The musical score for Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back, crafted by John Williams, was brought to life by the London Symphony Orchestra across 18 recording sessions. These sessions took place at Anvil Studios and Abbey Road Studios over a period of three days in December 1979, followed by an additional six days in January 1980. Prior to working on The Empire Strikes Back, Williams had previously collaborated with the London Symphony Orchestra on the film scores for The Fury, Superman, and Dracula, in addition to A New Hope. This score garnered Williams another nomination for an Oscar.
The original release of the soundtrack was a double LP, clocking in at 75 minutes, which came out five days before the film's premiere. However, the initial compact disc version only contained half the music of the double LP.
Similar to the soundtrack for the first film, the Empire album was compiled by music editor Ken Wannberg under the guidance of John Williams. For this particular OST, Williams himself handpicked 75 minutes of music, which were then edited and rearranged to create a "pleasant listening experience". It's important to note that the cues featured on this album don't utilize the film mixes created by Eric Tomlinson. Instead, they were remixed by John Neal using the 24-track master recordings. This practice would not continue, as the soundtrack for Return of the Jedi would use the film mixes. An interesting detail is that the European version of the Empire OST had a different program compared to the US version. Being a single LP, it only featured 40 minutes of music instead of 75. Furthermore, the track order was altered for reasons that remain unknown. Despite these differences, the tracks themselves are identical in content to the US program, as they were sourced from the same master recordings.
The European OST program was subsequently released on CD worldwide by Polydor in 1985. Unfortunately, due to the use of the European program, these Polydor CDs only contained 40 minutes of music. This release utilized the same master recordings as the original LP, preserving the same edits and John Neal mixes. While this release offered a welcome improvement in audio quality compared to the original LP, it couldn't fully replace it due to the missing music.
In 2004, Sony Classical obtained the rights to the classic trilogy scores, as they already held the rights to release the soundtracks for the second trilogy (The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones). In the same year, Sony Classical reissued the 1997 RCA Victor release of the Special Edition Star Wars trilogy, including The Empire Strikes Back. This collection was presented in a somewhat underwhelming package, featuring new artwork that mirrored the first DVD release of the film. Despite Sony's digital remastering, which offered only subtle audio improvements noticeable on high-end stereos, this 2004 release remained essentially the same as the 1997 RCA Victor release.
The original American OST masters were finally made available in a format other than vinyl in 2016 by Sony Classical, who rereleased them as part of the "Ultimate Digital Collection" which came out soon before they lost the rights. This release was sourced from a new high quality scan of the OST master, so it still featured the John Neal mixes and all the original edits. However, the Ultimate Digital Collection was available from sites like HDTracks in lossless up to 192 kHz/24-bit, where the Polydor CD would've been standard CD quality which is lossless 44.1 kHz/16-bit. Plus, since it featured the American program and not the European one, it has 35 minutes of additional music that were finally available in digital for the first time (at least in their John Neal mixes). The Ultimate Digital Collection is no longer available for sale, and hasn't been ever since Walt Disney Records took over the rights.
On May 4, 2018, Walt Disney Records released a newly-remastered edition of the original 1980 album program on CD, digital download, and streaming services. supervised by Shawn Murphy and Skywalker Sound, this version was transferred to a new hi-resolution (24/192). This remaster was newly assembled from the highest-quality tapes available, rather than sourced from the existing 1980 album masters. This release marks the first release on CD of the complete 1980 soundtrack album.
- The Empire Strikes Back (soundtrack) on Wikipedia
- The Empire Strikes Back Soundtrack in the StarWars.com Cargo Bay (content now obsolete; backup link)
- Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back soundtrack at Discogs