Via Starwars.com:

JOHN WILLIAMS’ STIRRING SCORE WAS INFLUENCED BY ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD, A LEGENDARY COMPOSER WHOSE LIFE WAS CHANGED BY WWII.
With news that the Star Wars: The Force Awakens soundtrack is coming December 18, I’m more excited than ever for new Star Wars music. While the inspirations and connections to the Star Wars soundtrack are varied, one of the most interesting is the golden age composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, whose own wartime history changed cinema scores forever!

From its earliest days, composer John Williams’s score for Star Wars has impressed fans and critics alike. In 1977, film critic Charles Champlin wrote in the Los Angeles Times that “John Williams has a score of unstinting dimension, soaring string sections and thundering basses and brilliant horns, which performed by the London Symphony Orchestra for the superlative sound system, lifts you out of your seat.”

Champlin captures it best, speaking to the deep dimension of the film’s orchestral score. In fact, there is more complexity to the Star Wars score than I could ever write about here. Saying that there is just one inspiration for the music of Star Wars would be an injustice. Yet within that complex, brilliant score, it’s safe to say that the work of golden age film composers certainly plays a large roll.

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