By John Takis<\/p>\n
Over my winter vacation, I had a chance to examine a hardcopy of the original handwritten manuscript of John Williams’ score for The Empire Strikes Back. I secured permission to share my findings with the JWFan community. Please note: I did not receive a copy of the manuscript to take with me. Thus, it is useless to write and ask me to share or distribute the manuscript (which is proprietary, anyway). Any questions that arise from the examination of my notes may be directed to a specially created thread<\/a> on the JWFan forums.<\/p>\n ======================================================================== CONCERT VERSIONS:<\/p>\n Darth Vadar’s Theme (1) SCORE:<\/p>\n 1M1 Main Title (2) (1) Throughout the manuscript, Williams consistently misspells Vader as “Vadar.” Other idiosyncrasies in the score notes include spelling “tauntaun” as “Ton Ton” (and once, “Horse”), referring to an AT-AT simply as “monster,” and references to Han and Leia as “the kids.” Williams’ predilection for double-exclamation points is also apparent (e.g. “Vadar!!”).<\/p>\n (2) “Main Title” (1M1) is not in the manuscript. It is possible that Williams simply reused his score pages from Star Wars, which if true would foreshadow his later re-use of the Episode I “Main Title” recording for Episodes II and III.<\/p>\n (3) Both “New Start” and “Insert Bar 80” are present on the 1997 Special Edition CD. “Insert #2 Bar 109” is a minor tweak of the transition between bars 109 and 110; it does not appear to have been used, although I may be mistaken.<\/p>\n (4) “5M3 End Fix” is the film-version ending of “5M3 Yoda’s Entrance” (aka “Luke’s Nocturnal Visitor”) … with one interesting quirk. “5M3 End Fix” contains a timpani solo that is either absent or buried in the film mix. This timpani solo does appear in the album version, however, over the original ending of 5M3. This easily accomplished change was almost certainly made from the podium during the recording sessions.<\/p>\n (5) There is no 9M5, possibly because Williams wrote “Carbon Freeze” earlier in the process and chose a higher-than-necessary number to represent it. “Insert Bar 57” is the alternate portion of the cue heard on the 1997 Special Edition CD.<\/p>\n (6) This is the longer version of the “Finale,” with the full quote of the love theme. The shorter film version may have been created via instruction from the podium. Williams also notated an alternate ending featuring an additional harp overlay and instructions to hold the final note. This would explain the version of the cue heard on the Star Wars: Crimson Empire audiobook.<\/p>\n (7) Interestingly, “12M4 End Credits” was originally labelled “12M3.” This was either a simple numbering error, or (as seems more likely) Williams composed the “End Credits” earlier in the scoring process but did not choose a high enough number to represent it. “End Credits Insert” accounts for the variant film version heard on Disc 4 of the Anthology box.<\/p>\n — John Takis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By John Takis<\/p>\n
\nCOMPLETE CUE LIST FROM JOHN WILLIAMS’ SCORE FOR THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
\n========================================================================<\/p>\n
\nYoda’s Theme<\/p>\n
\n1M2 The Imperial Probe (3)
\n1M2 New Start
\n1M2 Insert Bar 80
\n1M2 Insert #2 Bar 109
\n1M3\/2M1 Luke’s Escape
\n2M2 Ben’s Instructions
\n2M3 Luke’s Rescue
\n2M4 The Probe Scanner
\n3M1 Drawing The Battle Lines
\n3M2 Leia’s Instructions
\n3M3 The Snow Battle
\n3M4\/4M1 Luke’s First Crash
\n4M2 The Rebels Escape Again
\n4M3 The Asteroid Field
\n5M1 Crash Landing
\n5M2 Yoda Appears
\n5M3 Yoda’s Entrance (4)
\n5M3 End Fix
\n5M4\/6M1 Solo And The Princess
\n6M2 Yoda’s Teaching
\n6M3 This Is Not A Cave
\n6M4 Training A Jedi
\n6M5\/7M1 The Magic Tree
\n7M2 Attack Position
\n7M3 Yoda Raises The Ship
\n7M4\/8M1 Vadar’s Command
\n8M2 City In The Clouds
\n8M3 Lando’s Palace
\n9M1 Luke To The Rescue
\n9M2 Vadar Shows Up
\n9M3 Putting ThreePio Together
\n9M4 Trouble In Prison
\n9M6\/10M1 Carbon Freeze (5)
\n9M6\/10M1 Insert Bar 57
\n10M2 Luke Pursues The Captives
\n10M3 Chewie Chokes Lando
\n11M1 Through The Window
\n12M1 Losing A Hand
\n12M2 To Hyper-Space
\n12M3 Finale (6)
\n12M4 End Credits (7)
\n12M4 End Credits Insert<\/p>\n