12 Things You Didn't Know About Video Game Soundtracks

1. Chopin Was The First Video Game Composer

It might seem something of a ludicrous claim to attribute Polish-maestro Frédéric Chopin as video game's principal composer, given he had been dead for 136 years when the first game containing music was released. Though it's fair to say he had little hands-on involvement with the musical selection of Tomohiro Nishikado's Gun Fight, it was nevertheless his music which was used in the 1975 Western-themed shooter.

When the player's character is shot dead - a frequent occurrence - the famous opening bars of Chopin's Marche Funebre from his second piano sonata mournfully emanate from the cabinet; the very first example of music in a video game. The piece is ideal: it's immediately recognisable, and almost universally associated with death. However, there's another, more practical reason for Gun Fight's use of Chopin.

Simply put, music in early video games was usually the dominion of an engineer, not a musician. As such, it was much easier to transcribe a piece of out-of-copyright, pre-existing music into code than attempt to compose a tune afresh. Many pieces of classical music already carried with them exactly the sort of message game developers wanted to convey, so it was natural to ride on their pre-existing reputation without expending additional and potentially futile effort trying to replicate the same effect with an original song.

Not surprisingly then, many more pieces of classical music found their way into games as soundtracks became more prevalent. The Intellivision's Thunder Castle benefited from the triple-bill of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony , Purcell's Abdelazer Suite, and Mussorgsky's dramatic Night on Bald Mountain, whilst Battlezone on the Atari VCS used the rousing finale from Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture to full effect.

As for Chopin, Gun Fight was far from his last involvement in the game industry. A bit of a one-hit wonder, his funeral march ditty was used on countless other occasions after its arcade debut, and in 2007 the Polish pianist remarkably became the subject of game himself: the truly bizarre Eternal Sonata.

Supposedly describing Chopin's dream as the tuberculosis ridden composer slipped from life to death, Eternal Sonata was little more than a bog-standard albeit attractive JRPG with a vaguely musical theme. A game ostensibly acting as a biography for Chopin's life, it's remarkable that it only contained seven of the composer's most heralded works - only six more than the cowboy themed Gun Fight thirty-two years previous.

Editorial Team
Editorial Team

Benjamin was born in 1987, and is still not dead. He variously enjoys classical music, old-school adventure games (they're not dead), and walks on the beach (albeit short - asthma, you know). He's currently trying to compile a comprehensive history of video game music, yet denies accusations that he purposefully targets niche audiences. He's often wrong about these things.