, and hopefully the Signature Edition concert score for 'The Rise of Skywalker' whenever it is they're eventually published. 

One nice thing about getting some big ol mushy finale themes is that it's something ROTS and ROTJ lacked, just to have these prolonged happy resolutions in the music. Ep 3 is too dark to provide for that and ROTJ wraps things up pretty quickly...both of the Ewok celebration cues are novelties and the score itself is emotionally very "efficient", you have your big moments like A Jedi's Fury and Luke & Leia is a big emotional theme but doesn't really serve the same purpose. So for the title track alone, this is a winner and it seems like these new themes have a presence in the score that'll set it apart as the longest of goodbyes, along with all the OT fan service which I'm mostly cool with.
 
Meanwhile Ep 3 gives us Star Wars at its most operatic, and ROTJ is classic Golden Age Williams. All three finales feel like they complement each other and bring something to the table.

There's a moment in They Will Come you'll appreciate.
 
This is a pretty lovely album. I had two immediate impressions. After finishing, I realize that TFA is 100% the score of the trilogy. TLJ and ROS help give it all a bit more hype and flavor, and feature the best versions of its themes, but as a fresh narrative and overall listening experience, TFA is the anchor.
 
The other was while listening to the wondrous title track "The Rise of Skywalker," it occurred to me that this score and the trilogy overall...it's really for the softies! I've spent four years now reading comments putting down these scores as "weak", lacking a new Imperial March or Duel of the Fates, waiting for that badass First Order March (the biggest adrenaline junkies will probably be disappointed with The Final Saber Duel and Anthem of Evil) but that's not the tone of these movies or these scores. 
 
The way I see it, the music of the OT evokes heroism, spirited adventure, above all classicism in structure and craftsmanship. The prequels are all fire and brimstone, passion, war, aggression, tragedy. The sequels -- summed up in my mind by Rey's Theme, Jedi Steps, Rose's Theme, and now The Rise of Skywalker -- this is a musical trilogy of wistfulness and whimsy, nostalgia, loneliness, and magic.
 
Altogether that is Star Wars by John Williams. 

It's pretty easy to find if you look it up.
 
Oh, well, on the other hand, I guess this is a terrible time for that forum dedicated to the worship of the iconic Japanese RPG series to be offline.

01 Fanfare and Prologue at 2:41 !!
 
The Palpatine's Seduction little evil motif that we can hear in Revenge of the Sith is back!!
 
 
This is an amazing connection!

Anthem of Evil will just be source music for Sheev humming to himself when he takes a deuce. Approaching the Throne will be the preceding track.

I will likely never forget the moment this dropped. I have just finished doing a ranking with some arguments of all Star Wars scores so far, and wrote a big question mark next to TROS. Then I had a long phone call and started boiling water for a supper. When I returned to the computer, the FYC was up for some 15 minutes. After realizing it's a whole album of music, I was the most excited I've ever been in my life, to the point of trying not to run out of the flat like a crazy person, or not to squeal with glee.
 
I decided to skip the discussion so far and put everything into a review instead. Feel free to visit:
 
P.S. I burned that pot in the kitchen like Mustafar did Anakin due to a lack of attention for over an hour. LOL

I just want to add my two cents. The Slovak National SO is not a nobody orchestra, they are well known and some of their recordings with Kirk Trevor (another conductor) are very appreciated among classical music lovers.

Yeah why is no one talking about The Battle of Crait!? How many times do we get concert versions of action cues from Williams? 

that was a really nice rendition of the new concert arrangement, listening to it was like discovering it for the first time again - its such a beautiful piece of music that is testament to the sheer transcendental quality that Williams is able to give his music even 30+ years on.

A cursory listen indicates these are the debut rerecordings of not only the new Han Solo & the Princess arrangement, but Ahch-To Island and The Battle of Crait from TLJ.

Well, listening to it again, I hear actually some similarities with early 2000s Williams, specially on this furious strings, which reminds me of Minority Report, Attack of the Clones, the three Potter scores, and so it goes.

Not alone...
 
ROHIRIM! 
TO THE KIIIIIIIIING ! 

Apologies for the rather shameless plug, but if at all interested in a slightly more musicologically-skewed show - our podcast devoted a month of episodes to Raiders' score (culminating in a feature-length commentary).
http://underscorepodcast.blogspot.com/2017/03/1m3-raiders-spotting-session.html 
Enjoy if interested!

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Personally, I don't understand the 'I don't want this or that' attitudes to the score. At this point the only thing I want is for John to finish this score so that we have 9 SW scores and the collection is complete. I don't even care whether it's good, bad, outstanding, average or great, or whether this theme or that motif returns or not. All that matters is that John completes writing it. Ross is an amazing condcutor who made HP2 the vibrant score that it is, so I'd be more than okay with him taking over if it were necessary.

I was born in 1986, the same year Phantom of the Opera premiered in the West End. I first saw it 16 years later in 2002, which is also when Attack of the Clones was released. Now, 17 years later, I will witness Johnny’s final score for a Star War, and it features both the Phantom theme and the Kamino motif. 
 
 

 

25 minutes of John Williams’s Star Wars: Episode IX exists on paper. That is just a cool thing to say.

So then perhaps the annual Boston concert isn’t happening because of Star Wars writing, not age or physical condition? Maybe the tradition will return next year!

John Williams turns 87 today! Happy birthday, Maestro! 🎂🥂🎉🎊🎈🎁
 

I love this day.  One of my favorite days of the year.  How wonderful to celebrate the Maestro's birthday by filling the day with his music.

February 8 is always a great day. No matter what I am doing, I make a point to settle in and listen to lots of John Williams music. Now that I am doing a podcast devoted to John Williams I listen to it more than ever.
 
I even released the next episode of my podcast today to commemorate his birthday. It's devoted to the 1964 film "The Killers."
 
http://thebatonpodcast.podbean.com

I do not post very often but, to everyone contributing here, this is amazing. So much creativity, so many cool designs. 
 
I must have 4 cover options for each score right now, I can't decide which one to use, honestly. 
 
Thanks everyone. It is threads like these that truly make me feel lucky to be part of this community at JWfan. 
 

I do not post very often but, to everyone contributing here, this is amazing. So much creativity, so many cool designs. 
 
I must have 4 cover options for each score right now, I can't decide which one to use, honestly. 
 
Thanks everyone. It is threads like these that truly make me feel lucky to be part of this community at JWfan.