RESTORED ISOLATED SCORE: Star Wars Saga (Unused Music Restored To Picture)

[SilverTrumpet 404]

Why did I think we were talking about recordings? They might need to put me in a home.

 

There were a bunch of alternate cue recordings out there though, right?

[stravinsky 175]

I'm referring to the leaked sheet music also. I wonder if Omni Music publishing will ever get around to releasing the Star Wars complete conductors scores. Or would that be a legal nightmare? How the same old atonal crap that no one wants to hear continually gets published whilst film music is ignored is beyond me. I recently went on this website... 

 

https://www.newworldrecords.org/

 

It's like a dinosaurs graveyard of Pulitzer prize winning music that hasn't been heard or performed for decades. And it never will be. Music written by composers for other composers. 

     I would've thought miniature scores of complete film music soundtracks would sell like hot cakes. I've never understood why there is such a gigantic gap in the music publishing market. They could make a packet. 

     This article is well worth a read. Mauceri states what I've been saying for years. From about 1950 onwards film music took over real contemporary music. 

 

https://www.post-gazette.com/ae/music/2022/04/21/john-mauceri-war-on-music-book-classical-composition-new-film-score/stories/202204190116

[BrotherSound 1,439]

4 hours ago, Jay said:

Every cue says "orch Herb Spencer" at the top, except

 

3M2 New - none listed

 

The score of that cue doesn't appear to be from the original 1977 sessions. It's missing some music from both the beginning and ending, and though uncredited, it's in John Neufield's writing. I don't believe he worked with JW prior to the late 1980s.

 

4 hours ago, stravinsky said:

I know that Al Woodbury assisted Herbert Spencer with orchestration on Star Wars in 1977. Were Arthur Morton and Angela Morley also involved? Also did Williams orchestrate anything himself? I'd be interested to know.

 

From Chris Malone's Recording the Star Wars Saga:

 

Quote

Due to the huge scope of the score, some 88 minutes, Arthur Morton, Angela Morley, Al Woodbury, Alexander Courage and Williams himself assisted in this time-consuming and exacting task.

 

So, JW apparently orchestrated something. A lot of his source cues use small enough instrumentation that his "sketch" is already effectively the finished score, so I think it's likely this is at least crediting him for the two Cantina Band numbers.

[Jay 26,057]

23 minutes ago, SilverTrumpet said:

Why did I think we were talking about recordings?

 

I really have no idea.  Hearing a recording wouldn't tell you who orchestrated it.

 

23 minutes ago, SilverTrumpet said:

There were a bunch of alternate cue recordings out there though, right?

 

The 1997 2-CD set already has everything recorded for Star Wars on it.  Well, except for the original opening of the end credits.

 

Maybe you're thinking of mockups people have made from looking at the sheet music?

[BrotherSound 1,439]

27 minutes ago, stravinsky said:

I wonder if Omni Music publishing will ever get around to releasing the Star Wars complete conductors scores. Or would that be a legal nightmare?

 

I think it's a good sign they've recently announced their first Disney title, Alan Menken's Tangled:

 

[Jay 26,057]

18 minutes ago, BrotherSound said:

 

The score of that cue doesn't appear to be from the original 1977 sessions. It's missing some music from both the beginning and ending, and though uncredited, it's in John Neufield's writing. I don't believe he worked with JW prior to the late 1980s.

 

Yea it's definitely a very, very different looking sheet from all the others!  I wonder what reason Neufield would have for writing this cue out years later? 

[BrotherSound 1,439]

8 minutes ago, Jay said:

I wonder what reason Neufield would have for writing this cue out years later? 

 

My guess would be that is was for prepared for a Pops concert. JW has performed other non-standard Star Wars selections like this that aren't from the published suites with the Boston Pops on occasion.

[Jay 26,057]

Oh wow, it'd be cool to hear Binary Sunset live!

Well, I did at the Live to Projection concert, I suppose!

