Falstaft

There's always this! It's not a true waltz. For one, Rose's theme isn't in triple meter. However, the Luke in Exile motif *is* in 3/4 and has a dance-like quality to it, for sure. In his deep analysis, @Ludwig compares it to a sarabande, a type of baroque dance form: https://www.filmmusicnotes.com/new-musical-themes-and-their-meaning-in-the-last-jedi/ . (Incidentally, the piece of music, Sibelius's second symphony, mvt 4, that I can't help hearing this theme being somewhat indebted to, is also in triple: https://youtu.be/4Dn2R2IvOLg?t=134 Themes in triple meter (either simple or compound) are extremely rare in Star Wars; in fact, off the top of my head this may be the only major one!

Quickly -- *The statements of Rose's theme come from "Rebellion is Reborn"; *The brief Leia arrangement is new; *The Luke in Exile section comes from "Rebellion is Reborn" (which in turn came from early Ahch To Island cues); *The Battle of Crait stuff comes directly from that cue (parts of which in turn came from the opening Escape cue, or perhaps vice versa -- hard to say) *The Yoda arrangement splices the very beginning and very ending of the original 1980 concert arrangement *The Holdo's resolve stuff comes directly from that cue *The Battle of Crait stuff that follows comes directly from that cue, along with spruced up iteration of TIE Fighter Attack *The Rey's theme Coda is new to the End Credits So, besides little transitions here and there, the only music specifically unique to the TLJ credits are the Leia's Theme snippet for piano and the end statement of Rey's Theme (and possibly the brief iteration of Rose's motif at 2:34) I map out the End Credits for this and the rest of the films in a little more detail in my leitmotif catalogue, if you're curious. Enjoy!: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xJ0Jj-mLfOPUCtcAm_HDGIkFwvHL5gbX/view?usp=drive_open

Really well, thanks! Alas, no Mutter or Williams -- we could hear them off in the distance rehearsing! Unfortunately, the talk wasn't publicized all that well, but Jack Sullivan (the other speaker) and I still had a great crowd. I'm not sure what you mean, it's identical to the commercial recording -- big swell on Bb for two measures, then four measures of the lydian fanfare, followed by the main theme. No re-writes or edits that I can discern.

Don't have time to go into that much detail, but I can summarize a few things. First, with the exception of the Sabrina arrangement, the two from Memoirs of a Geisha, and the Schindler's List encore, every violin arrangement was new. Even the pieces he's arranged for violin before are considerably expanded and transformed, especially the Far & Away and Witches of Eastwick scherzi. The versions of Rey's Theme and Yoda's Theme were the same as the YouTube previews that were released last week. The Hedwig's Theme arrangement is lengthier than the YouTube version, with most of the newer material coming towards the end, including a mini cadenza and some broad material for orchestra when the opening theme returns, IIRC. The treatment of Leia's theme was, as many have noted, a real revelation, even though structurally, only the opening really differs hugely from the original arrangement. Eagle-eared listeners may have noticed a very brief allusion to the Han & Leia love theme in solo horn in measure 4. Notably, the ending is quite shortened following the arrival at the big climactic B-major chord, essentially bypassing some of the accustomed woodwind material transitioning immediately to where the solo violin comes in in the original arrangement. Of special interest to me, since I gave a pre-concert talk on it, was that the Across the Stars arrangement. The version premiered at Tanglewood was a slightly different, updated version compared to the YouTube version w/ A-SM that we've been listening to for a month or so now. The opening introductory passage is ever so slightly modified such that the penultimate chord is a straight G-Minor rather than the E-halfdim from before. (Why, I cannot imagine.) More substantially, the second rotation of the Main Love theme is stated more fully before the climactic middle section, where it had sounded clipped and developmental before. There may have been a few more spots with alterations, but those are the two big ones I noticed. It's a *big* improvement for an already stellar reimagining of this theme. Galaxy's edge was basically the same as the commercially released suite, including the presence of the opening fanfare. The one big difference is the trimming of everything from 3:18-3:38, for brevity's sake I guess. Amazing concert!

