Star Wars Soundtrack
October 26th, 2008Star Wars Soundtrack – Darth Vader’s theme (Imperial March)
Darth Vader’s theme song. Music composed by John Williams. The music of Star Wars consists of the scores written for all six Star Wars films by composer John Williams between 1977 and 1983 for the Original Trilogy, and 1999 and 2005 for the Prequel Trilogy. More broadly, it refers to any music that is used to depict the larger Star Wars Universe, which would include music for Star Wars video games, and other media. John Williams’ scores for the double trilogy count among the most widely-known and popular contributions to modern film music.
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 Holst, Walton and Stravinsky exist in the score to Episode IV, Williams relied less and less on classical references in the latter five 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. Williams tapped into the audience-accessibility in the first lines of the original theme by using a familiar song from a popular Oscar winning movie soundtrack from a few years before. Williams has widely maintained that his original theme is the theme song from Born Free played in reverse. He used this as a “subliminal hook” to capture his audience. Indeed, Lucas maintains much of the 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 is often credited as heralding the beginning of a revival of grand symphonic scores in the late 1970s. While to ascribe this feat single-handedly to Williams is premature, the popularity and impact of the scores was a major contribution. One technique in particular has had a particular influence: Williams’s revival of a technique called “Leitmotiv”, which is most famously associated with the operas of 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 to mentally anchor 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.
