I'm getting passionate about Angela Morley's work and there are many parts very similar to Star Wars. for sure the changes of scenery in space. I knew it was all the work of John Williams but I find out it's not like that
Wow, this sort of analysis with this level of detail for this music is just a dream come true! Thanks! I know these cues very well, I listened to this OST recording a lot when I was a teenager. It profoundly amazed me and I was always curious about how it was made. It was ultimately the reason I got into music, though I chose performing with the cello rather than composing. I've done my fair share of self-study with the concert suites of many of JW's scores, but this incidental music is the one that I truly love. Again, BIG THANKS!
@@tritono666 you’re ever so welcome! I’ve also always been fascinated with it all too and am blessed to work in a community that encourages and inspires one another. It’s been really enjoyable!
Thank you for analyzing Lord of the Rings! This is one of my favorite cues from the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. Would you consider analyzing Weathertop or Khazad-Dum from the Fellowship of the Ring?
I'll do it at some point sure! At the moment I'm concentrating on the little orchestration things and will do some other cues by other composers but will at some point get round to it! You're most welcome and thanks so much!
Dominic, you have the super annoying habit of constantly moving the screen. I'm trying to look at the notes, but you move it back and forth, up and down, side to side constantly!!! Keep it still! bro!! It's extremely hard to follow when you keep the score moving! You do this at every analysis as a bad habit while talking, you constantly shift! CONSTANTLY MOVING. Keep it still bro!! Keep your cursor still too because we're following the cursor! It's exhausting!! Let the audience see and absorb.
@@henrychandra2064 No. This is not helpful feedback at all. ‘Super annoying’ and capital letters don’t make me sympathetic to your point (however valid) and no I don’t do this at every analysis since the cues are already online (this one is here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xkJOgDQbGAQ.htmlsi=T7WH9Vgx-cSua985) where you can easily see the whole thing and pause at your pleasure. If you are familiar with the channel you’ll know all of these reductions have been done before and I’m just highlighting things that may have been missed. I have to move the score around as I’m flitting from different instrument groups for example. In fairness I do usually put a blank no-commentary beginning but didn’t with this one. However you can just bookmark the other video and refer to it. Perhaps try being a little less confrontational in comments next time and the recipient might be more sympathetic to your point.
Another one to listen too in the garage over the weekend. These videos are not only great to hear, but concentrate the mind when having to concentrate. Thank you.
Amazing breakdown as usual, and thanks for the shout-out! To humbly offer my "analyst" input, you're correct that the rising string cluster appears in the Dangerous Passes theme heard on Caradhras, although I'd add that those kind of clusters (what Doug calls "pyramid clusters") appear in a lot other scenes too. On the subject of foreshadowing small orchestral details: on the Complete Recordings Lighting of the Beacons cue, the track ends with the same Hope Motif intervals (G-Bb-C) over the Fellowship progression (C-Eb-C) as Merry rides off to war. Also, the three-note ostinato that plays when the Orcs attack (which you've labelled as The Cruelty of the Orcs but I think is closer related to The Way to Mordor) is almost identical to what's heard when Faramir's troops ambush the Haradrim in The Two Towers. Chew on that!
This is a fantastic track from Williams and you have presented an incredible breakdown of it. Williams at the top of his game.. Saying "diad" many times gave me the heebee jeebies reminding me of Rise of Skywalker..Thanks!
Great video Dom. I was looking forward to this one for a long time. One thing I have noticed with Shore's "blended" style is that he pays very close attention to the instruments he chooses to blend and their subtle effect on the perceived emotion. He might have a melody in the first violins and sometimes he will double it with a flute, other times an oboe, other times a clarinet, and other times with nothing at all. Each time I feel from studying it he makes the right choice for the scene. It's a very nuanced and sensitive skill he possesses. It's not what some people might lazily think like he just blends everything together all the time because he doesn't know what else to do. One of my personal favourites is in some of the Rohan material from the second film when he has a sul-G line on the violins and he doubles it with English horn. It's almost imperceptible as the E.H. blends so seamlessly into the G-strings coarse tone, yet it gives the line such an aching quality. The sound perfectly encapsulates the emotion of Rohan at that time. A once-great plains kingdom that has experienced radical decline. P.S. I love how he doubles the horn theme down in the cellos and basses in this cue. It's something I would have never thought would work and yet it works marvellously.
Yeah - the conceptualisation of the music is unusual in film - in the sense that had so long to conceptualise and get feedback from the producers/directing team. Slight changes would make the most difference emotively so yep I completely agree. Low horns are a lot more common in Shore's score for these films than most others, but would need to investigate a lot more to really get a good grip of it.
