Review: John Williams – Star Wars (1977)

Star Wars is John Williams’ first score, which he composed for the Star Wars films. The film and the soundtrack are also known as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

John Williams, who received a classical education and also pursued a career as a jazz musician, began his career as a film composer as early as the 1950s, but he didn’t make his definitive breakthrough into Hollywood’s A-list until 1975 with Steven Spielberg’s film Jaws, for which he won his second Oscar (his first came for arranging Jerry Bock’s music for the film Fiddler on the Roof)

For Jaws, Williams had composed fairly modern and minimalist music, but Spielberg’s good friend George Lucas hired him to channel the orchestral power of old Hollywood films into his new space opera. In addition to old film music, Williams’s Star Wars score, of course, also draws heavily on the music of the masters of classical composition. It is a crucial element of Lucas’s film in that it provides an important emotional connection and, in a way, a familiar point of reference to the film’s imagery, which was quite exotic at the time. Lucas has often spoken of his films as silent movies, and Williams’s music plays a vital role in the film in this regard as well. The dialogue is minimalist; Lucas drives the film forward through the power of imagery, sound, and music. The music plays almost continuously throughout the two-hour film, and the soundtrack album clocked in at a whopping 75 minutes. The soundtrack was originally released as a double-vinyl set and became a massive hit.

Williams’s Star Wars music is composed for a large orchestra of about 100 musicians (London Symphony Orchestra) and is very fast-paced, energetic, and emotional. Williams draws heavily on classical music from the Romantic era, but seems to leave out the “boring” parts and make it more accessible. He borrows here and there from the classics, but does so so skillfully that one can’t really call it outright plagiarism, even if it comes close at times. Clear influences can be heard from at least Richard Strauss, Gustav Holst, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, and many film music composers. Williams’ compositions were orchestrated by Herbert W. Spencer.

The moods range from warlike marches (“Main Title”) to understated lyrical melancholy (“Princess Leia’s Theme”) and, on the other hand, to moments of humorous playfulness (“The Little People Work” and its delightful oboe theme). At times, the mood even takes an avant-garde turn, such as in the highly percussive music of “The Land of the Sand People,” which is somewhat reminiscent of Jerry Goldsmith’s score for Planet of the Apes and, on the other hand, Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.”

William essentially utilizes the entire possible color palette of his large orchestra, but the sound is primarily dominated by brass and percussion, which are well-suited for playing fast-paced, march-like fanfares. The latter, in particular, are used much more prominently than is typical in orchestral music.

The album also features one track that completely breaks away from its usual orchestral sound: “Cantina Band.” “Cantina Band” is what’s known as diegetic music, meaning music that is heard not only by the audience but also by the characters in the film (in the Star Wars universe, the song is titled “Mad About Me”). “Cantina Band” is an intriguing, lounge-style, semi-synthetic swing number in which Williams gets to channel his own jazz background. Lucas’s instruction to Williams was to create music that would sound as if alien beings were performing Benny Goodman’s songs from the 1930s. And that’s exactly what the song sounds like. It plays during the film’s legendary bar scene, where strange creatures perform it in the background. When listening to the album, “Cantina Band” feels a bit out of place among the other tracks, but it’s still a pretty fun song.

One significant element of Williams’s score is the leitmotif. Williams makes effective use of this concept of a recurring theme—already favored by Richard Wagner—throughout the album. The film’s various characters are given their own themes, which then intertwine to form new kinds of connections. This proved particularly ingenious, of course, in the sequels, where the characters’ themes could be further developed, modified, and blended with the themes of new characters.

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The cultural impact of Star Wars music is enormous. It introduced millions of people to instrumental orchestral music for the first time and, at the same time, restored orchestral music to its central role in Hollywood films. It’s hard to say how many of those people eventually went on to listen to “real” orchestral art music, but at the very least, orchestral music has played an unwavering role in the soundtracks of major Hollywood blockbusters ever since Star Wars.

John Williams’ dominance as a film composer continued well into the 2000s, and he is still active, even though—at over 94 years old—he no longer works as often as he used to. Williams has been nominated for an Oscar an incredible 58 times and has won the award five times.

George Lucas has stated that Williams’s music was the only aspect of the Star Wars film with which he was completely satisfied and that actually exceeded his own expectations. The music works perfectly in the film, and it’s very hard to even imagine Lucas’s saga without Williams’s compositions. A telling sign of Williams’s musicality is that his film scores also work exceptionally well when listened to on their own.

Best tracks: ”Main Title”, “Imperial Attack”, ”Princess Leia’s Theme”, ”Inner City”, “Ben’s Death And TIE Fighter Attack”, “Little People Work”, “The Last Battle”

Rating: 4 out of 5.
Author: JANNE YLIRUUSI
Tracks
  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
  10. ”The Land of the Sandpeople” 2:50
  11. ”Mouse Robot and Blasting Off” 4:01
  12. ”The Return Home” 2:46
  13. ”The Walls Converge” 4:31
  14. ”The Princess Appears” 4:04
  15. ”The Last Battle” 12:05
  16. ”The Throne Room and End Title” 5:28
Musicians: London Symphony Orchestra
Producer: John Williams, George Lucas
Label: 20th Century

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