Concert Review: The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses

Megan and I went to this unique concert on July 25th at the Mann Center in Philadelphia, performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. It's been advertised as the first video game concert featuring a full, four-movement symphony, and among many suites and songs, there was indeed an extended-form work.

My first impression was getting to the place. The Mann Center is a huge covered/outdoor theater, seating about 14,000 between the orchestra, lawn, and the balcony where we sat. We had to park on the grass a ways from the theater because it was PACKED. I feel like I shouldn't be surprised that a game concert would attract a big crowd, considering I've been to two crowded Video Games Live concerts at the NJPAC in Newark, but maybe because it was a specific franchise, I thought it would be a smaller crowd. But in truth, there were droves of young gamers, some cosplaying, many with Zelda t-shirts. We even heard an ocarina duet outside the concessions stand.

At 8:30, the conductor, Eimear Noone stepped out and jumped right in with a loud, fun fanfare. Ms. Noone's bio is outstanding! She founded the Dublin City Orchestra when she was 21, and she conducted the premiere Zelda symphony concerts in LA and London, as well as the recording included in the Skyward Sword game case. She also has a website with pictures of the Zelda concerts.

I was a little confused at first, because the fanfare was only a few minutes long, and I was worried it was the first movement of the symphony, which would've been a really short concert. The opening piece was really cool, though. You had the three main themes: the main Zelda theme for Link, Ganon's theme, and Zelda's theme, a.k.a. Zelda's Lullaby. It also had elements of Skyward Sword, but much of the arrangement was unique takes on these old, well-engrained themes. The projector screen also showed clips of a lot of Zelda games with complimentary shots of all three main characters.

Ms. Noone brought out the producer, Jason Michael Paul (who produced the Final Fantasy Friends and the Play! concert series), and he explained the program for the first half. There were three more suites, followed by the first two movements of the symphony. The first suite was a cool dungeon suite featuring four older games: the original Legend of Zelda, The Adventures of Link, A Link to the Past, and Link's Awakening. Surprisingly, it started with the cave music from LttP, followed by the light world dungeon music. After the NES games, I was delighted by the Bottle Grotto music from Awakening. Even though it's not as popular, I really like the music in that game, and all eight dungeons (nine for DX) have different music. The producer showed his fandom for the game later, too.

The second song was for Kakariko Village, which used music from LttP and Twilight Princess. Other themes from TP were woven in the village theme, making a really sweet orchestral ballad. The third suite was ocarina tunes from Ocarina of Time. The opening gesture, naturally, was the Sun's Song, played perfectly (probably the principal flautist, Lorna McGhee). There was a beautiful section for the Serenade of Water with TP elaborations. The concertmaster, Hong-Guang Jia, also had numerous solos on the gentler Zelda melodies, and he played them with sensitivity and heart.

Kakariko Village

The symphony was organized by game, and the first movement was appropriately Ocarina of Time, it being the origin story (at least before Skyward Sword came out). I'm not sure if it's technically part of the symphony, but it seemed to start with a prelude on the Sacred Realm music that's used as Link learns about the creation of the world and the Triforce. I thought this set up the depth and length of the symphony very well, since an audience member not accustomed to orchestral concerts would need to be prepared aurally for such a long video game arrangement. I was also happy that they used game footage from the 3D remake, and this prelude had the whole story about the goddesses (appropriate considering the title of the thing, right?)

They set up each movement as a narrative on each game, but it was cool how each game ordered the music differently. It's not like they all started with the title music or anything. The OoT movement started with music detailing Link's dream at the beginning at the game, when he sees Ganondorf chasing Zelda out of the castle. Then the Deku Tree music accompanies the tree's directions to Link, THEN you get the splendidly simple title music, played beautifully by the pianist. The orchestra filled up the space with the field theme, and then we quickly went to Ganondorf and Ganon battles. I was really impressed by the music director, Chad Seiter, especially how he arranged the final boss music for all four games in the symphony (and then some more later). The Ganondorf battle went from 7/4 to 5/4 meter, with a very cool mallet feature which would delight the percussionists on this blog...well, that is everyone except me. The ending also had a surprise stinger that made the audience scream.

