Thus Spoke the empire
Grandeur. That is the word that, in a nutshell, encompasses everything the majestic Final Fantasy series strives to be. We are talking about a project that has been committed to the highest production values in visuals and sound that technology could afford at the different times of its storied series, becoming a pioneer of the Eastern RPG genre and popularizing it internationally. This was all doable due to the level of ambition of series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi whose final fantasy—literally named that way because the troubled production was the last chance of the development team to make it in the industry—brought together a team of people who cared deeply about their craft and went beyond duty to immerse players in a video game world in a way closer to films and epic literature like no other interactive experience before. Music of course is bound to do heavy lifting on this enterprise.
When a series has a game of its own dedicated exclusively to its music (Final Fantasy Theathrym) and pretty much popularized the trend of video game live concerts following the example set by series’ inspiration and main competitor Dragon Quest, we know we are onto something. Releasing orchestral arrangements from its games even back in the 80s we can surmise how involved, ambitious and deeply caring is prolific main composer Nobuo Uematsu when it comes to the craft of video game music. Famous even beyond the interactive medium, Nobuo Uematsu has gained popularity in classical music circuits thanks to his Wagnerian approach to these Tolkienesque worlds. Not too bad of a track record for a composer who didn’t really have any formal music education and is still self conscious about not being good at reading musical scores in his own sold out orchestral concerts full of professionally trained musicians. He is also part of the club of early video game composers who had to grow the medium from chip tunes to the fully orchestrated scores of today, forced to defend himself with the basic melody, accompaniment, bass and percussion components of the pure 8-bit era. Nobuo Uematsu is video game music royalty; a testament to this is that even with a rooster of talented composers in-house working for them, Nintendo decided to specifically call him as a freelancer to create the main theme song for Super Smash Bros Brawl which is a love letter to the medium of video game music in general.
A self-taught piano player, Uematsu studied English literature at college and played keyboards in local bands thanks to his love for progressive and pop rock. He eventually found work as a composer for radio commercials by sending out his music demos to anything and everything while he sustained himself in a part time job as a cassette rental store employee. One day, some girl who came to a house where artists of all kinds used to hang out recommended that he tried writing music for some games that were being worked at by her small group of up and coming developers that reunited in a former hairdresser’s salon like an afterclass club. There he began his partnership with boss Hironobu Sakaguchi working on various early games for computers developed by the company known as Square. All of them with poor results until the last chance, the final fantasy of the company. Uematsu at the time considered it also a side job, and he did not think it would become a full-time career; video game music composer was not even a proper job title. It was just a way to make some money on the side, while also keeping his part-time job at the music rental shop.
The idea for the series was to have deep storytelling with universal stakes and high production values in visuals and sound, that is, for the humble 8-bit NES at least. This level of ambition meant that Uematsu was not in for plain sailing. The music for Final Fantasy marked his 16th video game music composition. When he presented the director the music he was rejected out of hand, Sakaguchi telling him: ‘This is no good” Then he went away and just reprogrammed the order of the songs and was approved straight away for some reason —directors can be that way sometimes. In any case the project released in 1987 was a great commercial success and spawned the parent series and supplementary media. Nobuo went on to write or co-write music for the international blockbuster series through 2002’s Final Fantasy XI, with the ninth installment being the last one he scored all by himself. Ever since the first entry, the composer had almost absolute creative freedom into the development of the music identity of the series.
Final Fantasy VI for the SNES marks a departure and turning point for the series overall. Longtime fans of the franchise acknowledge the significance, both from a narrative and musical perspective, of the last entry for the Super Nintendo. The level of ambition was expanded considerably. We are now leaving the standard fantasy fare themes and enter into a more industrial setting where magic mixes with technology and double down on the steampunk aesthetic that was to become the focus of Final Fantasy VII and paved the way for the futuristic future of the series. With fourteen playable characters, the game boasts one of the largest rosters of any RPG of its era. To this day, it still holds the record among the main series Final Fantasy games for most playable characters, and provides nearly all of them with character arcs, sidequests and, of course, leitmotifs which was the challenge Nobuo Uematsu had to surmount.
Treating the score as an ending point for him, he created numerous memorable and emotional pieces to enhance the game. Yet, there is still a precise and methodical approach to it, a seriousness of purpose that comes out in his music and complements the grandiosity and existential threats of the story. Most notably, we have here a score with several extended set pieces; like, who puts a classically-inspired opera sequence, a 17 minute four-tiered organ piece to represent the metamorphosis of the godlike final boss (should we even cover a 17-minute piece here?), or a gigantic ending theme featuring arrangements of every character motifs on a SNES cartridge? These guys went to town indeed.
The music from the game was commemorated with an unheard at the time three disc soundtrack release while also forming the basis of arranged albums for orchestra and piano. So there was also always a level of treating these works as high art even in 16-bit consoles full of cute pixelated sprites. In doing these monstrous scores with these limited resources Uematsu is basically trying to paint the sixtine chapel with crayons, elevating the medium of video games in the process. The composer usually highlights the soundtrack for Final Fantasy VI to be a career-capping achievement and one of his favorites alongside VII and IX. The theme featured here, Terra’s Theme is his favorite theme that he has composed for the series due to its emotional impact and resonance. The styles of the compositions are diverse, ranging from stately classical symphonic pieces to progressive rock and baroque counterpoint, exotic world music and quirky ditties for more relaxed moments in the story.