@@DominicSewellMusic That's a great point. It's quite unique among film scores in that way. I wonder if we will ever see another film that has a similar, longer composing window in the future. I think it speaks to its quality. But the production has to have the time and money and be headed by someone who truly believes in and values that process as part of their creative vision.
P.S. I find his use of 5 horns really interesting. I can't think of a single other work that uses that number. Do you know if that is the number used in the original recording or just in the live to picture version?
@@itznoxy7193 Apparently yes (a colleague worked with Doug Adams on the hobbit book and also has access to archive materials) and it was the same in the Hobbit as well.
16:08 I have the sketch score for this. the Flutes/Electric Piano/Oboe play C an A in bar one. in bar 2 Clarinets and piccolo join in, then there is no notation for bar 3. There is no chord for clarinets only F and Db going to E /C. Not sure why the piccolo is playing that low but interesting. The oboes and flutes are doubling C/A to B/G# loco.
Ah yes - this was before I had access to Herb Spencer's score so you're right Ob 1 plays Fl 1-2 and Ob 2 plays Fl 3 and 4 in bar 1 (there's no piccolo part and in fact 4 flutes are marked in Herb's score with fl 4 tacet.)). Should be just 2 clarinets as well in Bar 2 then Ob 3 and 4 joining with the remaining notes Bb and Db in bar 3 with e piano playing all the way through every new entry. Will rectify for patrons! Thanks for this ! Good spot. Changes the chord so the second one is Dbaug 7 and the third Bbm(maj9)
Thought you might be interested to know, the LSO performed a piece from Star Wars at the end of their BMW Classics concert in Trafalgar Square last night. It was streamed live on You Tube, and is available for several weeks.
Wow! Extremely effective at fitting to the on-screen action. This type of (dare I say) "Mickey-Mousing" is often shunned in modern film scoring, but when done as masterfully as this it works far better than textural drones or ostinati.
A lot lies in the hands of the producers/studio so that even if the composer wanted to write that way they're often not allowed to....glad Michael Abels was hired to score the Acolyte -some absolutely fantastic music in there!
Wow. I had no idea Williams used electronic instruments in this score. That's fascinating. It's a shame they are not in the concert edition. Do you know what E pianos might have been used? Rhodes? The DX-7 would not have been out yet.
We think it was an ARP2600 with a keyboard attachment. Best place to ask is the fan forum on JWFan ? Also used in RotJ I believe. I have a funny feeling that Xanthe Tan did a whole video about it on her channel Star Wars Music Minute? Otherwise if you do a search I think there is a video on its use in the films somewhere…
I'm sure you mean C7 (A#/Bb E G C) at the top and C#m at the bottom? But then how to explain the Eb which isn't present in either the chords you mention...
I'm surprised that more aspiring film composers don't study the scores of Franz Schmidt (1874-1939), who was an unerringly effective and colourful orchestrator: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AIAzkO60sWc.htmlsi=yegm9KK9Lf_CfJke
Franz Schmidt??? Really? I'm not surprised that a virtual unknown with a very limited amount of scholarly articles written about his work and/or performances or recordings is not the first person one would think of for film orchestration guidance. Not to mention the, perhaps unfounded, allegations of Nazi sympathies (my old teacher Joe Horovitz would perhaps have been a good person to ask about that since he was a contemporary from Vienna and fled the country in the 1940s but sadly he passed away recently and we can't ask him!). I don't think that film composers would learn any more from Schmidt then they would from Ravel, Puccini, Dvorak, Stravinsky, Copland or Lil Boulanger or from the wealth of film scores we now have examples of. This is especially true in my view because his orchestration style is Austro-German which is absolutely not a preferred orchestration method in film from the 1960s onwards. Colour blends are not a Hollywood default - in fact, the opposite is true and colours tend to be differentiated in different ways to the german school. American orchestration owes much more to the French (Boulanger's influence) and the Russian schools which tended to separate the various functions with only limited blended work. That's not to dismiss Schmidt out of hand - just that there are many other more masterful and successful composers that present day screen composers of all abilities would benefit from. However it did make me look the guy up and listen to some of his work!
@@DominicSewellMusic I disagree with you on virtually all counts and - with specific regard to Franz Schmidt (whom, despite your disclaimer, you *have* dismissed out of hand and whose style of orchestration you mischaracterise) - on all counts. Schmidt was and remains enormously famous in Vienna, a city with somewhat stronger claims to musical eminence than Hollywood, and is very far from being a "virtual unknown" elsewhere. Schmidt's neglect in the immediately postwar period (he died in early 1939) was largely due to the rise of the institutional avant-garde (much of it - as with Abstract Expressionism in painting - sponsored by the CIA (cf. Frances Stonor Saunders and Herbert Pauls)) in Western Europe and North America. Incidentally, Hans Keller and Oskar Adler, who both knew Schmidt well (Adler was a close friend) and were both Jewish, completely absolved him of all charges of Nazism and Antisemitism.
