Frustrating News for Final Fantasy Music Fans

Spielmusikkonzerte released a statement today that there will be no livestream of Final Symphony. There won’t even be so much as a recording of the event for possible future release. Given the precedent set by Symphonic Fantasies and Symphonic Odysseys, this is an outrage to fans. Rumor has it Square-Enix is to blame for this.

Final Symphony � Featuring music from FINAL FANTASY� VI, VII and X (http://www.symphonicfantasies.com/)

I’m not surprised. I’ve been to two FF concerts (Dear Friends and Distant Worlds) and they make a HUGE deal about any type of camera at the events.

Meh, it’s Square Enix’s copyright, they can do whatever they want with it. Besides, it can’t be that good if all it has is music from FFVI (excellent OST), VII, (so-so) and X (mostly rubbish).

Maybe the orchestra can’t afford the licensing fees for a live-stream/CD release. Anyway bitching about it isn’t going to do anything.

Meh, it’s Square Enix’s copyright, they can do whatever they want with it. Besides, it can’t be that good if all it has is music from FFVI (excellent OST), VII, (so-so) and X (mostly rubbish).

Maybe the orchestra can’t afford the licensing fees for a live-stream/CD release. Anyway bitching about it isn’t going to do anything.

Easy for you to say when obviously you have no real desire to hear this music. I have wanted to see a project like this since the 90s. You try wanting something that long and then see how you react when it happens and you don’t have access to it because of marketing bullshit.

What amazes me is how few fans of Final Fantasy music can be bothered to give a damn about this event, even though the project has the critically acclaimed production team that brought you Symphonic Fantasies focusing on tracks that have never been arranged for orchestra before. Tracks like The Coin Song, Cyan’s Theme, Shadow’s Theme, Cosmo Canyon, Cid’s Theme, Tifa’s theme, Mako Reactor, People of the North Pole, etc etc. That might not get you excited, but it seems like it would excite someone besides myself.

I’m sorry for sounding a little harsh and cynical in my earlier post, but the fact is, this isn’t a ‘once-in-a-lifetime-event’ – there’s been dozens of FF themed concerts over the years, both by independent orchestras (of which this concert I presume will be performed by) and by Square Enix themselves. And yes, I’ve actually attended one of these concerts myself in the past (the Australian Night in Fantasia concert performed in Sydney back in 2004 by the Eminence Symphony Orchestra, of which Nobuo Uematsu himself was a guest of honour) and thoroughly enjoyed it.

However, my cynicism of this concert stems from the fact that these concerts are now becoming quite commonplace, and they all more or less perform the same tracks over and over again. I can’t say for every FF fan but personally I’d love it if some more obscure tracks were actually performed, like FFI’s Gurugu Volcano or FFIX’s Awakened Forest, or even something like FFVIII’s The Legendary Beast or FFVII’s Jenova ABSOLUTE which haven’t yet been given orchestral arrangements.

Instead, all that is performed, amongst other things, are yet more arrangements of One-Winged Angel or Aeris’s Theme, To Zanarkand and Terra’s Theme. I admit I love those tracks, but I’d like there to be at least a little variety in these concerts eventually.

Holy Christ did you read my post? This concert is happening specifically for the sake of obscure tracks, they have expressed this many times in official statements. Jonne Valtonen and Roger Wanamo’s work is original and ambitious, not the same Hamaguchi arrangements that Distant Worlds and Eminence have been playing all these years.

Read the second paragraph of my last post; I am saying EXACTLY what you are saying

"The scores will be 100% newly written for the concert, featuring music from Final Fantasy VI, VII and X exclusively. This focus allows us to present music which hardly or never gets performed." — Producer Thomas Boecker

We are getting cheated out of Final Fantasy music that has never been heard before. 90 minutes of it.

One of the hardest things about getting people to care about this event is that so few people realize what makes it different. This concert will be groundbreaking in deviating from the model of replaying old arrangements from ten years ago. This is NEW NEW NEW NEW. And smart. Listen to the Chrono trigger/Chrono cross Arrangement from Symphonic Fantasies and you realize how Wanamo and Valtonnen are taking video game music to a whole other level of excellence.

If ever there were an FF music concert to care about, this is it.

Wait so they are not even going to release it on CD later? I hope that will not be the case. I don’t care if I can’t watch it but the idea of never being able to even hear a concert that has new arrangements is really upsetting. Hell even if I could attend the concern in person I would still want a CD. I for one have had enough of hearing the same orchestration of Aerith’s Theme, To Zanarkand etc. I’m going to email them and request they make a cd, maybe if they have enough interest they’ll work out a deal with Square-Enix.

Having just read the press release, there’s no mention as to whether those conditions apply to the later concert with the London Symphony Orchestra, which certainly has a large enough infrastructure to handle a live stream broadcast. If it’s recorded, I’d rather it be the London Symphony concert anyway. Concerning Square Enix’s previous cooperation with streaming and album releases, I highly doubt they’re solely responsible for preventing a release. Perhaps they’re planning on taking this program on a wider tour and want to maintain interest, as was initially done with Dear Friends/Distant Worlds? They’re certainly not adverse to selling more FF-related product. I imagine this will see the light of day eventually, one way or another.

That said, most if not all of my excitement regarding this event was predicated on Valtonen and Wanamo transfiguring this music into an actual symphony, which is pretty much one of the only remaining, interesting places left to go with it at this point. The greater sense of structure to the arrangements of Symphonic Fantasies and the piano concerto in Symphonic Odysseys was entirely what made those concerts stand out. If this is just more orchestrated tracks, even obscure ones, my enthusiasm has considerably waned.