[SilverTrumpet 404]

2 hours ago, Jay said:

 

I really have no idea.  Hearing a recording wouldn't tell you who orchestrated it.

 

 

The 1997 2-CD set already has everything recorded for Star Wars on it.  Well, except for the original opening of the end credits.

 

Maybe you're thinking of mockups people have made from looking at the sheet music?

 

Well, I meant The Force Awakens specifically, but I do know what you're talking about on the 1997 version.

[Manakin Skywalker 2,671]

4 hours ago, SilverTrumpet said:

How did they leak? Was it in a game or something? Did someone actually leak the recordings from within Lucasfilm? What's the origin of those recordings that we have them?

 

As for recordings, those all come from video games.

[Jay 26,057]

1 hour ago, SilverTrumpet said:

Well, I meant The Force Awakens

 

The entire conversation we've been having today has been specifically about the 1977 film's score and who orchestrated it

[SilverTrumpet 404]

....time to put me into a home. 

[Holko 7,200]

Only partially unused - Sail Barge Assault is one of my favourite cues, an optimistic SW-ey explosion of joy after all the low Jabba stuff, but I was always annoyed by how cut up it is so I had a go:

 

 

Some parts were obvious, I knew I had to drop a lot and switch some batches around, but I was surprised how much Jabba I had to drop - and some of it was not very obvious, keeping it a coherent action scene with a definite point A, point B and twice as much footage as music between them that couldn't really go anywhere else could be difficult.

[Counterparts 2,905]

I tried this scene a while back, I was gonna compare the novelization and comic adaptstion to see if there was any insight into the earlier cut.

 

Wish we had the shooting script.

[stravinsky 175]

In a strange way the staggered release of music from the Star Wars Universe has accompanied me all my life.

       At 11 years old I begged my old dear to buy me the Cassette tapes of Star Wars and Empire for Christmas 1980 and she looked at me as if I was crazy. "What are you listening to that for?" said my equally horrified Granny on Xmas day. 

      A year later I saved up and bought "The Adventures of Luke Skywalker" audio tape on RSO from "Casa Cassettes" record store on Sauchiehall Street here in Glasgow Scotland. Even though it played like a video of snippets of the movie but with no visuals I played that tape to death. 

      Used to listening to the shockingly truncated original album for Empire for years I was astonished to find the Double LP (which I never knew existed) in a second hand shop when I was 19. I devoured the unfamiliar new cues. 

       A few years later in 93 when I was a 2nd year student at the Royal College of Music in London I was stunned when by chance I saw the Arista box on display at Tower Records in Piccadilly Circus. Remember this was before the Internet which now allows one to source virtually anything. I splurged and bought the thing straight away out of funds from my student grant. 

      The circle was complete by the time the complete OT scores were released in 97. I was over the moon. Then of course singing  the prequel music kept me in thrall through to my 35th year with the release of ROTS . Now in addition I have the sequel scores to memorise and learn.

Whilst Opera was clearly the cultural apex of the 19th Century with Wagner at the helm, movies have been the standard benchmark in terms of entertainment for the past 100 years and I believe Williams continuing output for Star Wars is the virtual "Ring Cycle" of our times. 

[ragoz350 257]

The Force Awakens. This time the deleted scene.

 

Among the many deleted scenes in the film is one for which JW wrote a total of three versions.  It is the first appearance of Leia, who is informed in a scene that Jakku's village has been destroyed. The second half of the scene is a comic scene with C3PO trying to talk to a "sleeping" R2. 

The first half of the scene was officially released (for some reason as two separate scenes). And the second one we can apparently only judge from Foster's novelization. Of course, the C3PO lines can't be that extended in the real script, but the sync hint "Genius" at the end of 3M29 cue matches the last line of the droid ("R2, you're a genius!"). View Spoiler for novelization fragment:

Spoiler

   

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. 3M29 Leia, C3PO and R2 (written no later than March 3, 2015)
The scene was originally located right before Snoke's first appearance. The cue doesn't begin with the beginning of the scene, but with the officer's address to Leia. Cue underscores the scene in its fullest version. I also tried very conventionally to "reconstruct" the scene with C3PO .

