Hello and welcome to this week's installment of Cue by Cue.
In today's bonus entry, we're going to be listening to the one and only concert suite written for and recorded at the film sessions, The Princess Theme.
Like most concert suites, this piece was written specifically for the album and was never intended to be heard in the film.
This was the only concert suite for this score that was written for and recorded at the film sessions. After Star Wars became a massive hit, other suites were written - we've mentioned them in previous entries. But all of those suites are largely adaptations of score cues - this is the only one to be made entirely of unique material.
This suite is also technically a revision, although it's not labelled as such and the original was likely never recorded. The first five bars are a late addition and are numbered A-D (the first bar is completely unnumbered), the original bar 1 starts on page 2.
The original version of this suite is 61 bars long and the revised suite is 65 bars long. Both versions were orchestrated by Herbert Spencer.
Here's the top of the conductor's score for the original and the revision:
Interestingly there is no indication on the top of page 2 that it was the original opening other than the bar number starting at 1. My guess is that the title was not written until after the extra bars were already added, which implies that the revision happened relatively early.
The 27A number in the top right of the first page doesn't make much sense to me - that would place it between 8m3R The Rescue (27) and 8m4R The Water Snake (28), but as we've already talked about it was never intended to be used in the film at all.
I actually think that it should be numbered 37A, and the 3 was drawn as a 2 by mistake - this would align with 12m2 End Titles being 37, making it clear that this is a bonus. Future scores such as ESB will be numbered such that the concert suites immediately follow the end credits, which I believe was the intention here.
With that out of the way, let's listen to the suite together (note: since the suite was not written to play against any footage I just placed it against the original 1977 theatrical poster by Tom Jung):
At 0:00 the piece begins with a descending intro played on a solo flute followed by a solo oboe. This intro section was added in the revision and is completely missing in the original version of the suite.
The intro leads into a long horn solo statement of Leia's theme from 0:16-1:14. This is an extraordinarily simple rendition with some barely audible string accompaniment.
At 1:16, a short ascending interlude on the woodwinds before another Leia's theme statement on solo flute starting at 1:30. This statement is much more complicated than the previous, with fancier accompaniment and some development of the theme starting at 2:05.
At 2:26 one final statement of the theme begins, this time with the full orchestra. More instruments continue to join in as the statement continues, with the most impactful version at 3:00. The statement finally climaxes at 3:42, after some extensive development from 3:17.
Finally at 3:48, a return to the ascending woodwinds from the earlier interlude, this time followed by development on a solo violin. Thus the suite ends....
It's worth noting that a large amount of the music in this suite never appears in the film at all. Of course Leia's theme is used in the film in several cues, but the ascending interlude melody and the several developments are all completely unique to this suite, as are the specifics of the statements such as their orchestration.
In the film Leia's theme is often combined with the Rebel fanfare as an accompaniment, but that's not the case here, although the accompaniment in this suite sounds somewhat similar at points (particularly in the full orchestra statement).
This suite was recorded on March 8, 1977, the second day of the recording sessions. It was the second cue recorded that day. Thirteen takes were recorded, numbered 28-40. According to the 1997 take log, the performance edit used takes 33 and 40.
It's kind of interesting that this suite had the most takes recorded of any piece recorded at the sessions despite not even being intended for the film at all. I guess John Williams really wanted it to sound perfect as a selling point of the OST album.
The original LSO recording of this suite has been officially released on four different albums:
1) In 1977 on 20th Century Records' OST album
2) In 1993 on Arista Records' 4-CD Anthology box set
3) In 1997 on RCA Victor's 2-CD Special Edition set
4) In 2018 on Walt Disney Records' Remastered album (remastered OST rebuilt from scratch from the session masters)
More specifically, The Princess Theme can be heard:
Track 3 "Princess Leia's Theme" on the 1977/2018 albums
Disc 1 track 14 "Princess Leia's Theme" on the 1993 album
Disc 2 track 1 "Princess Leia's Theme" on the 1997 album.
Every set has the suite presented alone with a clean opening and ending. The 1977 set is a remix and should be avoided, and the 1997 set is brickwalled. Every set appears to have the correct takes. I'd recommend listening to either the 1993 or 2018 albums for this suite. For the video above I used the 1993 set.
Officially published sheet music for this suite is available from Hal Leonard under their "Signature Edition" line. This published suite exactly matches the production sheets used during the recording sessions. Recordings of the published suite are also available on youtube, here's an example conducted by Keith Lockhart:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdlc_Fok4dM
That's all I have for today, thanks for reading! Feel free to leave any comments or questions.
This will be my final post covering the original score, as we've finally gone through every piece of music written for the film.
Next week will be an introduction post as we begin to delve into the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back (1980). See you then!
