RCA VICTOR 09026-68773-2 124' 27"

After the huge success harvested by George Lucas with Star Wars: A New Hope (1977), and consequently by John Williams, both were boarded in what would be converted into the second part of this famous trilogy. It was not easy, since they had put the standards very high with the first part, but in spite of the known phrase "never second parts were good", in this occasion the results not only they were good, but surpassed to the previous. Williams' score is, without doubt, a model to follow; when he could have made an easy work based on the themes composed for the first part, Williams -without forgotten them- creates, among other, two new really extraordinary themes: the March of the Empire (The Imperial March) and the theme for Yoda (Yoda´s Theme). The first, bound to the character of Darth Vader, it has been converted into a film music classic, to which Williams confers it with a martial, hard and relentless air that drastically contrasts with the development of Yoda's theme, more rested and, by saying it somehow, nobler, even though in its first appearance is presented in comedy tones.
As a curious datum, we must say that the Imperial March theme does not appear in the movie such as comes in the record, but this is a recording of an arrangement that Williams made for concert performances. The same as occurred to him with Star Wars: A New Hope, Williams puts special care on the action scenes, as the sequence of the battle on the snow (The Battle Of Hoth), stating in a very specific way the phases of the battle: in the assault of Luke with his ship to the enemy, with Luke's theme; the flight of Princess Leia with Hans Solo in the Millenium Falcon, with some short notes of the love theme; and finally, when the battle begins to fall on the side of the Empire, incrusting in a brutal way, short compasses of the Imperial March between blocks of action music. The effect speaks by itself. Other of the really intensive moments is the scene of the asteroids field (The Asteroid Field), in which Williams' music seems to go frantically to the compass of the asteroids that are perilously approaching the ship.
Among the tender parts of the score it stands out the arrival to Lando's city, and the very beautiful Love Theme of Princess Leia and Han Solo, that reaches its more romantic point in the scene in which the Millenium Falcon is separated from the Imperial ship, and the most dramatic in the famous scene of Han Solo's freezing, perhaps one of most recalled moments of all the score.
The doubt whether is worth the acquisition of this new edition on the part of who may have already some previous ones (especially the box), it must remain dissipated for who may have interest in the score, since in addition to including the cues by the chronological order in which appear in the film, contains numerous unpublished fragments, with what is completed, finally, its integral edition.
All of a luxury for the galactic fans.

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