Star Wars: Musical Anthology / Soundtrack.

The CD item is my very 1st CD BEST Of Star Wars. I believe I'm gonna like my favorite songs from the saga itself. I'm so happy its being shipped right now. My very first BESTOF STAR WARS CD "ever."

In Japanese, Probably not doing well in the Japanese market, cuz it looks like it sells for like 2000 yen

Best compilation of all important and memorable "classic" trilogy themes on one album.

Ever since the release of Revenge of the Sith, I have long hoped for a collection of the eessential musical highlights from the Star Wars film saga, arranged as a megasuite in the manner of the Howard Shore Lord of the Rings Symphony. I have hoped that someone would assemble a CD of all the essential musical highlights from the John Williams scores so that they can tell the story of the saga across an hour or more. The good thing about the scores for the Star Wars saga is that the music can lend itself to concert presentation without the visuals of the film. Admittedly, since the scores run for 12 hours, one would have wanted a twin-disc treatment with one disc each for the prequels and the original trilogy. This Star Wars compilation from Japan is probably the first proper compilation that fills that need. It is released as a Blu-Spec CD where the disc is pressed with a Blu-Ray laser. It can be played in normal CD players and it is supposed to yield better sound quality than normal CDs. Hence the expensive price. Even so I don't detect any difference in sound quality between a Blu-Spec CD and the normal CD releases of the soundtracks. One would have thought that this album was released for John Williams' 80th birthday and the 35th anniversary of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, but Sony and Lucasfilm released this album to tie-in with the first Japanese presentation of Star Wars in Concert. I know there have been compilations of concert excerpts before this particular Star Wars album was releaed, but this is probably the first one that presents a clear narrative of the saga using the essential musical highlights from the six films. I know that this CD and the Star Wars concert is based on the Musical Journey DVD that accompanied the Revenge of the Sith soundtrack. Before this Japanese Blu-Spec CD was released there were two audio CD compilations of Star Wars highlights and concert suites that attempted to encompass the music from all six films. The Telarc CD of Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops, Great Film Fantasies, contained selections from all six films with excerpts from the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films taking up the second half of the disc.(I hoped that Kunzel and the Pops would do a full-length Star Wars CD for Telarc but that didn't ome to pass because of Kunzel's untimely death from cancer in 2009.) At the same time the Silva label released a full-length CD of the Star Wars saga music played by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. However, both these CDs followed the release date chronology of the films rather than the saga chronology. (I need not mention that aberration called the Corellian Edition that Sony released for the 30th anniversary of Star Wars in 2007, so that compilation wouldn't count.) What makes this compilation special is the fact that the recordings are indeed the original cuts of John Williams and the LSO from the official soundtrack albums. It is also the first notable album that presents the pieces in the chronological saga order. The use of the original Williams/LSO soundtrack recordings can be a strength and yet it can be a drawback at the same time. It is a strength because the Master himself conducts the music he composed, and because the performances have panache and style. However it can be a drawback because some of the soundtrack album excerpts use the film versions of cues rather than specially recorded concert versions. So in some cases, notably the original trilogy excerpts, this can make for a disjointed experience because some of the subsidiary and corollary themes make stray and incoherent appearances. At the same time the LSO recordings weren't intended to be assembled into a jumbo-sized suite like this, and as such the sound quality varies across the recordings of the six scores. For instance, the Asteroid Field uses the film version of the cue with the Imperial March theme at the beginning and the Han-Leia love theme at the end. John Williams and the LSO didn't record all the concert suites when they recorded the individual scores. The original Empire Strikes Back film soundtrack doesn't include a recording of the concert suite of the Asteroid Field, and so the Musical Journey DVD uses the film version to stand in. Also, the use of the Throne Room music from A New Hope at the end doesn't encompass the feelings that one needs to feel at the end of the saga. So the use of the film cues may be a drawback when the cues betray their original context outside it. In any case, the end credits suites are specific to each film and may not be specific to the saga. The Star Wars concert is a good step towards an integrated Star Wars megasuite, but in its current form it is a work in progress. As of now the music might not flow coherently since most of the pieces are the concert suite arrangements of important themes. Also, there may not be much narrative momentum because the motifs such as the Imperial March and the Rebel Fanfares might be repeated throughout the course of their concert suites. So they may present static moods of the saga, even if they illustrate the important points in the story of the saga. This concert might also miss some important movements in the saga. For instance, we may be missing the second half of The Empire Strikes Back when Han is frozen in carbonite and Vader reveals himself to Luke as his father in a lightsabre duel. We may also be missing Luke's final confrontation with Jabba and his gang when he rescues Han before defeating the Empire in the Battle of Endor. However, I give credit for the first half of the collection with the excerpts from the prequels. I like how the excerpts are sequenced to paint a picture of Anakin's transformation into Vader. The Battle of the Heroes segues extremely effectively into Vader's Imperial March tune. I only want to mention that perhaps the excerpts from the Original Trilogy could be better organised so that they flow better. We don't hear all the concert suites, and in some ways it's a good thing because we can focus on the main narrative thread of the saga story. We don't hear the music for Jabba but we hear the Ewok music in the Forest Battle sequence. The Forest Battle includes all the motifs in the Parade of the Ewoks concert suite, so its omission is not really a big loss. The advantage of hearing the important themes together in a collection like this is to hear relationships between the different themes and how the same themes and motifs are used for different purposes. It is well known that the main Star Wars theme represents the spirit of action and adventure, but in Episode 4 the theme doubles as Luke's theme too. We hear this in the Binary Sunset track from A New Hope where the theme is played together with the Force theme for the Jedi Knights. In this collection we can hear the kinship between the main Star Wars theme and the Anakin-Padme love theme Across the Stars. I like to think how Across the Stars alludes to the main Star Wars theme, in its outer and inner sections. We are also aware that Anakin's theme contains subliminal references to Vader's Imperial March tune. The thematic relationship between the different "movements" allows this collection and this suite of Star Wars excerpts to be coherent across the whole saga. Also, I like to mention that the Binary Sunset music and the Light of the Force music allow us to hear the Force Theme and its purpose. Before the Original Trilogy pieces, the Battle of the Heroes contains a snatch of the Force theme before we hear it formally and completely in the Binary Sunset music. It represents Luke's desires, the mentorship of the Jedi and also Anakin's redemption at the end. I'm not saying these things as strikes against this disc. This isn't about nitpicking and saying what should be or shouldn't be included. I maintain that this disc is a very good distillation of the Star Wars film scores into a satisfying and coherent megasuite. However, it is still a work in progress, and I'm only pointing out the joins that can eventually be ironed out. Some tracks include preamble music such as the Flag Parade, the Binary Sunset music and the next-to-closing Light of the Force, and it would be good if the compilation excised the first two minutes of these tracks. Some tracks may hold up the action, notably the excerpts from A New Hope in the middle of the album. The Tatooine music, the Tales of a Jedi Knight and the Cantina Band music interrupt the flow of the suite. Also, the inclusion of the TIE Fighter Attack music may be redundant when the suite includes the Asteroid Field. The TIE Fighter Attack is meant to represent the destruction of the first Death Star and it also contains the Rebel Fanfare as a stand-alone piece but the Asteroid Field music might be more effective in representing all the hairbreadth escapes and dangers that the Rebels went through before they defeated the Empire. For all the shortcomings of this compilation, I find that this release is quite satisfying on its own merits. I know I've nitpicked the structural flaws of the Star Wars concert programme and the Star Wars Musical Journey DVD in sharing my thoughts. Even so I like this release much better than the other Sony Star Wars releases, most notably the redundant 30th Anniversary soundtrack box set that was released in 2007. Like all the other Sony Star Wars CDs, this release has a foldout poster with track titles in English. However, you also get a detailed booklet in Japanese with individual descriptions of each track. I wish I could know what is being said in English because I'm sure it would be a valuable added touch to English-speaking fans, similar to the superb Michael Mattesino liner notes in the RCA Victor 2-CD issues of the complete Original Trilogy scores. This compilation works well on its own merits in spite of the hindrances and limitations. So we shouldn't avoid it at all costs like the plague because of the negative commercial associations with Lucasfilm. It is a nice complement to the 2-CD compendium of Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings scores. The concert and this CD anthology might play their part in moving towards a finished, coherent megasuite of the saga one day. I do hope that sooner or later Sony will release this compilation worldwide and delete the Corellian Edition CD. And I do hope that John Williams would be able to finetune and improve his existing Star Wars megasuite so that it can be a coherent and cohesive concert work that film score buffs and classical music lovers will like. Let's hope that one day, Lucasfilm will allow the release of the complete saga scores with in-depth booklet notes soon, and maybe there can be a new recording of the essential concert highlights.

