The musical score for Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road studios during January and February of 1983. John Williams received yet another Academy Award nomination for his work on the score. Orchestration duties were handled by Herbert W. Spencer, Thomas Newman, and Gordon Langford. Due to the declining popularity of vinyl records, Return of the Jedi, which features the longest musical score in the original trilogy, was released as a single LP, unlike its predecessors, A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, which were both released as double LPs.
The expanded two-CD edition released on RCA in 1997, and later by Sony on September 21, 2004, included a 1997 remix of the score. (Despite being advertised as "Now available on RCA (1997) and Sony Classical (2004) presenting the complete score," this was a false claim.)
Walt Disney Records released a remastered version of the soundtrack on May 4, 2018. Shawn Murphy and Skywalker Sound oversaw the project, which involved transferring the music to a new high-resolution format (24/192). Instead of using the existing 1983 album masters, this remastered version was created using the highest-quality tapes available.
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- Return of the Jedi (soundtrack) on Wikipedia
- Return of The Jedi Soundtrack in the StarWars.com Cargo Bay (content now obsolete; backup link)
- Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi Soundtrack at Discogs