Some questions on the SW soundtracks, from a newbie

Hi folks. First post here.
I teach music, and for a while now I've been using the Star Wars theme to help get the kids into making music (on keyboard). I've recently found they've been asking for other themes, like "Darth Vaders Theme", so I've been re-visiting the films, and paying close attention to the music. I've also been buying soundtracks, and I've been really getting into them myself. But I have some questions...
The first CD I bought was the 'Skywalker Symphony', which I think is a re-recording of selections from the first three movies. I thought this would be the only Star Wars music CD I'd need, but I found there were some pieces missing. I particularly wanted the piece that plays over the part where Luuk watches the two suns setting on Tatooine.
So I bought the 'New Hope' remastered CD, which came out last month. It was my intention to buy all the SW movie soundtracks.
The piece is on there, but it's in A piece called The Princess Appears. Then I found that in 2004 there was a double-disc set of music from A New Hope.
I've got that one, so does that make my single disc version obsolete? It's confusing when bits of music have different titles.
I've now got A New Hope, Empire and Return of The Jedi on double-discs from 2004. Is there music on the recently released single disc soundtracks, that were released last month, that isn't on the 2004 double discs?
I haven't even started to think about the prequel series yet, but the kids tell me Duel of the Fates is a classic Star Wars track. I assume the prequel soundtracks didn't get the double disc treatment like the original three films have?
Thanks in advance folks!

 

The prequel soundtracks are all amazing. Some great tracks from TPT are Duel of the Fates, Anakin's theme(which is the Imperial March backwards to a degree), Across the Stars from AOTC, and Battle of the Heroes from Revenge of the Sith. I do not know about the double disks available.

 

I've read that a great many people actually prefer the prequel music. I'm looking forward to hearing it on CD. I assume, if there's no double-disc sets, the new remasters are the way to go?

 

The double disc releases for the OT cover all the music used in the film, the only things left off are 2 source tracks from ROTJ (Lapti Nek and Yub Nub) which were replaced in the Special Edition. There's also some other source music from Jabba's palace left off all releases.

For the PT, all 3 got a single disc release, missing off a lot of music. TPM alone got a double disc 'Ultimate Edition', which contains the complete film edit of the score. This has some jarring edits, and misses out any unused cues.

I'd recommend looking up Filmscoremedia on YouTube, he's compiled full scores for all 3 PT films (as well as a few alts from the OT). He uses music used in video games, rips from the blurays, and occasional midi recreations.

 

What a great tip! I didn't know about this channel. Loved it. Thanks @darkspine10

 

I'm a little confused, but just saying that the exact song where Luke is staring at the suns is called "Binary Sunset". I have it on Google Play.

 

For the best info about Star Wars music (and lots of other film music) pull up your favorite podcast website or app (I like Spotify) and search for The Soundtrack Show by David W Collins, it has been AWESOME!

 

I only have the OT double CDs from 1997, but those are good enough too. They contain ALL the music from the movies, at least the special editions. The tracks are also in the order they appear in the movies, plus there is additional music not used in the movies, like "Princess Leia's Theme" or "Yoda's Theme". True, it's confusing that some tracks have been renamed or split up where they were single tracks on the original releases. Also I think the renames have been made to more accurately reflect the respective scenes. Before we had tracks like "The Little People Work", "Inner City", "Mouse Robot and Blasting Off", "The Heroics of Luke and Han" etc., some of those titles being slightly confusing, or rather more ambiguous.
When they were originally released there was less background info on SW, and the average viewer didn't know what "jawas", "sand crawler", "dianoga" or "Wampa" were.

 

The music soundtrack is one of the few redeeming factors of the prequels.