Not entirely true: There's also a brief but very clear rendition at the start of "Lesson Two": There's also a little motif that occurs twice on Ahch-To which, while not really a close match for "Jedi Steps" intervallically, has the same broad character: There's also the connection w/ the Luke's Last Stand motif from "The Spark." I'm not sure who first made the claim, but in addition to its resemblance to the Imperial March, there's also a few structural affinities with Jedi Steps. To me it's a more demonstrable link than any between Jedi Steps and the Main Theme (which, forgive me, I still do not hear).

It's a wonderful theme, isn't it, Tydirum? Here's my quick and dirty attempt at a transcription. This only gets across half the story, since so much of the effectiveness of the harmony relies on the thick wind voicings and the active, walking bass-line. But even with just chord symbols, you can see how chromatically dense this melody is!

Definitely! I just included "The Supremacy" instead of "Battle of Crait" b/c I was going for one example per film. The TLJ motif is interesting in that it is so Ludlow-like in that appearance (and the analagous rendition during the opening Escape Battle). But intervallically, it's also related to the fairly anonymous sounding "Tension" motif first intro'd in TFA. And over the course of TLJ, it develops into the full-fledged "Holdo's Sacrifice" theme. Williams gets an amazing amount of mileage out of this little C-Eb-D-F-C melodic pattern.

I've been working on Williams's action music lately, and as part of this project I put together a little super-cut of everyone's favorite tune, the "Ludlow Motif". Let's see how long it is before YouTube decides to take this down. Am I missing anything? There are corners of the War Horse and BFG scores I'm not so familiar with where this gesture may lurk..

95% sure this is the cello part of the concert arrangement of Leia's theme. You can check the parts here (in this admittedly amateur engraving -- but it's accurate):

Love that statement at 1:20 in double basses and bass clarinets (?).

My sense with this 3rd Kylo Ren motif is that Williams did originally conceive of it as a kind of intro or supplemental idea, but that over time it's grown legs of its own so to speak. Especially in TLJ, there are a few instances where it really does sound detachable. And there are some moments with material strongly evocative of that I'm not sure are derived from it, but belong in the same motivic family. Example: Alternatively, I think you could make a fair case that this rising string motif is actually a variant of the First Order motif in TFA which, besides the unused Parade Grounds cue, is really undeveloped in that score. Both are based on a C-D-F-Eb melodic cell.

Just strange you're making a value judgement about the Finale version, which is essentially copy and pasted from the Concert Arrangement. It's not a materially different arrangement.

Err... The version of her theme in that appears at the start of the Finale is essentially identical to the opening & closing statements of her theme in the Concert Arrangement. The differences are *The first statement of the theme in the Finale uses the alternative concluding phrase (as in "The Scavenger" and 1:55 of Concert Arrangement) *The second statement of the theme in the Finale is transposed relative to the former (Dbm in finale, Ebm in Concert Arrangement), and at slightly more sprightly tempo. Other than that, same orchestration, same transitions, same everything.

Fabulous to hear it in its entirety, makes much more sense as a whole than the little fragments and incompete versions we've been hearing. Now just need a high quality recording!

For the curious, transcriptions of four themes from the GE Suite. Also, you can hear some of the new Cantina music here (which I'm not 100% sure is confirmed Williams but is a great imitation of Fingrin Dan's originals)

@bollemanneke, I can point you to a few sources. Emilio Audissino's monograph has a good index of the Williams concert arrangements up to the point of its publication. The edited volume he put together last year includes a nice if somewhat cursory chapter on Williams's film music for concert performance by Sebastian Stoppe. Get it if you can afford it (or, better, have your local library get a copy!). I wrote an academic article on this subject that considers a number of the questions you're asking. I also compiled a more informal catalogue that includes the SW concert arrangements , though admittedly it's little more than a simple list at this stage, and that still has a few question marks.... Personally, I think the minimum criterion for your own compilation should be that Williams himself arranged the piece, and did so specifically with a live concert performance in mind. So Banquet Scene, Christmas Star, Jabba the Hutt should all qualify, though maybe not his 1970s-80s style soundtracks where every album track is a rearrangement in some way.