 

2. 3M29R Leia, C3PO and R2 (no later than June 12)
The "revised" version is shorter than the original. The first half of the scene has been truncated (Leia's order to C3PO has been cut out), and the last dialogue has been shortened. But Leia's theme sounds in the fuller version. Interestingly, this part of the cue appears in the film during one of Han and Leia's dialogues. 
The second half of the cue is almost unchanged, except for the addition of a bass clarinet at 0:58-1:07, and changes to the last bars for a smoother transition to the next cue (apparently, the last "silent" shot was cut). 

 

3. 1M4A Introductions (no later than July 28)
The scene has been moved to a very different place, right after the First Order departs from the Jakku planet at the beginning of the movie. Nevertheless, this served as an excuse for JW to revisit the cue again. 
The Resistance theme (both A and B!) is now prominent in the first half of the scene, while Leia's theme gets a new "polyrhythmic" rendition. 
The second half of the cue is based on the old, but heavily "revised" material. A faster tempo prompted JW to "embellish" bassoon solo with many other instruments.  

Bonus: there is a fragment in the 1M4A cue sketch that Williams crossed out before the cue was even submitted (which is very rare). It's a fragment from the second half of the cue, but it's different in texture from the rest of the cue. I made a separate mockup of it for fun. 

 

ragoz350 · 1M4A - Old fragment

[May the Force be with You 1,681]

Thanks for that stellar work, really appreciate it

[Holko 7,200]

Damn, I love the third version!

[crumbs 11,238]

Great work on these @ragoz350, thanks for sharing!

 

The third version is awesome! Considering the start and end were both used in the film, is it a reasonable assumption the entire cue was recorded at some point?

 

The segment from 0:18 onwards sounds similar to the music used in the council meeting late in the film, when they're studying the hologram of Starkiller Base (and reused in TROS for another similar scene before the third act starts).

[Jurassic Shark 8,700]

On 26/04/2022 at 10:47 PM, SilverTrumpet said:

They might need to put me in a home.

 

Well, you're here.

[BrotherSound 1,439]

32 minutes ago, crumbs said:

The third version is awesome! Considering the start and end were both used in the film, is it a reasonable assumption the entire cue was recorded at some point?

The start and end are borrowed note-for-note from 1M4R The Arrival of Kylo Ren for the purposes of overlap, though. However, a fragment of 1M4A Introductions was used in a bonus feature, so this is one of the unused cues we can confirm was recorded.

[crumbs 11,238]

Woohoo, great news!

 

Shame they didn't keep using abandoned recordings in the bonus features for TLJ and TROS.

 

14 minutes ago, BrotherSound said:

The start and end are borrowed more-for-note from 1M4R The Arrival of Kylo Ren for the purposes of overlap, though.

 

Ahh yes. And I just checked the spectogram of OST track 1 and there's no obvious edit there, so the final cut and OST must be true to the recording.

[ragoz350 257]

1 hour ago, Holko said:

Damn, I love the third version!

Yea, such a bright cue! The second half of these cues sounds to me like the combo of "The Norwegian Ridgeback" from Philosopher's Stone and some intonations a la Droid Motif from Empire Strikes Back.

 

1 hour ago, crumbs said:

Considering the start and end were both used in the film, is it a reasonable assumption the entire cue was recorded at some point?

Basically, from what I know:

3M29R: The first half is present in the movie during the last dialogue between Han and Leia (AFAIR), so the cue was definitely recorded.

1M4A: the beginning (up to the start of Leia's theme) is in the bonus features, someone (@Manakin Skywalker?) was able to extract the music from there with good quality, and I used this fragment. 

For me, in fact, it's surprising that the bassoon solo didn't appear in the bonuses, very good material for underscoring.

