July 17, 2010

Distant Worlds II

I attended the Friday half of the Distant Worlds: music from Final Fantasy at the San Francisco Symphony last night. I really enjoyed it, although I would have enjoyed it more if I had the entire hall to myself. ^_^ Primarily because the audience acted less like a symphony performance and more like a get-together. So there was a lot of clapping and cheering and even a few jokes called out. I didn't appreciate all the clapping during the credits, which prevented me from hearing Terra's Theme.

I kept my eyes closed as much as possible, during the performance, so that I wouldn't get distracted by the visuals they had up. They played pieces from a variety of Final Fantasy games, including one from the upcoming FFXIV online game. I know Roger Ebert is skeptical about the artistic nature of games, but having played the games added a lot of emotional depth to the music I was hearing. I have a much deeper understanding of what the music is trying to convey, and an emotional attachment to the songs. I got goosebumps during Aerith's Theme, JENOVA, as well as a few other songs. (No goosebumps during One Winged Angel because that was played sort of like karaoke&emdash;I chanted but the choir was a little weak.) The music from FFXI and FFXIII didn't have the same effect on me, because I didn't really have any context for it. There was an older couple sitting in front of me that didn't even know what Final Fantasy was, and I don't think they got much out of it and were somewhat confused by everyone else's enthusiasm.

One thing that I was confused about was clarified for me last night. I'd picked up the FFXIII soundtrack while in Japan, and although I haven't taken the time to listen to it (on purpose) I did listen to a few songs. And my immediate thought was that this is not Final Fantasy music. It didn't sound right. Sounded much more like a typical classical soundtrack. I thought perhaps Nobou Uematsu was doing something different. But, the FFXIII soundtrack was entirely composed by Masashi Hamauzu.

After getting back to Alla's place, I ordered both Distant Worlds CDs. (The Symphony Store was selling them for $20 each so it was cheaper ordering off Amazon.) I really enjoyed some of the new compositions, and want to be able to listen to them at home.

Posted by josuah at July 17, 2010 5:59 PM UTC+00:00