Thursday, April 11, 2019

MIDI Week Singles: "A Land Burdened with History" - The Elder Scrolls Online (PC)


"A Land Burdened with History" from The Elder Scrolls Online (2016)
Composer: Brad Derrick
Album: The Elder Scrolls Online Music of Tamriel Vol. 2 (Original Game Soundtrack)
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Developer: ZeniMax Online Studios





First off, I am not sure where in The Elder Scrolls Online "A Land Burdened with History" is featured, and I may not even have access to that expansion, if it is from one of the areas not in the base game.  What I do love about this piece in particular, is that it seems stylisitically different than a lot of the other music, spanning all of the available soundtracks, composed for this game.  That difference, at least to me, primarily stems from the solo violin that is just so damn beautiful, flittering through what could be characterized as just another ambient track for an MMORPG.

Sadly, if there was a real person on the other end of that violin, there is no mention of it in the digital liner notes, and for all I know, it is only a digital player, which would not surprise considering the source material.  But, something about the way the violin sounds, the way it is performed, for lack of a better word, sounds more organic than the rest of the song. Almost as if Brad Derrick composed the background music and then someone came in, listened to the song once, then improvised over the top.  I am just speculating here, but that is the visual I get when I listen to this song.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian


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