I know there are a few individuals other than myself in our class who are slightly obsessed with Zelda and its music, so I thought I'd share this fascinating creation: The Legend of Zelda in Symphonic Poem form!
I haven't had much time to look too deeply into it yet, but I've listened to snippets from most of the movements and have gleaned that, in the very least, it is quite a progressive arrangement (courtesy of Jonne Valtonen). There are some interesting comments at the bottom of this page, which also contains Youtube videos of the 5 movements performed live by Symphonic Legends in Germany.
Here's the first movement:
They even have a full choir! The fourth movement begins with a very lovely vocal solo (some of you may recognize the Light Spirit's Theme from Twilight Princess).
Just from what I've listened to, this arrangement seems to contain numerous juxtapositions and settings of themes, which actually seems to be a contributing factor to some of the commentators' opinions of disfavor - I, however, think it's an interesting and perhaps necessary approach to arranging a work that's already been done so many times. Regardless, I believe that it's important to bring a genre like video game music into the concert hall, through any compositional means!
Hopefully this will serve as some interesting listening even for those of you who are not specifically Zelda fans!
I'm glad that I'm not the only one who appreciates the music from the Zelda series! Its always awesome when these songs get orchestrated. I can see where some people think the themes are overdeveloped, especially when there are so many songs (which are mostly very short) and I'm sure most people who watched have heard them plenty of times already. Still really nice though. Good find
ReplyDeleteThis is really done; I especially like the opening-- the way it unfolds slowly, with the dissonant flute lines above that pan-diatonic pad. It's very Britten-esqe.
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