It's one thing to draw connections between leitmotifs. Part of the joy of listening to these scores is finding rich, personally meaningful ways in which the musical materials resonate with each other. And it's totally fair to let those hearings affect your interpretation of the larger text/narrative. Maybe you truly do hear the Emperor's Theme in Rey's leitmotif, and maybe Williams did cook it in there as a little easter egg (though everything we know about him and his creative process indicates this is almost certainly not the case). At the end of the day, drawing these connections is fine; it's an interpretive affordance intrinsic to the leitmotif technique, and one Williams, fully aware of how musical mythopoeitics works, very much exploits. It's especially true of Rey's Theme, which is unusually multivalent, ambiguous, open to interpretation, more so than the average Star Wars theme. It's another thing entirely to arrogantly assert that you and you alone possess special insight into the composer's intentions, especially when your reading of Williams's intentions is so obviously colored by a) a laughably prejudiced, confirmation-bias driven expectation of a certain "right" musical narrative; and b) a deeply flawed technical analysis cloaked in misleadingly authoritative language. No amount of bold text , no categorical dismissal of the reservations some of JWfan's most thoughtful members, is going to convince anyone anymore. Anyone, perhaps, besides yourself.

Forget Rey's theme, the real revelation here seems to be that Darth Vader's theme, thought for so long to be the quintessential minor-mode melody, was in a major key all along!

Text description of musical structure can be misleading or incomplete. Sometime's it's best to let the notation speak for itself. So here's a rough and ready transcription of two passages being claimed are unambiguous, un-coincidental variations of the "Vader motif" as the above poster labels it. (The meter is tricky here, so this is a bit of a rhythmic approximation) [I'm not sure exactly what material you're referring to in "Follow Me," Mattris. The section that begins at 1:32 doesn't have a strong melodic profile -- kind of a series of step motions in and around D-minor (F-E, A-Bb, E-F), all in different octaves and instrumental choirs.]

Other leitmotifs which begin by outlining a minor thirds...: Imperial Motif (ANH) Jawa Motif (ANH) Death Star Motif (ANH, ROTJ) Jabba's Theme (ROTJ, ANH-SE) Qui Gon's Theme (TMP) Shmi's Theme (TMP, AOTC) General Grievous (ROTS)

Thor, I know your intentions are pure and your credentials impeccable, but statements like this (and your above comment that @Trumpeteer is "not the right person for it") are not constructive and frankly more than little insulting. As one 'hardcore' JW researcher to another, it just comes across like aggressive gate-keeping. From what I've heard, the point of Jeff's podcast is not to be the final scholarly word on any of JW's scores, but to serve as a more casual, still very thoughtful and well-produced introduction for the curious. Let's build each other up, not tear each other down.

Just wanted to chime in to say I'm really enjoying this podcast so far, @Trumpeteer! Can't wait for Fitzwilly, which I think is a real gem in JW's early output.

Indeed! I'd wager the Clarinet Concerto his most underrated concerto, if for no other reason than the fact its one release leaves so much to be desired in terms of recording quality (though Zukovsky's performance is fabulous). It's one I also need to get to know better. As far as I know, there's no easily available sheet music for it to study either. Something for Hal Leonard to get cracking on? Of course, this is the most "John Williamsy" clarinet showcase! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG8IdcqBXfA

Not as far as I know, unfortunately... There's the original Pops premiere in very low quality, but with the maestro himself conducting: And a quite fine recording of the viola/piano reduction: Between these suboptimal renditions and the Hal Leonard score, I think there's enough to go on to form an opinion of the piece.