Earlier this week The Legend of Zelda: Symphony Of The Goddesses Orchestra performed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ahead of their world tour, suggesting a growing interest in video game soundtracks arranged in symphony form. No longer do we have to pore over YouTube to listen to our favourite video game soundtracks, but can go to a theatre and marvel at the amazing arrangements that orchestra’s like Symphony Of The Goddesses are presenting. Last year saw the world tour of Final Symphony, with orchestra’s presenting the amazing music of the Final Fantasy series. Yet, despite these two massively adored franchises gaining the recognition for the fantastic music that accompanies their games and inspiring these concert tours, I feel that this new found venture is missing out on some of video game’s greatest music scores.
For those who are unfamiliar with the series, Kingdom Hearts is the unexpected mashup of the Disney and Final Fantasy worlds, combining the charm of the much loved Disney worlds and characters, and the pensive storytelling of Final Fantasy. As you can imagine you therefore get music that ranges from classic Disney to epic battle music that you would expect from a Final Fantasy game. With seven games in its main series, and many remasters, there are plenty of music pieces that could be adapted into a symphony. Plus, main composer Yoko Shimomura has created the music so masterfully so that most pieces have noticeable connections in key, motif etc. to link key characters and events, meaning that in many cases pieces could be strung together quite easily to make a fluid arrangement in symphony form. Some pieces of music from the Kingdom Hearts series were featured as part of the Symphonic Fantasies concert, which featured music from many Square Enix produced games. However, there are so many epic, and moving pieces from the Kingdom Hearts series that I feel it could only be done justice through a symphony concert of its own. But I digress, rather than me witter on about how much I love this series and its music, here are five pieces of music that I think make a compelling case for the creation of a Kingdom Hearts symphony orchestra tour.
- The 13th Reflection
- Vim and Vigor
- A Fight to the Death
- Dismiss
- Dearly Beloved
(The main menu theme on every Kingdom Hearts game, go to 10:27 for my favourite rendition)
Thanks for reading! (And hopefully listening) If you’ve played any of the Kingdom Hearts series what is your favourite piece of music? What game series’ score would you love to hear at a symphony concert? Let me know in the comments!
Space Fuelled Gaming 