@@DominicSewellMusic PS. I could supply you with a very lengthy list of scholarly articles about Schmidt, although most of them are in German. The best place to begin, though, is the published dissertation by Tom Corfield: 'Franz Schmidt, 1874-1939 : a discussion of his style with special reference to the four symphonies and "Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln"' (Garland Publishing, 1989).
@@Khayyam-vg9fw Thanks - will delve into some of his work when I have the chance. It's new to me and simply not something I would ever of thought of for screen music practitioners. I would normally send them to Sevsay (which includes but isn't restricted to all the Viennese schools) and then specific film cues and authors like Andy Hill for example and orchestrators themselves currently working in the film music industry.
@@DominicSewellMusic I take the view that any skilful orchestrator, in any period or idiom, is likely to have something to teach the aspiring composer and/or orchestrator of film music.
I would love to see more Lord of the Rings cue breakdowns. I think if you were to make it a series it would benefit more from analysis of thematic treatment/variations, and orchestration/tone blending for emotional effect. Not pitch class set stuff (as I imagine there is very little of that). But I think it makes a nice contrast to the Star Wars approach. My own music is chiefly a blend of these two approaches (along with my other influences)
@@itznoxy7193 I’m intending to do the beacons of Gondor as the next one I think! Yeah pc sets aren’t relevant really to that style of writing. But yeah totes! I think it also plays into the TTRPG community as well
4:50 That little agitato "force flutter" (as I call it) leitmotif was also used in Star Wars rebels in one of the first episodes where Ezra finds a lightsaber. I sort of associate it with the magic of the force/a call to destiny. It's a wonderful little musical idea that captures the emotion perfectly. Gives me goosebumps every time.
@@DominicSewellMusic I saw it on youtube. It was a documentary on the recording of Empire from I think CBS or some other news network back in the 80s. You have to pause during the overhead shots of the orchestra to take a look and it's admittedly low res but I counted 8 horns. Perhaps 2 auxiliary players to double parts if not written in the score. Take a look and let me know if you can't find it. I will look later. I'm still only halfway through studying this video currently.
It's fine dude - no rush! But really useful as Frank is doing a book on Star Wars at the moment and we're trying to sort out exact forces. Empire was particularly difficult as certain cues had things like 5 piccolos and 5 oboes etc.... @@itznoxy7193
These in-depth "Aspects" videos are amazing. Really grateful to have you here posting these and all your other videos. 🙏 P.S. - Haven't seen if you've given your thoughts anywhere on The Acolyte score... I think I'm torn between Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and The Acolyte for my favorite non-Williams Star Wars scores.
Thanks so much! Really appreciate it! Yes the Acolyte score is stunning (I post on Threads these days since the extremist Musk took over Twitter). Michael Abels and the team have done an immense job not making it derivative but feeling that it really is at home in that Universe. I liked Mando series 1 music too. And of course the games…
@@DominicSewellMusic I am extraordinarily disappointed to see you have left Twitter. Love him [elon] or hate him, the truth is this: it's far easier to fight an enemy out in the open than it is to fight said enemy in the shadows. I thought the prequels did a good job of teaching that lesson... but here we are. There has never been another point in internet history where the extreme has been so baited into the open like this. Yet, when that happens, the likes of you (you're certainly not alone to be fair) cower away into the shadows, as though you're the one in the wrong... YOU'RE NOT! And through your "PROTEST", you allow the extreme to stand further out in the open. Unchallenged. As though YOU actually support them... You should continue to maintain your account there and post against those you disagree with, instead of running away. I'm sure your following would appreciate that courage. Hate to make a political post, but since you started it, it seemed fair for me to finish it.
It’s not me cowering away. It’s me taking an act of self preservation as I found X was impacting my mental health and I have more important things going on at home to concentrate on.
@@DominicSewellMusic now that’s a completely different narrative than the one you led with - one that’s easy for anyone to get behind. Hope you’re feeling better during your time away, and hope to see you back when/if you’re ready.