[BrotherSound 1,439]

1 hour ago, ragoz350 said:

3M29R: The first half is present in the movie during the last dialogue between Han and Leia (AFAIR), so the cue was definitely recorded.

That’s right. As written, the beginning of their conversation would have been underscored by a version of the Han Solo and the Princess theme, but Leia’s theme from 3M29R is used in its place. The playful droid moment just beforehand is from 6M52 R2 in Hibernation, which uses the same droid motif as 3M29, 3M29R, and 1M4A, which could have made it a recurring motif, had another instance been used. 🤷‍♂️

 

Here’s the context from the GEMA cue list, ordered by the first appearance of each cue:

 

Han and Leia Reunion

Finn and Poe, United

R2 in Hybernation

Leia, C-3P0, and R2

Parental Discussion

Bring Her to Me

[Counterparts 2,905]

I figured out what the problem is with the links in the main post, I should be able to fix them soon.

[jrauman 14]

On 16/05/2022 at 7:47 PM, Counterparts said:

I figured out what the problem is with the links in the main post, I should be able to fix them soon.

Thank you!! I cannot tell you how much I appreciate being able to listen to these in the context of where they were intended to be placed. I don't mind going through the discussion to find each link but having them all organized at the beginning is so convenient.  I wondered if i had lost my access when some of the links didn't work and showed up as private. 

 

Doing the Lord's work here...

[Counterparts 2,905]

Prequel links should be fixed now?

[jrauman 14]

3 hours ago, Counterparts said:

Prequel links should be fixed now?

i did some spot checking and every one of them i tried worked.  Thank you for taking the time to that.   This is a treasure.  

9 minutes ago, jrauman said:

i did some spot checking and every one of them i tried worked.  Thank you for taking the time to that.   This is a treasure.  

oops. spoke too soon.  the prequel links seem good, but Star Wars & ESB are mostly broken (if not all). Some (if not all) of the ROTJ links are good.  Wish i could help.

[Counterparts 2,905]

Right, I fixed all the prequel links, I am going to fix the rest soon, just needed a rest after all the copy pasting lol

[enderdrag64 77]

On 26/04/2022 at 5:16 PM, Jay said:

 

Yea it's definitely a very, very different looking sheet from all the others!  I wonder what reason Neufield would have for writing this cue out years later? 

Does this mean your spreadsheet is wrong regarding 3m2?

 

It says that 3m2 New is the familiar version from the film and 3m2 Rev is the unused alternate and 3m2 was never recorded.

 

But if 3m2 New was never actually a part of the film score then that no longer makes any sense

[Jay 26,057]

I don't follow what you're saying

 

3M2 New is part of the film score, it's simply that the scan of it included in the common sheet leak is a version John Neufield wrote at some later point in time, the actual handwritten version from 1977 hasn't leaked, just like a bunch of other cues haven't had their originally 1977 handwritten versions leak either

[enderdrag64 77]

42 minutes ago, Jay said:

I don't follow what you're saying

 

3M2 New is part of the film score, it's simply that the scan of it included in the common sheet leak is a version John Neufield wrote at some later point in time, the actual handwritten version from 1977 hasn't leaked, just like a bunch of other cues haven't had their originally 1977 handwritten versions leak either

Oh that makes a lot more sense. I misunderstood what @BrotherSound was saying here:

On 26/04/2022 at 4:55 PM, BrotherSound said:

 

The score of that cue doesn't appear to be from the original 1977 sessions. It's missing some music from both the beginning and ending, and though uncredited, it's in John Neufield's writing. I don't believe he worked with JW prior to the late 1980s.

 

I wrongly interpreted this to mean that the missing music from the beginning and ending were changes made by John Neufield for a concert performance of some kind, and that to distinguish it from the original cue he retitled it "3m2 New"

[Jay 26,057]

I'm guessing it was only written out fresh to create a version easier to read