WGA, pt.2: Space Opera Romantique (Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope - Soundtrack)

Member Name: berlioz II

Product:	Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope - Soundtrack
Date:	31/10/06 (740 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A historical score on all levels; over 100 minutes of utter splendour

Disadvantages: Sound not as full due to age; the Empire is lacking strong accompaniment

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Hello again, friends, compatriots, and general readers. Welcome to reading the second part of my on-going survey into the Golden Age of John Williams’ film scores extraordinaire. After the Oscar win from Jaws in 1975, John Williams was a pretty hot commodity. However, none of the scores dating from 1976 really carry much significance. The scores here include Alfred Hitchcock’s light-hearted Family Plot, the western The Missouri Breaks, the WW2 war movie Midway (containing one of Williams’ less memorable main theme marches), and followed in early 1977 by Black Sunday, a film about an Israeli attack against the U.S. during the Super Bowl (that subject will never go away will it?). But, despite a pretty lousy year-and-a-quarter of non-descrepitness, the second half of 1977 really dropped the bomb that altered much in the film scoring industry as we know it.
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FOR YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT, SIR

When Star Wars premiered in 1977, it was an instant success nobody was expecting. During the 1960’s and 70’s the movies pretty much concentrated on the real world with the sugar coating of the 1950’s being replaced by the grittiness and harder realities of life. But then Star Wars showed up and heralded the great revival of the action fantasy and sci-fi genres, something that was virtually more close to a joke at the time. The story takes place “in a galaxy far, far away” with the evil Empire attempting to grab control of the universe but are deterred by a small group of rebels, headed by Princess Leia Organa. After being attacked by the Empire (spearheaded by one of the most impressive bad guys ever, Darth Vader), the Princess sends a message to the old jedi knight Obi-Wan Kenobi via the little droid R2-D2, but the robot ends up sold as a worker for a moisture farm. While there, Luke Skywalker, the young son of the owner, accidentally taps into the recording where he hears the name of Obi-Wan Kenobi and wonders whether this Obi-Wan is in actuality a hermit he knows who’s name is Ben Kenobi. As it turns out he is right and Obi-Wan, after hearing the message, explains to Luke who he is, about the jedis and the Force. As Luke’s parents are killed by the Empire, he decides to go with Obi-Wan to fight the Empire while at the same time being trained in using the Force. On their way they also encounter a hard-bargaining freighter captain named Han Solo, who comes along for the ride in search for a very good payment. The film’s scenery was impressive, the space battles were epic, the story and characters were gripping, and overall everything just fell into the right place, and this included the music by John Williams.

John Williams was already an established composer with two Academy Awards under his belt (one for the adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof and one for Jaws). Steven Spielberg was the one that originally introduced Williams to George Lucas and the results were breathtaking. Williams’ approach was a notable departure from the music that was being composed at the time. By the 1970’s electronic music and pop-based scores were getting more and more dominative apart from a few composers efforts. What Williams did was take a full symphony orchestra and paint on an epic canvas with powerful themes, exciting action and so much diversity that there must have been nobody leaving the theater without humming at least one of the tunes. Williams decided to hark straight back to the old style of Hollywood Golden Age composing of epics with large orchestras that was an incredibly wise, if a rather bold, move. This is definitely one of those instances where the music has such an all-powerful character that a wrong type of score could have blasted the entire Star Wars saga down before it even got started. Imagine an electronic score in place of the fully symphonic one and all the excitement would have been watered down to perpetual cheese.

This type of score had not really been written in a long time and therefore Williams decided to look inspiration from farther down the road than even the 1930’s. His basic approach was by using Richard Wagner’s device known as a leitmotif, a melody or motif that functioned as a musical identity for the thing it was representing (a character, an object, an incident, etc.). As compositional styles he used the combined influences of Dvorak, Holst, Stravinsky, Wagner and the composers of the Golden Age like Max Steiner, Miklós Rósza and Erich Korngold. In fact Star Wars is probably one of the least “original” scores by Williams, which is something classical music “conosseurs” really like to rip into when talking of Williams’ music, while at the same time turning a deaf ear to Hans Zimmer, who only recently was sued by the Holst Foundation for plagiarism in connection with Gladiator. Ah, the hypocrisy! Despite this, the results were dazzling and this score more than any other heralded the return of orchestral film scoring back into the mainstream. The eight recording sessions began at the Anvil Studios in Denham, England on March 5, 1977. Employed to perform the music was the London Symphony Orchestra with 86 players. Eric Tomlinson, with the help of Lionel Newman, was responsible for balancing the orchestra and the orchestrations were by Herbert Spencer.

