Friday March 29, 2024
Play!
Review

Play!

By Damian Madden
July 3 2007

Play! A Video Game Symphony is the brainchild of Americanconductor Arnie Roth. Working in the recording and production of gamesoundtracks made Roth realise that there is a market for the liveperformance of this music and he created Play!.

Since its inception in 2006, Roth has toured the show (with its threevery large video screens, movies, lights and ever changing list of specialguest composers) around the world, performing with several leadingorchestras and choirs. As Roth says in his interview on StageCast, the aimof Play! is not just entertaining but promoting computer game musicand its composers to people who may otherwise be dismissive or unaware ofthe genre.

The concert featured Roth and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra performingmusic from games both new (the yet to be released Lost Odyssey) andold (Sonic the Hedgehog, Zelda and Super Mario Brothers) witha fair selection of popular (Halo) and the less well known titles(Silent Hill) thrown in as well.

However, there didn’t seem to be much thought put into song choice withthe inclusion of several very similar sounding pieces. When this wascombined with arrangements that failed to make the most of the material theresult was a concert that in parts felt very repetitive.

That said, there were some highlights, including Castlevania, OneWinged Angel,Kingdom Hearts, Chrono Cross/Chrono Trigger and theincredibly complex Dancing Mad (from Final Fantasy) with itsdextrous organ part being handled with considerable skill by organist PeterGuy.

Play!

Problems with orchestration aside, Play! was an enjoyable nightout and the proof of it’s success could be seen in the warm (and sometimesvocal) response from the audience, with the Opera House Concert Hall filledwith wide eyed kids, opera house virgins and people to whom Beethoven is adog from a movie. With concerts such as Play! and those put on by theEminence Orchestra there is hope yet that computer game music will slowlyseep into the public consciousness and take its rightful place alongside theclassics.

You can hear our podcast interview with Arnie Roth here.

Our interview with World of Warcraft composer Jason Hayes can be heard here in a special podcast dedicated to computer game music.

 

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