The Empire Strikes Back (soundtrack)

Soundtrack

The score from The Empire Strikes Back composed by John Williams. Between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, Williams had also worked with the London Symphony Orchestra for the scores to the films The Fury, Superman and Dracula. The score earned another Academy Award nomination for Williams. Again, the score was orchestrated by Herbert W. Spencer and Angela Morley, recorded by engineer Eric Tomlinson and edited by Kenneth Wannberg with supervision by Lionel Newman. John Williams himself took over duties as record producer from Star Wars creator George Lucas. The soundtrack was first released in the United States as a 75 minute double LP five days before the film's premiere but the first Compact Disc release ran only half the length of the 2 LP set. Re recordings of the score even included music that was not on the original CD soundtrack. A remastered version of the soundtrack was released by Walt Disney Records on May 4, 2018. |November 6, 2007
|CD
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|Star Wars: The Ultimate Soundtrack Collection
|January 8, 2016
|CD, LP, digital
|
|Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
|May 4, 2018
|Walt Disney
|Remastered CD, digital
|}

In 1993, 20th Century Fox Film Scores released a four CD box set containing music from the original Star Wars trilogy. Disc two in the set was devoted to The Empire Strikes Back, with further tracks on disc four. Note: Parts of tracks six and seventeen on this particular set have their left & right channels reversed). The first part of track twenty one, "Ewok Celebration (Film Version)", is from Return of the Jedi.

In preparation for the 20th anniversary Special Edition releases of the original trilogy's films, 20th Century Fox spent four months, from April to July 1996, transferring, cleaning and preparing the original soundtracks for special two disc releases. The original release, by RCA Victor in 1997, consisted of limited edition books with laser etched CDs inside the front and back covers with each book. In the case of The Empire Strikes Back, the discs are etched with the logo for the Empire. The discs were given an unlimited release in a two disc jewel case, also by RCA Victor later that year. They were again re released in 2004 by Sony Music, with new artwork paralleling the original trilogy's first DVD release.