The recording was completed on March 16th, after which the music was edited and sent to the sound mixers at Samuel Goldwyn Studios in Hollywood. When Star Wars premiered on May 25, 1977 the music soon made its way around almost every venue. The main theme was transformed into a rather atrocious disco song during the late summer and became the number one song in America for some time. In November Zubin Mehta conducted an entire concert of Star Wars music at the Hollywood Bowl. As for Williams, he received three Grammys in February 1978 and his third Oscar on April 3rd. The original album was also selling like hot-cakes, eventually reaching four million copies, not to mention all the re-recordings that emerged shortly after. This more than proved that orchestral music could still get people excited and that this approach was a very viable one for movies.


WHAT THEMES WOULD YOU LIKE, SIR?

The score has an incredible wealth of thematic material that is worked through a complex series of interconnections and references, so almost everything in this score has a theme attached. The score opens with the main Star Wars theme, a bold yet noble fanfare that Williams himself referred as to representing Luke Skywalker. The theme is strong, adventurous, heroic and instantly memorable, initially played by full brass, followed by the strings, and then gathering strength before the initial mood is reached again, with the first four notes repeated as reassurance. This theme is closely attached with the Rebel fanfare, which is a brassy, three-note motif. This motif often appears along side Luke’s theme when the Rebels do something heroic.

The Force/Ben’s theme on the other hand is much more lyrical and philosophical. This is a very beautiful theme that makes many appearances whenever the Force is being used or talked about. One notable exception is the cue “Binary Sunset”, a very striking piece where we see Luke contemplating the twin sunset of Tatooine. There the Force theme builds into an impassioned climax that is a favourite highlight for many. However this cue is not original. Williams originally wrote a much more subdued and dark cue for this scene that Lucas felt didn’t work all the way through and suggested that Williams used the Force theme instead. An inspired decision as it does work much better, although the original is also an interesting cue to behold and is more in line with the thematic relationships. Princess Leia’s theme is the first of three romantic themes Williams composed for the original trilogy and it is characterised by the gentle and innocent quality found in many love themes. This is also the only piece of music Williams specifically arranged as a concert piece in “Princess Leia’s Theme”.

The music for the Empire is very sinister in tone, the complete opposite of the heroic main themes. Unfortunately this Imperial theme is the only weak point in the score, as it is a little hard to actually spot when it appears. There is no strong melodic line that could easily be identified and this is also something Williams noted when starting The Empire Strikes Back. The Death Star on the other hand is much easier to spot. It is a strong four-note motif that always blasts forth when the Death Star appears on screen. For the more supporting themes of the droids, Williams composed a jumpy little tune that is very comic in nature and perfectly captures the essence of C-3PO and R2-D2. The music for the jawas (small monk-like merchants) is somewhat similar, although not as jumpy. But the music assigned to them is still very comic, mischievous and light-hearted. The music for the sand people on the other hand is comprised of unusual percussion like tuned logs, slap sticks and steel plates to create an appropriately savage feel. For the cantina sequences at Mos Eisley spaceport, Williams composed two jazz cues, the idea for this coming from George Lucas. The idea was trying to imagine ”future creatures finding some 1930’s Benny Goodman swing band music, and how would they interpret that?”. They are scored for nine jazz musicians playing a solo trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, Fender Rhodes piano, steel drum, synthesizer and various percussion.

There are a great number of highlights in this score to even start enumerate. The “Binary Sunset” for me has always remained as one of my personal favourites with its passionate surge of the Force theme; the final action sequences of “TIE Fighter Attack” and “The Battle of Yavin” are some of the most exciting action music Williams has ever created as well as the more intimate moments in “Tales of a Jedi Knight/Learn About the Force” which provides the music with such a conversational quality that one can’t but like it. We also have the tragic “Burning Homestead, the ominous “The Death Star”, and, of course, the finale “The Throne Room/End Title,” which is a wonderful example of royal bombast, just perfect in bringing a smile to your face. But the overall fact is that Star Wars is a wonderful score as a whole and should not be heard in bits and pieces. Everything in this score really does have a place of its own and nothing is really wasted in the process. Although A New Hope is not necessarily the best of the Star Wars scores, it does have the greatest historical value as the initiator of modern orchestral film scoring.


THE ALBUMS FOR YOU INSPECTION, SIR

Since the film’s release in 1977 the music has always sold well. The original album was released as a two-LP set, featuring some 75 minutes of music out of the finalized 88 minutes. The album was reissued by Polydor on CD in 1986, following the format of the LP, and as can be expected, the sound quality was not the best possible. However, fans of the Star Wars music were treated to a big piece of happy news in 1993 when 20th Century Fox released an expanded, four-disc anthology set of all three Star Wars scores, produced by some of the biggest names in the business. However the extra material for A New Hope was, as well as for the others, presented in a rather curious way. Each of the three discs contained as much music that could be fitted with some minor extensions (the music presented was mostly the original album content), while the fourth CD contained the unreleased material from all three movies with little in the way of chronology. This made listening to them a little inconvenient, not to mention the CDs came in a DVD size box with hard to read individual album covers. Understandably this left quite a few fans unsatisfied.

