Final Fantasy VII Remake Orchestra World Tour
In the great hall, with its excellent enveloping acoustics, of the Teatro degli Arcimboldi in Milan, which on more than one occasion has hosted concerts and cine-concerts (those, to be clearer, with the score performed live on the projection of the full film), dedicated to the world of music applied to images, whether it is a tribute to more or less famous films or world-famous musicals and video games, the notes of the staff of one of the longest-lived and most relevant sagas in the universe were explained international videogame, or those of the concert-event (only two dates, 15 and 16 December) based on the visionary Final Fantasy VII Remake video game by Square Enix.
An excellent Italian orchestra of 100 elements including musicians and choristers (from Tuscany) performed under the compelling and attentive direction of the renowned Grammy Award-winning conductor, the American Arnie Roth, who collaborated with world stars such as, among others, Il Divo, Diana Ross, Andrea Bocelli, Peter Cetera and, in the panorama of music for video games, with the famous composer Nobuo Uematsu and the videogame company Square Enix as musical director on tour for the world of "Distant Worlds: music from Final Fantasy", "Dear Friends: music from Final Fantasy", "More Friends: from Final Fantasy", "Voices: music from Final Fantasy", as well as directing the orchestra in "Play! A Video Game Symphony ".
Watch on YouTube. A thunderous orchestral team all made in Italy that played for almost two hours straight, with an inspiration and an executive impact power that literally left speechless, not only in the performances of the most excited and adrenaline-filled songs (the 'Action Themes 'par excellence) but even in the most romantic, delicate and emphatically new age pages of the surprising score written by several hands, both by the proponent of the original leitmotifs, the aforementioned Nobuo Uematsu, and by Masashi Hamauzu - among other special guest of the concert evenings Milanese (and not only, since it is present in all the stages of the World Tour Orchestra) - and Shotaro Shima, Yoshitaka Suzuki and Yasunori Nishiki, authors of the additional music of this remake version of chapter seven of Final Fantasy.
Which, if you don't remember carefully, consists of sixteen chapters from 1987 to today, plus an infinite series of spin-offs, which demonstrate how concretely Final Fantasy is the most important Japanese video game series in space interactive videogame. Saga that in 1997, with Final Fantasy VII, probably reaches its apex with a chapter capable of collecting lavish praise from critics all over the world.
And in fact the exciting "Final Fantasy VII Remake Orchestra World Tour" proves it widely, with its countless sold out dates in the most authoritative theaters in the world such as the Royal Albert Hall in London and the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, not least our Tam Teatro Arcimboldi in Milan.
The symphony orchestra had about one hundred people, including musicians and choristers, from Tuscany. The event was very crowded and saw the presence of more than avid fans, cosplayers and neophytes, equally warm thanks to a symphonic and choral execution at the gunpoint of new arrangements of the most famous themes of this seventh adventure, specially written for the world tour to accompany a multimedia concert composed of the most representative sequences of the characters and action moments of the video game, projected on the big screen behind the orchestra.
The pieces performed, almost twenty, and the encore with the proposition of two tracks already performed in concert, have received the jubilation of the very sympathetic public. The first was a romantic and childish theme, "Flowers Blooming in the Church", with a Disney-like musical mood and close to the quietly dreamy style of the well-known composer Joe Hisaishi for his fellow director and Academy Award-winning Maestro Hayao Miyazaki, author of the wonderful films animation The Enchanted City and Howl's Moving Castle, among its many celebrated.
The second was the leitmotif of the bad guy Sephiroth, the legendary warrior with thick silver hair, "One-Winged Angel - Rebirth ", a symphonic choral piece with an apocalyptic epic entity with influences by Carl Orff of Carmina Burana and Oscar winner Howard Shore for the saga of The Lord of the Rings, with also some glimpses of Sergej Sergeevič Prokofiev for his rider Aleksandr Nevskij .
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Gameplay and cutscenes from the original Final Fantasy VII and the remake alternated on the screen. It was an evening that brought some shivering to the skin on several occasions including, one above all, the performance of the excellent singer of the theme song "Hollow" by Nobuo Uematsu, who brought the theater down to thunderous applause. and deserved (a version of the famous theme of the Final Fantasy VII Remake that leaves you amazed by the compositional beauty and interpretative breadth of the singer and choir on duty).
Other epic moments of this unforgettable concert-tribute, with some testimonies of the composers and makers of the videogame in question, between one song and another, through video-contributions-interviews, were experienced and above all listened to in the tracks "Shinra's Theme", an impetuous military march, and "Let the Battle Begin! - Battle Medley", a heart-stopping war piece with a standing ovation.
In conclusion, what remains of this extraordinary multimedia and sensorial concert event is that beyond the videogame ... Music, as often happens, plays the true role of a timeless saga: its' Final Fantasy '!
Massimo Privitera has been director of ColonneSonore.net for 17 years, the first and only official Italian magazine on music applied to images. He is also a writer of books on soundtracks and a professor of Film Music at conservatories and academies in the sector.