Thanks for posting this. I do find this short excerpt thought provoking indeed, and your reduction is very illuminating. I must say that I was intrigued enough to stop watching your video after the first 10 minutes or so, and start looking into this by myself. After some pondering, I believe I have a somewhat different view on this, although closely related to a number of points you make --- and would be interested in your view on this view. My main points on the first four bars are the following: • The melody (mostly) progresses in dotted quarter notes (except for the contraction/acceleration in the 4th bar), but with quite a few passing tones in the process (right wording? “notes de passage” in French). • The harmony (mostly) progresses in dotted half notes except at concluding points where it increases pace. • The main point is that one must combine harmonic and contrapuntal points of view to capture what is going on. At least, this is how I view it. • Finally, as the overall context is modal rather than tonal, the usual function of chords (such as V - I or II - V - I) is largely irrelevant. In any case, as usual in ambiguous harmonic progressions, several interpretations are possible. The first two bars are more ambiguous than the following two and contribute a lot to making the listener wondering at what is happening. It makes sense, because of this, to focus first on these first two bars. Appoggiaturas, and (incomplete) delayed and anticipated resolutions are clearly playing a major role here, as you point out. It seems to me that these first two bars make more harmonic sense if one partially ignores the melody for the purpose of harmonic analysis, as this voice has quite a few passing tones. It seems clear that the second half of the second bar is the harmonic focal point of the first two bars. An F minor chord dominates the second bar but a Db major chord concludes it and is the simplest harmony (triad) of the whole first two bar sequence. The melody in the first two bars along with this last Db major chord gives a feeling of Db major. More precisely, an F minor/Phrygian or Db major/Lydian scale is used in these two bars in the melody but with missing degrees (precisely those maintaining the ambiguity on the nature of the scale): Bb, C, Db, Eb, bracketed by two key notes of the F minor tonality, Ab and F, which are stated in the harmony in the 2nd bar, but not in the melody, while the deciding note (G) is not stated at all. Still, the melody on these two bars starts and ends on Db, and uses the leading note C although never in its tonal meaning (this would be out of character). I believe this is meant to give an overall Db major feeling, in spite of the natural A in the harmony of the first bar; in relation to this, it seems to me that if the dominant Ab had been stated in the melody, the tonal character would have been too strong. In a first version of this paragraph I had made a major error of analysis of musical intention here (I had applied too literally my own advice and ignored too much the melodic line). Because of this I do not share your view on the scale being part of a Phrygian mode, but just a plain although incomplete Db major scale in the first two bars, but I agree that, as is, the partial scale used is consistent with both. By contrast, the 3rd and 4th bars lead to a different region (D Lydian instead of Db), essentially a semitone apart from the first two bars, with a similar shape given to the melody. I understand the wish to make the whole melodic descending line of the first four bars (ignoring the 7th leaps) belong to the same scale (this would be pretty neat), but I do not feel that this is really what is going on here. With this in mind, one notices a repeating pattern, the "resolution" of the first half of the first two bars being given in the second half: • 1st measure: the ambiguous chord (Eb-A-Db) is chromatically half-resolved in a (less ambiguous or maybe just more common) diminished 5th (A-C-Eb). • 2nd measure: the 7th (E in F-Ab-C-E) is chromatically resolved into an F minor triad. The harmony picks up pace and moves on to a Db major triad, with the end of the chromatic line C-Db-D being picked up by the bass. This indeed transforms the Db tension note of the start into the stable root of a simple triad at the end. Possibly, the most disorienting fact here, as you point out, is the transition between the first and second bars, which does not resolve the remaining tension of the diminished 5th but increases it in a chromatic way. Eb indeed goes to E and A goes to Ab (the bass line picking up briefly the A from one of the middle lines to achieve this), producing a 7th chord of F minor. Another disorienting fact is the natural A used in the harmony in the first bar instead of the Ab required by Db major. Yet another disorienting feature is the chromatic harmonic progression contrasting with the diatonic melody (the diatonic character is partially blurred by the leaps). If one accepts this (melodic scale, passing tones, different melodic and harmonic paces), things become simpler and make more sense from a harmonic point of view, I think. As you point out, the tension in the top Db at the beginning of the first bar is immediately resolved in a C in the melody (anticipation of the diminished 5th A-C-Eb with respect to the pace of the harmonic progression), producing a tension with the second Db which is itself resolved in pace with the harmonic progression. For melodic reasons, this second Db is not resolved into C but Eb. This leads to the beautiful semi-chromatic line Db-Eb-E-F, which also gives the pace of the harmonic progression (dotted half notes except right at the end) and is incidentally indeed reminiscent of the way Wagner uses his famous chromatic line (G#-A-A#-B) while half-resolving the Tristan chord