Great purchase!!! A+++

Most text in non-English characters, so hard to figure out what is from what. Not a "complete" collection, but a good representation.

Great!

I was appalled when I opened the shipping box and found a CD all written in Chinese. Plus there was no shipping label so I can't even return it. What a rip off! I had planned to give it to my 5 year old grandson....who had asked for it. Since the music has now words, which I knew, I thought his mother could at least tell him the titles and tell him stories from those so he could appreciate the music. NO WAY that is going to happen as she nor I can read Chinese.

la musiques des trilogies est magnifique ; l'auteur a su la rendre passionnante. A écouter pour les fans de musique de films

01. 20th Century Fox Fanfare* 02. "Star Wars" Main Title/Blockade Runner 03. Duel of the Fates 04. Anakin's Theme 05. The Arrival at Tatooine and the Flag Parade 06. Accross the Stars 07. Battle of the Heroes 08. The Imperial March 09. The Dune Sea of Tatooine/Jawa Sandcrawler 10. The Hologram/Binary Sunset 11. Tales of a Jedi Knight/Learn About the Force 12. Cantina Band 13. Princess Leia's Theme 14. Ben Kenobi's Death/Tie Fighter Attack 15. Yoda's Theme 16. The Asteroid Field 17. Luke and Leia 18. The Forest Battle (Concert Suite) 19. Leia Breaks the News/Funeral Pyre for a Jedi 20. The Throne Room and End Title Music composed and conducted by John Williams *Composed by Alfred Newman

gran recopilatorio de la gran saga de george lucas, la guerra de las galaxias, que el gran john williams compuso. en sus 78 minutos oiremos fragmentos de las 6 peliculas, desde el 77 al 2005, muy buen sonido y material ORIGINAL, de lo mejor de john williams, que ya es mucho.....

結婚式に使いましたが、披露宴にピッタリでした

Es una pasada....genial.....gracias.....me gusta mucho......x k es como ir en las naves con ellos.....o cuando estan pilotando....en fin.....una movida increible.....lur