Nielsen’s Symphony No.5 and the Star Wars theme
As everybody might possibly know (look, I like keeping things as vague as possible) a good chunk of the themes that John Williams shoved into the Star Wars trilogy were inspired by a variety of his favorite compositions. The wikipedia page for Star Wars Music lists a bunch of these inspiration/theme combos, and the inspiration for the main theme is listed (on wikipedia and everywhere else I’ve googled) as Korngold’s soundtrack to the 1942 film “King’s Row“.
It might well be blatantly similar, but I can’t comment, as I haven’t seen it. Yet. It actually looks pretty intriguing, but lets keep on track here…
Every time I listen to Nielsen’s symphony No. 5, composed in 1922. I keep hearing the bloody star wars theme. For anyone who can’t remember what the theme sounds like, have a hit on this youtube:
And here’s a snippet from Nielsen 5, start of the 2nd movement:
Pretty similar aren’t they? Except the Nielsen has that delicious dissonance and is way more awesome. Please don’t kill me, internet Star Wars fans.
September 14th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Good call on the Nielson connection. The Stars Theme also has some similarities to a tune from Glazunov’s “The Seasons.” You can find it in my “Tune Theft Archive” here.