into a dominant 7th. To sum up, the harmony in the first two bars is a double wave of tension and partial release, in a chromatic way, while the (diatonic) melody is somewhat at odds with the harmony and has a kind of Db major feel to it. This, along with the alternating diatonic intervals and wide leaps, contributes to the sense of harmonic/tonal/modal insecurity and to the overall tension. The next two bars do not belong to the same scale and harmonic progression but use instead a somewhat simpler scheme from a harmonic point of view, in conjunction with the repetition of the melodic line design. The 3rd bar uses only D Lydian throughout. The scale is given in full in one of the lines of the bar, starting and finishing on F#, thus taking the guise of a descending melodic F# minor mode presented in ascending order. D Lydian is however clearly asserted in combination with this scale by the insistent D at the bass, and here, in contrast with the first two bars, the characteristic tritone of the Lydian scale is stated in both melody and harmony. This is necessary to ascert a Lydian mode character while an implied Db major feel is sufficient in the first two bars to our tonally trained (biased?) ears. Anyway, the scale in bars 3 and 4 is just transposed a semitone higher with respect to the first two bars (except for the 4th degree), while the melody keeps its downward motion. From a harmonic point of view, I believe the second half of the 3rd bar can be understood in different, complementary ways. First, and probably less importantly, one can view it as what we call in French a “broderie” (I do not know the English term for this), returning to the D major triad at the beginning of the 4th bar, namely, D/A/F# - D/B/G# - D/A/F#, again in a dotted half note harmonic pace. The first A is missing in the bass lines but clearly stated in the melody. Second, this does sound like the D major triad followed by a diminished 5th before returning to the D major triad in the 4th bar. The diminished 5th constitutes an echo of the first two bars (same chord, same place in the harmonic progression). Last, and probably most importantly, the diminished 5th is one of the chords harmonically emphasizing the tritone and Lydian character (not the most expected one though), and thus playing a role akin to the dominant chord (V) with respect to the tonic (I) in tonal harmony; i.e., the harmonic broderie just mentioned substitutes I-IV-I as a modal equivalent to the basic I-V-I statement of tonality. The melody fits well in this scheme and uses only the D Lydian scale (including the characteristic G# tritone with respect to the D tonic). The melodic G# again appears in anticipation of its harmonic counterpart. The final Db major chord in the 4th bar is both the final point of the second harmonic series (bars 3 and 4) and a transition chord to the next four bars. It recalls in this respect the Db major chord at the end of the 2nd bar, both literally and in harmonic function (conclusion and chromatic progression). Last point of interest: the 4th leap at the bass line in the first two bars. This leap is clearly not used in its usual tonal harmonic meaning here, but still gives a small sense of harmonic stability which contrasts with the constant chromatic harmonic shifts of these two bars. Same thing at the bass of the 5th bar but the tonal character is more prominent there. I keep editing this post to add small tidbits nicely fitting in the overall pattern I am trying to advocate (except for the major revision mentioned earlier), but I should probably stop this game at this point, as this may instead obscure rather than clarify the argument. Thanks for reading and commenting, and my apologies for the length of this post.
Sorry, yet another thought If one looks at the first two bars from a little more distance, the first bar is dominated by Eb-A-C (harmonically speaking, and ignoring delays/anticipations), while the second bar is dominated by Ab-C-F/Ab-Db-F. This is a distorted tonal V-III-I sequence of Db major: second inversion of V with Ab transformed into A, first inversion of III, second inversion of I. Of course, this is far from sounding tonal, which is precisely the objective. But maybe this gives an idea of how one may get to what one ears from a tonal starting point.
Thanks for commenting. Glad it produced some thoughts for you. Like the Augers chord, Tristan etc this sort of music elicits many different interpretations. I wrote this a while ago and now having had the benefit of analysing three complete films of JW's I might come to a different conclusion. The composer manages to control the level of expectation and either subvert or fulfil them at every point. I don't disagree with what you've said.
@@DominicSewellMusic Thanks for the short feedback. And thanks for the channel, I have seen a few more videos since watching this one. By the way, where can one find this type of orchestral score(s), if I may ask?
pls tell me this means you are going to do Cantina Band #2 as well! (Dune Sea Special) Or not, beacuse im pretty sure the score for it has never been leaked :/
@@DominicSewellMusic that's great! I feel like second version has some really great writing in it; definitely one of Williams' best jazz compositions. Might i ask how you managed to get ahold of anything? :)
Regarding the inaudible horns at the end. They are not in the live to picture edition of the score and are not present in the original recording. I have only seen them in the concert suite score, which means they were either originally in but taken out before recording, or they were never in and miscopied into the concert suite. Either way it sounds better without them. In the concert suite they stick out so bad no matter how much the conductor tries to balance them. It's like getting poked in the eye.