In 1997, coinciding with the Special Edition Star Wars restorations of Lucas, RCA Victor finally released the complete versions of all three scores on special 2-CD editions that also included alternate takes and concert suites. All of this made A New Hope clock out in about 106 minutes and sent out a wide smile for many fans who had been unsatisfied with the past releases. Coupled with extensive liner notes, track by track descriptions, and colourful photographs it remains the best release of this score you are ever likely to find. The A New Hope set also contained as a special bonus the original “Binary Sunset” cue that was followed by all of the five original session recordings of the “Main Title/Rebel Blockade Runner”, though I can’t really understand why they were a hidden extra, separated by almost three minutes of silence and not even separated from the previous cue. The music was digitally remastered separately from 35mm magnetic and 16-track analog elements, with the music finally receiving that much needed vibrancy. The liner notes also included a complete list of what was recorded in each session, how many takes were made, which of the takes were used, and where the track is placed in the film.

But just when you thought there could be nothing more to offer from this score, Sony Classical acquired the rights to these classic scores and re-released them in 2004. The content is identical to the 1997 RCA release, but Sony has used their Direct Stream Digital technology to make the sound even more stellar than it already was. However, the appeal of this release lies solely in the fact whether you are interested in getting the same set again with marginally better sound and holographic slip case covers that do not contain the spectacular notes and pictures of the previous release. For my money, the best of the bunch is still the 1997 RCA Special Edition with the black covers. The presentation there is simply the best. As for the earlier releases, this Special Edition one really makes them obsolete and there is no real reason to even start going after them. All in all, a classic score every film score fan should have.

The 1997 Special Edition unfortunately is no longer in production, but can be acquired second hand with pretty reasonable prices. The 2004 edition on the other hand is still widely available with Play.com selling it for £9,99 and Amazon for a rather hefty £16,99.

Thank you for reading, and feel free to join me again next time as we disect the next score, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.


THE TRACKS, SIR

Original 1977/1986 album

Disc 1
1. Main Title (5:20)
2. Imperial Attack (6:10)
3. Princess Leia’s Theme (4:18)
4. The Desert and the Robot Auction (2:51)
5. Ben’s Death and TIE Fighter Attack (3:46
6. The Little People Work (4:02)
7. Rescue of the Princess (4:46)
8. Inner City (4:12)
9. Cantina Band (2:44)

Disc 2
1. The Land of the Sand People (2:50)
2. Mouse Robot and Blasting Off (4:01)
3. The Return Home (2:46)
4. The Walls Converge (4:31)
5. The Princess Appears (4:04)
6. The Last Battle (12:05)
7. The Throne Room and End Title (5:28)


1997/2004 2-CD Special Edition

CD 1
1. 20th Century Fox Fanfare (0:23)
2. Main Title/Rebel Blockade Runner (2:14)
3. Imperial Attack (6:43)
4. The Dune Sea of Tatooine/Jawa Sandcrawler (5:01)
5. The Moisture Farm** (2:25)
6. The Hologram/Binary Sunset (4:10)
7. Landspeeder Search/Attack of the Sand People** (3:20)
8. Tales of a Jedi Knight**/Learn About the Force* (4:29)
9. Burning Homestead (2:50)
10. Mos Eisley Spaceport (2:16)
11. Cantina Band (2:47)
12. Cantina Band #2 (3:56)
13. Binary Sunset (Alternate)* (2:19)
Special: Main Title Archive** (14:40)

CD 2
1. Princess Leia’s Theme (4:27)
2. The Millenium Falcon/Imperial Cruiser Pursuit** (3:51)
3. Destruction of Alderaan (1:32)
4. The Death Star/The Stormtroopers* (3:35)
5. Wookie Prisoner/Detention Block Ambush (4:01)
6. Shootout in the Cell Bay/Dianoga (3:48)
7. The Trash Compactor (3:07)
8. The Tractor Beam/Chasm Crossfire (5:18)
9. Ben Kenobi’s Death/TIE Fighter Attack (3:51)
10. The Battle of Yavin (9:07)
11. The Throne Room/End Title (5:38)

* Previously unreleased
** Contains previously unreleased material

Produced by George Lucas
Music Composed and Conducted by John Williams
Performed by The London Symphony Orchestra
Orchestrated by Herbert W. Spencer
Recording Supervisor: Lionel Newman
Recording Engineer: Eric Tomlinson
Recorded at Anvil Studios, Denham, England
Supervising Music Editor: Kenneth Wannberg
1997 Album Produced by Nick Redman

Polydor, 1977/1986 (800 096-2)
RCA Victor, 1997 (09026 68772 2)
Sony Classical, 2004 (S2K 92950)

© berlioz, 2005, 2006

Summary: Operatic, symphonic, thematic, fantastic