Falstaft

I wish it were that simple... I'm doing the entire concert version too! Actually, my prof said that orchestral transcription like this isn't much fun, but seeing Leia's theme slowly unfold before me is wonderful

Happy Birthday to the man whose music is literally shaping my life as I speak. We are all very lucky to live in a time when Williams is still writing new music. Imagine how jealous people 50 years from now will be of us, once JW's music has entered the canon among the greatest of film music and possibly the all-around greats of the 20th century! I play my boot of your Happy Birthday Variations in your honor, maestro. And now, back to transcribing Princess Leia's theme by ear for class.

Joy!

Joy!

Your story totally made my day! Because this is the same kind of thing I'm doing as a student right now!

You mean the 3-note low string line? Sounds pretty accidental, but I see where you're coming from. Of all the Star Wars (1 & 2 as well), ANH probably has the most outside influences.

In general, I think it's unfair to call all similarities in Williams w/ other composers "rip-offs." Sometimes, a musical idea is so simple and obvious that the original composer can't lay ownership to it. This is how I feel about Dvorak's 9th and Jaws. Anyone who says JW unscrupulously tapped Dvorak for the Shark Motif should learn how basic the interval of a minor 2nd is. The similarity is superficial, that's all. On the other hand, some of Williams' similarities w/ other composers cannot be dismissed as simple or accidental. Many of them are undoubtedly the fault of the temp-track, like the oft-cited Mars & Rite references in Star Wars. It's interesting how infrequently you hear people discuss the equally profound similarities in Star Wars w/ the film music of Walton or even Korngold, compared to the Holst or Stravinsky stuff... Evidence I think that the people who dismiss JW on the basis of these criticisms perhaps doesn't know as much as they think. When I listen to the Stored Memories cue from AI, I hear an obvious influence from Gorecki (listen to the 2nd mvt of his 3rd symphony...gorgeous!). But then again, I prefer William's take on it! Same way w/ E.T. and Hanson's Romantic Symphony. JW can definitely be a compositional chameleon, but the results of his various styles often sound better than the original sources to me. Go fig, I am a JWfan.

I do the exact same thing, except with the "take-off" music from ET's Halloween. Nerdy rapture.

I remember watching Williams play a snippet of the piano theme himself on a tape of an old Evening at Pops broadcast, and Gene Shalit said something to the extent of "Ahh Sabrina. I love it. Well, I love most everything you've written." I think the score to Sabrina shows that JW had a good time writing it. An elegant delightful, if unweighty entry in the Williams canon -- same way I feel about The Terminal.

Rail against one of my favorite movies, I can tolerate. But rail against one of my favorite scores, now that crosses the line. Spare us your flamebaiting please.

I don't think the distinction between theme and not-theme is very clear in the way its discussed on this board. Maybe this will be helpful. 1st Order Theme: Frequently recurring, distinct and indisputabe "thematic" material with both clear signification, development and versatility. Examples - Force Theme, Imperial March, Yoda's Theme, Han Solo & Princess, Anakin's Theme. 2nd Order Theme: Recurring, distinct melodic material with clear or almost clear signification but perhaps lacking in development or versatility as used in films. Examples - Lando's Palace Theme, Qui-Gon's Theme, Boba Fett's Theme, AOTC Funeral Theme 3rd Order Theme: Distinct melodic material w/ fairly clear signification but severely limited in use and development, recurring rarely, and sometimes only accidentally, through editing. Examples - Ewok Death Theme, Battle-Motif from TPM (the ostinato from the Tide Turns and another, unreleased spot), Hyperspace Ostinato 4th Order Theme: Arguably not themes at all. Melodic/motivic material which recurs within a *single* cue but not outside it. May be lengthy and have clear signification and ample development within that cue, but is not used anywhere else, and therefore is weak within the thematic framework of the Star Wars movies. Examples - Victory Celebration, Throne Room Procession, Asteroid Field, Mynock Cave, It's A Trap, The Dark Side Beckons, "Droid Theme" from ROTJ 5th Order "Themes": Mere motifs, distinct enough in themselves, but too short, vague and non-recurring to get proper theme status. Examples - I'm thinking the horn line when Luke confronts Vader in the Magic Tree cue. That sort of thing... Clearly, there's nothing stopping low order theme from being expanded upon to make it a higher order theme, though it'd be tough to give even a melody as powerful as It's A Trap the same kind of symbolic weight the Force theme has. And of course, none of this very cursory analysis ought to be thought of as the final word. As you can see, I rank recurring material over lengthy or highly melodic material, but for you, 3rd order and 4th order themes could just as easily be switched. Ultimately, what you consider a theme and not a theme is up to you. I'm just trying to demonstrate that there is a hiearchy, that not all themes are created equally by JW!

I hear a bit of a similarity between Victory Celebration and "Its Working" from TPM, though not enough to say that Williams definitely had VC in mind when he wrote that cue.

