John Williams Releases Gorgeous New Star Wars Arrangement
John Williams may be leaving Star Wars after the next installment, but before that he’s brought us another gift.
“Across the Stars” is the love theme from Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones, and Williams has written a new arrangement of it for Grammy-award winning violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, according to the John Williams Fan Network. Mutter has a whole collection of Williams’ classics coming out in 2019.
The motif accompanies Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala’s love story, the reinterpretation replacing the solo oboe part for Mutter’s just-as-moving violin:
Williams has composed the score for almost every Star Wars movie since Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope in 1977, except for Rogue One and Solo: A Star Wars Story. But he’ll potentially let go of the reins for good after J.J. Abrams’ unnamed Episode: IX scheduled for December 2019.
“J.J. Abrams is preparing [Episode IX] that I will hopefully do next year for him,” Williams told Los Angeles radio station KUSC in March.
“It will round up the series of nine that will be quite enough for me. Disney will take it further and they will probably continue on to do Star Wars for decades. So I think it’s all good.”
Let’s hope Williams brings us a few more musical gifts before then.