Eminence Online

This is why I was first drawn to Eminence. An Australian symphony orchestra performing works composed and arranged by natives of USA, Japan, and Europe, for games from all of these regions. And who would've guessed Kow Otani (Shadow of the Colossus) would be so adept with the music for Blizzard's Diablo series?

Other orchestral groups are joining in the international cavalcade of game music goodness, with varying degrees of success. One such group is the WDR Radio Orchestra in Cologne, Germany. In the Spring of 2008, they recorded "drammatica", a best-of concert showcasing Yoko Shimomura's work with Square Enix (Legend of Mana, Kingdom Hearts, etc). In August of 2008, the WDR (alongside the FILMharmonic Choir Prague) performed a live show featuring the work of famed German composer Chris Hülsbeck (or "Huelsbeck", for those of you afraid of non-Unicode text characters). Huelsbeck has achieved near-legendary status primarily due to his work in the late '80s and early '90s. He composed the music for classic arcade-style games such as Apidya, Turrican, R-Type, and The Great Giana Sisters. These games appeared on home consoles such as the Commodore 64 and Commodore Amiga, and have been re-released over the years on a number of different platforms. Once you've experienced the score for any of these games, you can't go back: you'll find you're hooked to the memorable melodies and soundscapes created by Chris Huelsbeck.

The August 2008 concert was released at the end of the year as a limited-print-run CD. Symphonic Shades offers 15 tracks, filling the CD right to the end (75 minutes of music!) with an incredible mix of musical styles, all arranged for symphony orchestra and choir. And when you see the list of names associated with the project, your eyes might pop out of your head. You may have thought this a Euro-centric project, since it's a German orchestra performing music by a German composer. But if you held to this assumption, you'd be proven wrong in a hurry. Are you ready for the list?

First of all, there's the conductor, Arnie Roth. Roth is an American, and he has had plenty of time in the spotlight thanks to two different organizations. He has conducted multiple concerts, across the world, for Square Enix (particularly for Final Fantasy-specific concerts). He's also been the conductor for the "PLAY!" concerts, which has also performed at different venues worldwide. Now Roth finds himself working with the WDR, and under his direction, the orchestra performs extremely well. I'm sure the live concert experience would demonstrate his prowess even more than the recorded CD.

Next, there are the arrangers. Most of the music is arranged by Jonne Valtonen with input from Huelsbeck himself. However, some "guest arrangers" took some time to pay respects to a fellow master. Yuzo Koshiro (ActRaiser, Streets of Rage, Etrian Odyssey) arranged the Main Theme to Jim Power in Mutant Planet (track 3), and Takenobu Mitsuyoshi (Shining Force, Landstalker) added his personal touch to the Apidya II Suite (track 7). And, working alongside the Czech choir is Czech native Adam Klemens, who offered additional arrangement on tracks 7 and 14.

Further Japanese influence on the album comes in the form of the cover art, illustrated by manga artist Hitoshi Ariga (The Big O, Mega Man). Ariga designed a manga version of Turrican, the hero and namesake of the Turrican series, with conductor's wand in hand.

Finally, there are the guest performers. Percussionist Rony Barrak, from Lebanon, dazzles the crowd with his performance on the darbouka (goblet drum). Barrak gets his own solo track on the album, as a lead-in to a percussion-heavy performance of Tunnel B1 Suite. Then, two pianists - Benyamin Nuss (German) and Jari Salmela (Finn) - perform on tracks 5 and 15, respectively.

So, in case there was any doubt in your mind, it's clear that this concert recording is the result of a coordinated, international effort, similar to the works of Eminence. I'm not sure if I would then consider the WDR a "competitor" of Eminence, but I am sure that I do enjoy the products of both groups, and for many of the same reasons.

The album's highlights are easy for me to pick out. First and foremost are the Turrican tracks. The piano solo performance for Turrican 3 holds my attention from start to finish. The syncopated rhythm demonstrated during the first few minutes tend to trick my brain into thinking the time signature is something other than common time. There's a "B section" to the medley, where things slow down significantly, but a reprise of the syncopated opening allows the pace to continue, nearly uninterrupted, and just at the time I feel the need for a pick-me-up.

Turrican II is, without question, the most epic (and, not coincidentally, the longest) track on the album. As the finale piece, it does not fail to impress for even a moment. While the piano soloist is given much attention, the orchestra manages to keep up with the often frantic pace of the music; here, I have to give credit to the wind and string sections of the orchestra. Things get crazy on this final track, but the WDR never backs down, and Roth does his part to keep everyone in tempo.

The title track, Symphonic Shades, is the only piece to incorporate synthesized sounds, which is a jarring thing to hear after 12 tracks of all "natural" acoustic instrumentation. But, again, Huelsbeck knows what he's doing, and he is a master of synths, so the sounds blend seamlessly together. When the orchestra and the synth lead join up, and a trap-set-style percussion jumps in to help keep the larger-than-life ensemble together, the result is nothing short of spectacular.

I could go on, at length, about every track on the album, but I'll stop at this last one: The Great Giana Sisters. If you don't know about this game, it's worth doing the history; basically, this Amiga platformer bore so much resemblance to Super Mario Bros that Nintendo actually filed suit and halted the game's distribution in early phases, so it never became a commercially viable franchise. However, Huelsbeck had written music for the game, and the music stands in stark contrast to the work of Koji Kondo (indeed, the music is the least similar thing between the two games). The track itself is a medley of tunes from the game, essentially encompassing all the melodic work Huelsbeck put into the project. In the middle, there is a jazz section that reminds me of certain town themes from Koichi Sugiyama's Dragon Quest symphonic suites. But the rest of the medley is simply indescribable. You need to hear it for yourself. It's like Sugiyama meets John Williams meets Mark Snow (the X Files composer). But it's nothing like any one of those composers, simultaneously.  I love this track, Heck, I love the whole album.

The only problem I have right now is that synSONIQ Records only printed 1000 copies of this album. And frankly, I don't get it. I understand that Chris Huelsbeck's fanbase has typically been considered a niche group, remembering games of the past and the unique synths developed out of those games. But this orchestral concert performance has mass appeal. I am extremely fortunate to be holding one of these CDs in my hands, and I would think that there is a larger market for just this sort of album. Hopefully the publisher will take note and do another print, or (even better) publish the CD in other regions so that fans across the world wouldn't have to import the CD from Germany. It would be another brick thrown at the invisible barriers of region and language that the industry must continue to combat if it wants to thrive. Hopefully the WDR will continue to promote these international efforts in the same way that Eminence has for the past six years.