Star Wars: A New Hope score

The score unfolds scene by scene, following the film's story rather than standing as a separate concert work with movements. It opens with one of the most recognized fanfares in film music, a bold brass theme heard as the title crawl scrolls, which returns throughout as the heroic signature of the story. Williams builds a web of recurring melodies, each attached to a character or idea: a noble, spacious theme for the hero's journey, a menacing low brass and choir-like motif for the villain, and a wistful, folk-like tune for the desert planet where the story begins. Listen for how the music shifts color with the scenes, quiet and mysterious in the droids' wanderings, urgent and rhythmic in the space battles, tender in quieter character moments. Because the orchestra plays live against the finished film, the cues are exact: a chord lands on a cut, a swell arrives with a spaceship's appearance, a fanfare erupts at a moment of triumph. The score builds toward a full statement of the main theme at the story's close, when the recurring melodies return together in a broad, celebratory finish that mirrors the film's ending.

George Lucas hired John Williams to score his space adventure after hearing his work on Jaws, and the two have collaborated ever since. Williams wrote a fully symphonic score at a time when many films used pop songs or electronic music instead, recording it with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1977. The score won Williams an Academy Award and is credited with reviving the large orchestral sound in Hollywood filmmaking. Decades later, film studios began licensing "film with live orchestra" presentations, in which the movie's dialogue and sound effects play while a live orchestra performs the entire musical score in sync with the picture. These performances let audiences experience a familiar film as a concert event, watching the movie while musicians recreate every cue in real time.