This particular day in the year has become known as Star Wars day after some wag noticed the similarity of the phrase ‘May the 4th Be With You’ to one of the oft repeated remarks from the Star Wars trilogy. The music for the primary feature films (which serves as the basis for the rest of the related media) was written by John Williams. Williams’ work on the series included the scores of nine feature films, a suite and several cues of thematic material for Solo and the theme music for the Galaxy’s Edge Theme Park. These count among the most widely known and popular contributions to modern film music, and utilize a symphony orchestra and features an assortment of about fifty recurring musical themes to represent characters and other plot elements: one of the largest caches of themes in the history of film music.
As such there have been many versions and parodies of his music. demonstating thehigh regard ijn which it is held. Today we will enjoy a whimsical selection of these pieces as we celebrate Star Wars Day.
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. The reasons for this are known to involve George Lucas’s desire to allude to the underlying fantasy element of the narrative rather than the science-fiction setting, as well as to ground the otherwise strange and fantastic setting in well-known, audience-accessible music. Indeed, Lucas maintains that much of the films’ success relies not on advanced visual effects, but on the simple, direct emotional appeal of its plot, characters and, importantly, music.
Star Wars was one of the film scores that heralded the revival of grand symphonic scores in the late 1970s. One technique that particularly influenced these scores is Williams’ use of the leitmotif, which was most famously associated with Wagner’s Ring Cycle and, in early film scores, with Steiner. A leitmotif (or leading motive) is a recurring, evolving musical theme for narrative elements such as characters, locations, ideas, sentiments, objects 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 along the progression of the story. The more varied and nuanced the use of leitmotif is, the more memorable it typically becomes. A good example of this is the way in which Williams subtly conceals the intervals of “The Imperial March” within “Anakin’s Theme” in The Phantom Menace, implying his dark future to come.
Also important is the density in which leitmotifs are used: the more leitmotifs are used in a piece of a given length, the more thematically rich it is considered to be. Film music, however, typically needs to strike a balance between the number of leitmotives used, so as to not become too dense for the audience (being preoccupied with the visuals) to follow. Williams’ music of Star Wars is unique in that it is relatively dense for film scoring, with approximately 17 themes used in each two-hour film, of which about 90% is scored.
