Production After the continued success of
Symphonic Fantasies, Merregnon Studios and the WDR ambitiously announced their plans to follow up and work together once again on a new concert. On 17 December 2009, it was announced that another concert would take place in 2010 on
Symphonic Fantasies website. No theme was announced for the concert until March 2010, when Winfried Fechner announced that the theme would exclusively focus on the Japanese game developer
Nintendo. Thomas Böcker further added soon thereafter that the concert was to take concept he had built the previous shows on even further, and experiment extensively to push the perception of video game music arrangement more than ever before.
Legend of Zelda - Symphonic Poem The
Symphonic Poem of the
Legend of Zelda music is told through melody in 5 movements, titled Hyrulian Child, Dark Lord, Princess of Destiny, Battlefield, and Hero of Time. The total running time for the arrangement is 35 minutes, and was presented as the entire second act of the
Symphonic Legends and subsequent
LEGENDS concerts. The concept was conceived by concert producer Thomas Böcker, and arranged by Jonne Valtonen. The
Symphonic Poem is one of the longest orchestrated video game piece performed by an orchestra, Valtonen also expressed that he wanted the arrangement to create “discussion” within the Zelda fan base. The first arrangement of the night was
Starwing And
Lylat Wars (Space Suite), arranged by famed animation and video game composer
Shiro Hamaguchi. Hamaguchi’s arrangement made extensive use of the State Choir LATVIJA to represent the dramatic space battles found in the video game series. The original music was composed by
Hajime Hirasawa and
Koji Kondo. The
Super Mario Bros. (Retro Suite) featured songs from most mainline Mario video games, excluding the Galaxy games, and was arranged by Roger Wanamo. His arrangement made use of light tone, emphasizing the jovial nature of the Mario games. Wanamo also made use of the layering technique that he introduced in his Chrono Trigger\Cross arrangement from the
Symphonic Fantasies event. The music featured in this arrangement was composed by
Koji Kondo. Shiro Hamaguchi offered his second arrangement of the night with
F-Zero (Race Suite). Unlike the games, which feature a very fast-paced hard rock and metal style soundtrack, Hamaguchi’s arrangements significantly slowed down the source material and emphasized the drama and danger of the fast futuristic race he set out to depict. Prior to the orchestra’s performance, Rony Barrak performed a
Darbuka solo in order to create the atmosphere of tension prior to the race, and joined the orchestra along the main melodic parts.
Torsten Rasch offered the most unconventional arrangement to
Symphonic Legends, by mixing original composition and abstract dark arrangement in the
Super Metroid (Galactic Warrior Suite). This was done in order to tell explore and communicate Samus Aran’s inner chaos as a space warrior, and only provided a melodic triumph at the very end. The original music was composed by
Kenji Yamamoto and Minako Hamano. Benyamin Nuss joined on stage to perform piano for the
Donkey Kong Country (Aquatic Ambiance) piece, arranged by Masashi Hamauzu. The arrangement was a highly emotional angled interpretation of the source material, featuring delicate interplay between Nuss’s piano and Cizmarovic’s violin. The original composition was done by David Wise.
Pikmin (Variations on a World Map Theme) was another lighthearted arrangement, portraying the colorful cast of
Pikmin as well as bring nature element to the forefront. The piece was arranged by video game composer and orchestrator
Hayato Matsuo and composed by
Hajime Wakai. The first act was closed out by Wanamo’s arrangement of the
Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack in Mario Galaxy (Galactic Suite). Due to the original game being orchestrated already, the arrangement featured little interpretation, focusing more on the transitioning between the songs and placing between them to accurately portray the game in symphony. The second act was made up entirely by a five-movement Symphonic Poem. The piece was dedicated to the
Legend of Zelda series, and was arranged by Jonne Valtonen. The structure of the arrangement was inspired by
Ein Heldenleben." Andreas Hackl of VGM Lounge concluded in his review that "
Symphonic Legends achieved the same quality found in
Symphonic Fantasies." Some criticism was given to the controversial Super Metroid arrangement by Torsten Rasch however, feeling that the piece was too far removed from the original source material. Likewise, some felt Symphonic Poem was indeed too long compared to the more traditional arrangements often heard for video game music. Nevertheless, Symphonic Legends won the Best Live Concert award from the OSVOSTOTY 2010 Awards, and the Best Concert award from Level Magazine . ==LEGENDS==