Classical Music in FF

[Midgar Mist]

Its interesting, they have President Shinra listening to Haydn (I believe) as he watches the Sector 7 Slums get crushed.

As some kind of counterpoint maybe? Something beautiful vs. Something awful?

So....I would love to know more about this.

Have they used classical music in the other FFs? If so, when and how?

[Fynn]

Not really.

Yasunori Mitsuda used Greensleeves in Xenosaga, but that's not FF.


Oh wait, no! There's a fragment from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake in FFII where the fake Princess Hilda is seducing Firion. And the waltz. In the same game. I think that's... Schuman? Or Strauss? I can't remember.

[Midgar Mist]

Fynn, I knew you'd reply :-)

I know a few classical composers, not in detail, just what my Mum likes.

[Peter1986]

You can hear a very significant part of Edvard Grieg's "In The Hall Of The Mountain King" in the beginning of Final Fantasy 9 - the similarities are so obvious that it cannot be a coincidence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46KcGAWK4kU&index=6&list=PL8q2b-XwaZZMfciAUY29i-wlwIXLQBdnA

[Fynn]

Eh, that's a grand total of four notes. I'd call that a stretch. Especially since it's basically just the four consecutive notes from the beginning of the minor scale. There's probably a lot of musical pieces that start that way.

[Peter1986]

Eh, that's a grand total of four notes. I'd call that a stretch. Especially since it's basically just the four consecutive notes from the beginning of the minor scale. There's probably a lot of musical pieces that start that way.
Really?
I think the part between 0:08-0:16 sounds exactly like "In The Hall Of The Mountain King".

[Fynn]

xrIYT-MrVaI

After the first four notes, one goes up, one goes down. The coda is a bit similar, but really, it's basically how logically that melody would go, if you follow basic rules of diatonic harmony.

[Wolf Kanno]

The piano pieces you play in FFIII and V are largely taken from classical pieces though I can't remember which. ^^;

[Midgar Mist]

I'm loving how this discussion is shaping up. Somehow I love the idea of going through musical notes with a fine tooth comb.

[Wolf Kanno]

Did a little research on the FF Wiki:
In FFIII the first piano you use in Ur the player does an off key version of Beethoven's "Für Elise". In Amur, they play a track called Swift Twist which borrows heavily from early rock music like Johnny Be Good, Tooti Fruiti, and Great Balls of Fire.

In FFV:


Lessons 1-4: Various finger exercises
Lesson 5: Schubert's "Marche Militaire No. 1"
Lesson 6: "Beautiful Dreamer" by Stephen Foster
Lesson 7: Mozart's "Rondo Alla Turca"
Lesson 8: Debussy's "Arabesque No. 1"

[Midgar Mist]

Yes, I remember Bartz playing part of 'Beautiful Dreamer' but didn't know about the other lessons.

I also like how Uematsu composed Operatic pieces in FF6 and a Germanic/Austrian style waltz in FF8. Its clear he was inspired by classical composers.

[Fynn]

Whereas in FFIX he used a lot of medieval musical techniques to make that whole high fantasy setting all the more vivid. The Place I'll Return to Someday uses a medieval scale as its basis (can't remember which one, though, sorry), and the instrumentation is also very much like folk pieces from that period. And then we have the rearrangements, with the Ipsen's Castle theme being written as a hocket - a choral piece where more than one voice share the melody by singing alternating notes (hence the name, from the French hoquet meaning hiccup).