martybmusic

Getting caught up with this fascinating discussion (as well as Pando's gorgeous early 1M5 mockup). Have been working through an analysis of the motives/development/aesthetic of TFA and the timeline of Williams' writing is fascinating. Is this information mostly derived from sheet music or are there other sources to the sequence of events here? Just excited to learn from whatever's available. There's something about the scant fragments and unrepeated motives throughout the score that I actually really love (that hurried string motif in 'That Girl With The Staff'; the evocative woodwind theme leading up to Maz's castle; the few remnants we're left with of the First Order Theme, etc). While seemingly not part of the design, the finished product evokes that 'lived in' Star Wars aesthetic for me -- like how it felt to first see the odds & ends in the Jawa sandcrawler -- fragments here and there that speak to a larger world we won't actually fully explore . At any rate, the orchestra may not always sound the most bombastic of the sequels and the editing/structure may frustrate some, but I have such a soft spot for the score - just can't stop going back to it.

Recording content as we speak - extremely eager to restart our engines 😊

Wow, great find - thanks Manakin!

Ah, thank you for clarifying. That's a shame, though nice to see the OT soundtracks were available in hi-res for that final Sony master. https://store.acousticsounds.com/d/112441/John_Williams-Star_Wars_The_Ultimate_Digital_Collection-FLAC_192kHz24bit_Download

And are available in hi-res 😊 https://www.hdtracks.com/star-wars-a-new-hope-original-motion-picture-soundtrack

In the case of INNER CITY, that was based on an original cue title (as were some of the other titles on the original LP). Of course, as we saw with the recent TROS cues, maintaining the original title is a somewhat rare case. I do love some of these spruce-up changes between cue name and soundtrack though. One from TFA comes to mind - 'That Lady With the Stick' became 'That Girl With the Staff'

It may have been available slightly sooner, but found my order of a few of the individual pieces (digitally) via sheet musicdirect. It’s dated Dec 29, 2015. The physical books may have been available slightly later than that date, but if memory serves I recall seeing them in stock at a local music shop before the end of the year.

Yeah it's fascinating. I suppose it's possible that the quality of the tapes they transferred was poor, but what Malone suggests about Dolby NR calibration seems plausible. If not decoded properly when transferring the tapes, material recorded with Dolby NR would appear quite hissy in the top end. If you play back or transfer old tapes recorded with Dolby (have worked with some recorded with Dolby A) you'll notice it right away. Bob Margouleff talks about it here in regards to a poor tape transfer of Stevie Wonder's 'Talking Book' sessions (see clip). If this were the case with ROTJ (the only OT score not recorded at Anvil incidentally), the mastering engineer may have elected to low-pass as far as needed until the hiss was less offensive. That's a pretty blunt instrument to use in this case, but that is what the ROTJ Special Edition sounds like to me - a firmly cut-off top end, not a gradually thinning top end of more damaged tape or something. At any rate, the Anthology ROTJ selections are a dream to listen to and I know we all eagerly await an eventual Mattesino-led rerelease.

Thanks for the clarification. I had recalled reading that the novelization was delayed, but revisiting that info today it looks like it was pushed roughly 2 weeks (March 3rd to March 17th), nothing quite so major.

You may find Chris Malone's article the most illuminating here. Honestly, his entire piece is so well researched and such a delight to read (and frequently re-read, in my case). http://www.malonedigital.com/starwars.htm#.XihhLlNKjOQ (PDF link within) Discussion of the ROTJ top end in the 2CD Special Edition set begins at the bottom of page 28.

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.

Thanks Jerry! The next episode is live as well:

Our latest episode is now online:

Thanks so much for the feedback, I really appreciate it! The difference is very much intentional - we're experimenting with ways of distinguishing the spotting session episodes from the commentary, etc so are trying more of an editorial approach with these and then embracing more informal conversation for the other episodes. I hope it'll feel like a sort of balanced meal once the whole series is finished, but we definitely want to get feedback on how it's coming across. Thanks so much! This week's episode is a brief little intermission between our 2 part cue-by-cue analysis:

Absolutely terrific - what a gift of an article!

Wow, thanks so much for listening & sharing Jerry! Excited to share some of the upcoming episodes - cheers!

Thanks Jerry!

I so love Art of the Score! Looking forward to exploring TFA at some point on UnderScore

Thank you! So pleased you're enjoying the show :) We posted the next episode in our STAR WARS arc just this morning. It's what we call Spotting Session, where we explore each and every cue in context (today's episode is part 1 of 2). This may be where we test the limits of a more in-depth musical analysis. 🙃Enjoy!

Thanks for listening! Really interesting take! There's something about the playing in the original film (particularly the trombones) and the near-clipping of the recording on the downbeat that's always phenomenal to me. 😊And as you say, the performance & staging of the orchestra in TESB - brilliant 👏🏼

For those interested, the next episode in the series:

Indeed I quite like Terry Johns' account as well. https://www.hornsociety.org/295-newsletter/991-terry-johns-interview Also really fascinating to hear David Cripps (principal Horn of the LSO at the time) speaking of the sessions. We wanted to speak with him as well, but alas couldn't come across good contact information. Thanks for listening!

On the latest episode of UnderScore, we sat down with Alan Snelling, assistant engineer to Eric Tomlinson on Star Wars (as well as Raiders, Superman and the rest of the original trilogy), who shared some wonderful recollections of the historic first recording of the Main Title. The remainder of the episode is a near hour-long musical exploration into the composition, orchestration and storytelling power of that infamous minute and a half of music. Enjoy! [This is the second episode in a six-part series on the score]

You're too kind 😊- thanks so much for listening. We're relieved and thrilled to be back up and running. Can't wait to share what's ahead for Star Wars. We actually chatted with Alan Snelling (assistant Engineer to Eric Tomlinson) who shared some really touching moments from the session that we'll be sharing throughout the SW episodes. Hope you like it!

A little late to the party, but that piece ('Out of This World') was actually composed by Benjamin Wallfisch, writing library music under a pseudonym (Lasker being an old family name - his grandmother was the great cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch). Years ago a friend had shared the score & recording (it does read Wallfisch on the conductor score). Thanks thx for sharing - I'd never been able to track down the actual library release