Musical Analysis
The cinematic opening of the game also contrasted with the previous entries from the series. A dark, ominous ambient telling us the dire state of the world. Just watching the credits roll in the intro against this background accompanied by the mournful tinged arrangement of the Celtic Terra’s Theme is enough to signal that this will be a work that will treat players to an epic ensemble poem in 16-bit form.
The three-part piece titled ‘Omen’ is exactly what it advertises, a foreshadowing of what is to come, especially in relation with the character Kefka who will ascend to godhood and whose final boss theme is referenced with the dramatic sounds of the organ, which thanks to its church tradition and literal musical power and visual splendour has become the ultimate signifier of godlike powers and magnificence. The stacked fourths of the opening notes of the piano is like the evil, twisted version of the classic classical opening of Richard Strauss’s ‘Also sprach Zarathustra’ which is in fifths. We are only lacking the timpani; perfect fourths are considered more unstable due to their place in the harmonic series so they have been naturally coopted for more ambiguous moods than the heroic perfect fifths. Perhaps the game was just trying to reference the ultimate opening piece for an epic overture and thus having a dramatic intro to its narrative or maybe it goes deeper and the original piece referenced based around the work of nihilistic philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was meant to gel with Kefka who reveals himself to be a nihilistic psychopath, gone mad from the cruel experiments that gave him his magical powers performed by the Gestahlian Empire.
Musically, the painstaking work of Uematsu can be seen in the way he carefully manipulates the tempo and dynamics of the music in order to make it feel organic and not programmed. This is as lifelike as you can get with these limited orchestral samples. The two big chords FmMaj7 – Fm7(b5) are punctuated by male and female vocal samples (also used for the opera scene and whose origin has not being identified. They most likely come from real Opera CDs). By starting the stack on E the music wounds up closer to Phrygian profiles which is a mode heavily featured throughout the score and is one of the most villainous staple scales.
What follows is not the expected and iconic magical Crystal Prelude that accompanied every Final Fantasy but rather its rather dissonant piano prelude counterpart full of chromatically planed seventh chords and extended harmony, played with rich rubato that feels destabilizing and confused. Indeed, this seems more like a warning than the expected greeting; it is showing us the world of uncertainly and hopelessness that we are arriving to. There is but just a last ray of light and optimism in the very last ascending notes of these whirlwind arpeggios. Full harmony would be something like:
Em6/11 – Ab7/9 – Em6/11 – Ab7/9 – Gm6/11 – Am6/11 – Gm6/11 – Am6/11 – Fm7/13 – G6/11 – Dm7/13 – Dm6/11
Yes, this is a progressive rock fan indeed.
All clustered chords that feel claustrophobic and trapped.
Next theme is also a foreshadow of the final battle theme, an atmosphere of dread engulfing the world alongside funeral bells mourning the land that is no more, a theme for the Gestalt Empire influence. Just like some film composers do, the low end which is the job of the tuba is reinforced with a bass synth sample. The strings play suspended chords over the pedal C notes of the bass right before they enter into a dissonant Half diminished scale. The harp arpeggio adds the air of mystery with the mystic Db (b6) which is a type of chord that adds the augmented (Lydian) flavor to a major chord. When the woodwinds are featured the piece becomes even sadder like a desperate plea for help just before ending in a question mark form with the multiples arpeggios of the harp in mystic G chord format. It is as if the music is asking who will come to save the day? without needing to put it in obvious text or voice over form. There is a lot of story packed into the music already in the first few minutes of the game.
After the game introduces us to the mysterious girl piloting the mecha, we heard the mournful rendition of her cue, Terra’s Theme, a track that will also reappear as the overworld cue later. This shows us that Uematsu can also work just fine with normal chords and an elegant melody. The theme played with the oboe, the most middle-eastern sounding of the European woodwinds, is also the main instrument in the Kefka’s Theme. The piece is in G minor. The five note question motif is the basis of the melody, which is then transposed to Bb where the hope resides since the same motif played from here now sounds in the Bb major profile, the parallel major scale of the one in Kefka’s Theme, which also opens with similar note progression as Terra’s Theme. The rest of the piece is like a puzzle in which the melodic snippets are combined in different forms. First, the Gm based question-answer blocks are featured but as the piece progresses the Bb based question-answer block prevails more. Hope is closer.
First couple of question-answer blocks are accompanied by the Gm to Dm harmony progression. The hopeful Bb question-answer blocks are accompanied by the major chords Bb to F, the cadence going to Eb – Cm – Gm.
The entire phrase is repeated but then the piece goes to the positive Bb to F part twice unlike the first time and now the cadence is put after the Gm to Dm, rearranging the melodic phrases.
B section sounds like a call to action showing the risks and challenges of the quest that you are about to take on, using chords outside the standard Gm key in the chromatic progression Gm – A – Ab – Gm, the menacing tritone pervading the relationship between Gm and Ab adding the sense of danger. The oboes are now used in a brass fanfare-like way showing that you are entering the terrains of a mighty empire.
The piece is arranged as a mournful military march punctuated by the snare drum and following the cinematic presented where the mechas walk in the snow, the strings serving the dual role of pads and counterpoint secondary melodies. Nobuo Uematsu doesn’t shy away from modern instruments in the usually orchestral based fantasy genre as seen by his deployment of the electric bass to add low end to the piece; same for the synth.
Just like the game itself, the piece is pure storytelling and opens the curtain to a pixelated heroic saga.
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