The conductor took a moment to introduce the Wind Waker movement, obviously charmed by a game based on conducting. She also had an awesome Wind Waker baton to conduct the movement. This one started with Outset Island and went through the music of the whole game in an abbreviated story-arch. I thought the bassoon solo for the pirate's theme was really funny, the sea music played while the Tower of the Gods rose on-screen, and the old Hyrule music segued to the intense final battle. The Philadelphia Chorus made all these boss battles really fierce, and real voices certainly helped. The movement ended with the title music, with very nice solos that built into a grand ending. One thing I thought was weird was that we took an intermission here. I know this still functioned like a pops concert, but if we are supposed to consider it a full symphony, it would've made more sense to play the whole thing. It's not like it was a Mahler-length ordeal.

Symphony Movement 2: The Wind Waker


After intermission and a "refreshing" fairy fountain tune, Mr. Paul came out to describe the last two movements. The third was for Twilight Princess, and this one started with the title music, which was dark and triumphant, great for setting the mood. The order was a little more mixed up here, with the Ordon music about halfway through. After another impressive final boss showing, the movement wrapped up similarly to how it began, but the music turned major instead of minor.

Symphony Movement 3: Twilight Princess


The last movement went old-school with A Link to the Past. Megan and I were thinking we'd hear some Skyward Sword, but perhaps it was too new to arrange or spoil, or that it was already orchestrated. Anyway, this one started really crisply with the opening music during the rain. The narrative took us through Hyrule Castle, the sanctuary, and an interesting, slightly awkward arrangement of the normal boss music before going to the Dark World. The whole thing took off from here, with the overworld music revealing grandeur, the Ganon music intimidating, and the ending music with the Triforce wrapping up the whole symphony. It also made sense why they ended with this game; it has the most iconic main theme. The work ended with a magnificent version of the classic theme.

Those of us that stayed were delighted with not one, not two, but THREE encores. The first was another Link's Awakening song, the Ballad of the Wind Fish. This was a really unique arrangement, in 6/8 instead of 4/4 and with more minor harmony. Unfortunately, it was so different, I had a hard time picking out the melody after the first phrase. The second encore was another creative arrangement, this time of Gerudo Valley from OoT. This one was slower and more driving, but the solos still had that exotic feel. Finally, Mr. Seiter came out and explained that, through popular demand, they arranged a Majora's Mask medley. This one was really special. It started with the beginning music in the foggy woods, followed by the Song of Healing and Clock Town. They played both the first day and third day of the town music, which was a nice contrast, and the dark bass line for the final day led well into the moon-inhaling-everything music, followed by the final boss. This started to blend with the Oath to Order and the music that plays at midnight on the last day. This fusion was really touching, and the orchestra swelled to a dramatic chord, dropping out for a small ensemble playing the end of the oath.

Gerudo Valley

The whole concert was really impressive. I knew I'd like the music on a basic level because I love Zelda music, but the orchestra played it really well. Even if some of the more creative changes were a little awkward, the orchestration itself is par excellence. I wish I could tell you the orchestrators, but the credits scrolled by quickly and the website, zelda-symphony.com, is unfinished with no credits. I especially liked the harp players (the principal was Gretchen van Hoesen, but there were two), who played really intricate duets for most of the songs, and the horn players hold a special place in my heart, as I was once a horn player. They were blasting and harmonizing the whole time, with nary a crack.

I only had a few minor complaints and wishes. Unfortunately, the conductor and producer were silent about concert etiquette, and since most of the audience were game fans rather than orchestra fans, they cheered continually through the music, and often at the video (granted, the video included a few jokes). I wish they would have said something one way or the other: cheer like a Video Games Live concert, or please refrain during the music. I also wish they had included some music from more obscure titles. A lot of Zelda music get recycled and redeveloped in later titles, and I think they would've been cool to hear even if you didn't know the game. A couple of examples could be the original dungeon theme used in Link's Awakening DX and Minish Cap, or a lot of LttP music expanded upon in Four Swords Adventures. And finally, I TOTALLY forgot to bring my 3DS, and the guy next to me said he got about 40 hits on StreetPass. Grumble, grumble...