There's some really great analysis going on here, I love it! I agree with Jesse on the use of the Force theme, and Cerrebore on Luke's Theme. Williams really takes advantage of the musical and emotional flexibility of those themes in the prequels, though I think he's really been doing this all along. I was initially befuddled by the use of the Trade Federation March during the Kamino scene, but I've come to accept it as having thematic relevance for the reasons listed above. Whether this was intentional on JW's part or just an accident ("hey, a big marching army -- why dont I use the army theme from Ep 1 for this scene?"), but the great thing about a musical work of this scale and complexity is that you're permitted to draw your own connections. I'd say a great deal of the Star Wars themes rightly have much less rigidity in literally signifying something than their names would imply. This adds to the richness of the Star Wars musical framework, rather than detracting from it, giving it a kind of cool mythological haziness, same as Wagner. The Rebel Fanfare isn't always used as a fanfare for the rebels, the Force Theme isn't always there to designate the force, and Jar Jar's theme... well, some themes are pretty literal.

Yeah, you really can't pass judgement on this score w/o hearing the promo, which contains so much more incredible material. I don't know how I feel about this thread in general though. Capsule reviews have always sat poorly with me for some reason. Hmm, guess I'm just getting nostalgic for my old JWscorereview days...

Mindless stacking of themes?? Where does everyone hear this stuff in Luke & Leia? All I hear is a snippet of Leia's theme at the very beginning. A mere occurence of triplet doesnt make it Luke's theme. I think after all these years, I would have noticed... I also don't detect any intentional references to other Star Wars themes in Across the Stars either, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms isnt it.

Gotta go with Princess Leia's theme - unmatchable. However, I would say Han Solo & the Princess is the most important and effective within the movie its used. And Luke & Leia, despite its lack of use in ROTJ, has a fabulous concert arrangement. (Fingers crossed it'll get used in ROTS!) There are definitely similarities across all three (and Marion's theme & Can You Read My Mind), though they strike me as mostly superficial - instrumentation, melodic contour and all that, esp w/ the beginnings of Marion and Han Solo & The Princess. However, I think there is a significance in their harmonic similarity (technical-speak alert) in their reliance on the flatted 6th scale degree and on traveling up from tonic to the flatted II chord for strong emotional impact. I wonder whether this is an intentionally unifying element of JW's SW love themes, or merely a product of Williams' standard sweeping-romantic style. I suspect the latter, but dont deny that these similarities add a good deal of coherence to the SW thematic-canon. I'm not sure where I want to place Across the Stars in this catalogue -- certainly its concert arrangement doesnt compare to the above 3 -- but I think its use in the movie is nearly as good as Han Solo & The Princess and has *gasp* equal merits as a theme.

Star Wars SEs for me. This partially reflects my obession w/ Star Wars around 1997, but more so, I think Star Wars, the grand space opera, above all else, requires a full release for its true appreciation. Just a shame about ROTJ Disc 2's sound quality, and the loss of Jabba's Sail Barge music. If a truly complete release of the prequel scores ever gets out, I will consider that a godsend as well, second only to a complete release of the Indy scores.

I'm with Merkel on this one. Williams' score to 7YiT is really short-changed, which is strange given the director's apparent admiration of JW. TPM and AOTC may feature horrendous edits, but at least the music is audible. Even for this MB, this statement seems a little extreme.

I've heard some very disheartening things about UCLA (which I was considering for grad school), but Conor is right, undergrad it doesnt so much matter. My advice is to come down to Providence and party with me.

Wonderful! Summon the Heros is a -really- impressive piece. I would love to get my hands on the score. I too know the joy of recieving JW Signature Editions in the mail. I ordered his wind arrangment of Nimbus 2000 and a piano reduction of Seven for Luck a while ago, and am thoroughly pleased. And in preparation for my independent study on Film Orchestration next semester, I requested the Brown Music Library order over $300 worth of Williams scores -- Star Wars suites, CEot3K, JFK, and Harry Potter -- and they agreed!!!

To return to the original question posed by this thread... Star Wars => Star Wars Trilogy => Star Wars OT and PT. Williams' work blows Shore out of the water, IMHO. And don't flame me for including the prequel trilogy as part of the greatest film-music achievement. They just make the already best set of scores better by their inclusion.

Goldsmith: ST:TMP North: Agony & Ecstasy Herrmann: Vertigo or Citizen Kane Horner: Braveheart Elfman: Edward Batmanhands Bernstein: To Kill a Mockingbird Goldenthal: Final Fantasy Rosza: El Cid Steiner: King Kong As for Williams, I'd say the Star Wars Trilogy (with ESB as the high point), E.T., Schindler's List, CEot3K, and Raiders. Jaws may be a great score, but it isnt the same kind of total musical experience "gesamptkunstwerk" that those others are...

I have the Varujan Jojian recording. It's pretty good, performance and all, though it doesnt stand up to the gorgeous Skywalker recording, still my favorite single Star Wars CD in my collection. JW's incredible "concertization" of the Throne Room cue at the end of the album is worth the price of the CD alone. To it's credit, the Varujan CD does have some neat cues on it, stuff from the Endor battle in ROTJ and Vader's Death. But you can tell it's not Williams. Still, Star Wars...gotta get that CD.

I took a counterpoint class last year, and learned to appreciate William's contrapuntal skills a great deal more. It was heavily composition-oriented class, so I also learned how to write fugues, inventions, etc. In the spirit of this thread (and boredom), I've created a little fugual exposition on a familiar theme or two. It's hardly my best work (half an hour spent on this as opposed to a month for that class), but hopefully its good for a laugh. http://www.geocities.com/bogfrank/ItsATrapFugue.mid

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