Label Sony Classical Records | ||
Similar Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars Trilogy: The Origi, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge, Star Wars Episode I: The Phan, Return of the Jedi | ||
The music of the Star Wars franchise is composed and produced in conjunction with the development of the feature films, television series, and other merchandise within the epic space opera franchise created by George Lucas. Released between 1977 and 2015, the music for the primary feature films was written by composer John Williams and, in the case of the first two trilogies, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. In July 2013, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy announced at Star Wars Celebration Europe that Williams would be returning once more to score the seventh episode, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Williams' scores for the seven saga films count among the most widely known and popular contributions to modern film music.
Contents
- Television
- First appearance in A New Hope
- First appearance in The Empire Strikes Back
- First appearance in Return of the Jedi
- First appearance in The Phantom Menace
- First appearance in Attack of the Clones
- First appearance in Revenge of the Sith
- First appearance in The Force Awakens
- First appearance in Rogue One
- Concert suites
- Diegetic music
- Awards
- Certifications
- Songs
- References
Additionally, music for an animated spinoff was written by Kevin Kinerries, and further music has been composed for Star Wars video games and works in other media (Television Series).The scores utilize an eclectic variety of musical styles, many culled from the Late Romantic idiom of Richard Strauss and his contemporaries that itself was incorporated into the Golden Age Hollywood scores of Erich Korngold and Max Steiner. While several obvious nods to Gustav Holst, William Walton, Sergei Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky exist in the score to Star Wars, Williams relied less and less on classical references in the latter six scores, incorporating more strains of modernist orchestral writing with each progressive score. The reasons for Williams' tapping of a familiar Romantic idiom are known to involve Lucas' desire to ground the otherwise strange and fantastic setting in well-known, audience-accessible music. Indeed, Lucas maintains that much of the original trilogy's success relies not on advanced visual effects, but on the simple, direct emotional appeal of its plot, characters and, importantly, music.
Star Wars often is credited as heralding the beginning of a revival of grand symphonic scores in the late 1970s. One technique in particular is an influence: Williams's revival of a technique called leitmotif, which is most famously associated with the operas of Richard Wagner and, in film scores, with Steiner. A leitmotif is a phrase or melodic cell that signifies a character, place, plot element, mood, idea, relationship or other specific part of the film. It is commonly used in modern film scoring as a device for mentally anchoring certain parts of a film to the soundtrack. Of chief importance for a leitmotif is that it must be strong enough for a listener to latch onto while being flexible enough to undergo variation and development.
A series of concerts which featured Star Wars music, Star Wars: In Concert, took place in 2009 and 2010. First performed in London, it went on to tour across the United States and Canada, last playing in London, Ontario, Canada on July 25, 2010.
Television
Kevin Kiner composed the score to the film Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) which led into the animated TV series of the same name while using some of the original themes and score by John Williams. His own material for the film includes a theme for Anakin Skywalker's Padawan learner, Ahsoka Tano, as well as a theme for Jabba the Hutt's uncle Ziro. Kiner went on to score the TV series' entire six seasons, which concluded in 2014. A soundtrack album was released that same year by Walt Disney Records.
Kiner continued his work with the franchise for the animated series Star Wars Rebels (2014), which also incorporates Williams' themes.
First appearance in A New Hope
First appearance in The Empire Strikes Back
First appearance in Return of the Jedi
First appearance in The Phantom Menace
First appearance in Attack of the Clones
First appearance in Revenge of the Sith
First appearance in The Force Awakens
First appearance in Rogue One
Concert suites
From A New Hope
From The Empire Strikes Back
From Return of the Jedi
From The Phantom Menace
From Attack of the Clones
From Revenge of the Sith
From The Force Awakens
From Rogue One
Diegetic music
Diegetic music is music "that occurs as part of the action (rather than as background), and can be heard by the film's characters". In addition to the orchestral scope that was brought on by John Williams' musical score, the Star Wars franchise also features many distinguishing diegetic songs that enrich the detail of the audio mise-en-scène.
From A New Hope
From Return of the Jedi
From The Phantom Menace
From Attack of the Clones
From The Force Awakens
Awards
The score of the original Star Wars film of 1977 won John Williams the most awards of his career:
He also received the 1977 Saturn Award for Best Music for both the Star Wars score and his score for Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Williams's score for the 1980 sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, also earned him a number of awards:
The Empire Strikes Back was also nominated in 1981 for Best Original Score the 53rd Academy Awards (the award was won by Michael Gore for Fame).
Williams's subsequent Star Wars film music was nominated for a number of awards; in 1984 his score for Return of the Jedi was nominated for Best Original Score at the 56th Academy Awards. His compositions for the prequel trilogy also received nominations: the score for The Phantom Menace was nominated for Best Instrumental Composition at the 2000 Grammy Awards and Revenge of the Sith was nominated at the 2006 Grammy Awards for Best Soundtrack Album.
In 2005 the 1977 soundtrack for Star Wars was voted as the "most memorable film score of all time" by the American Film Institute in the list AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores, based on the assessment of a jury of over 500 artists, composers, musicians, critics and historians from the film industry.
In 2016, John Williams was nominated for Best Original Score, his 50th overall nomination, for his score to Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Certifications
The soundtracks to both Star Wars and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace have been certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, for shipments of at least 1 million units, with the albums for The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones being certified Gold (500,000 units). The British Phonographic Industry certified Star Wars and Episode I as Gold for shipments of over 100,000 units in the UK.
Songs
1Star Wars Main Title / The Arrival at NabooJohn Williams - London Symphony Orchestra2:56
2Duel of the FatesJohn Williams - London Symphony Orchestra - London Voices4:14
3Anakin's ThemeJohn Williams - London Symphony Orchestra3:09