Heroes of Might and Magic Soundtrack (PC)

Heroes of Might and Magic Soundtrack (PC), Paul Romero, 1995

Few game scores begin with a gesture as confident as the Heroes of Might and Magic soundtrack. In the opening cue, “Barbarian (Theme for Louis XIV)”, a harpsichord presents an almost breathless motif that already creates a dense soundscape. But clearly, the composer intends to go further. Before long, more and more instruments join the harpsichord figure, taking up the motif as a fugue. This process continues until no fewer than five voices are moving simultaneously in counterpoint. The resulting passage displays a level of structural complexity previously unheard in Western game music.

On a purely musical level, it makes for a striking opening to the album. But this display of compositional bravado matters for another reason as well. The piece wears its ambitions openly. It wastes no time in declaring that this is music of substance, music that expects to be taken seriously. In other words, this is a game soundtrack that self-consciously presents itself as “Art”.

Seen in the broader history of Western orchestral game music, that vision distinguishes the Heroes of Might and Magic soundtrack more than one might initially assume. Certainly, by 1995 there were already many ambitious orchestral Western game scores. Yet their primary role models usually came from film music. That tradition stretches back at least to 1990’s Wing Commander, whose soundtrack openly echoed the music of the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises. Heroes of Might and Magic, by contrast, looks elsewhere for inspiration and arguably sets its sights even higher: towards classical music and its long-established aura of gravitas and importance. In that respect, it bears some resemblance to Jun Nagao’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV.

Where did this outburst of ambition come from? As it turns out, from a source that was both expected and surprising: Paul Romero. Before being introduced to Heroes of Might and Magic’s sound director and future serial collaborator Rob King, Romero had never played a video game. A former child prodigy, he had already performed around the world as a classical pianist before the age of fifteen. After graduating from the world-famous Conservatoire de Paris, Romero stepped away from performance once his formal training was complete. Following a period of assorted odd jobs, Heroes of Might and Magic brought him back to music.

Romero’s background readily explains the score’s character. Very few artists before him had thought to apply the conventions of classical music so directly to video game composition, though one should not forget the Wagnerian impulses of The Dig, also released in 1995. Romero, deeply versed in classical composition yet refreshingly untouched by established game music habits, was clearly delighted to fuse games and classical music. The result set a new benchmark for sophistication, density, and maturity in the orchestral writing of Western game scores.

But that is not the only reason why the Heroes of Might and Magic soundtrack helped launch one of game music’s most revered franchises. Romero also has a remarkable gift for writing drop-dead gorgeous melodies. The score’s melodic lines are a constant pleasure: elegant, refined, and graceful, exactly as one might hope given its classical inspirations. Yet they are also catchy. That is not necessarily a quality one immediately associates with classical music, where melodies do not always present themselves as hummable tunes. Here, however, Romero’s Baroque influences make themselves felt in a slightly unexpected way. Much of Heroes of Might and Magic’s melodic material consists of relatively short figures, as is common in Baroque writing, and that helps these themes lodge themselves in the memory almost instantly.

Just as importantly, Romero makes the most of these beguiling melodic ideas. He structures his longer pieces around variations of the particular melody assigned to each cue. And he treats those variations with the same care he devotes to every other aspect of the music. They are not mere repetitions of previously established material, but genuine reworkings and elaborations. Once again, this is a procedure drawn from classical music, and in execution as assured as it is here, it gives the score a sense of continuous development that Western game music had not previously achieved.

This emphasis on melodic variation also allows Romero to develop texture and mood with masterly control while maintaining structural coherence. “Knight”, for instance, preserves the light-footed Baroque manner of “Barbarian (Theme for Louis XIV)” while adding a more regal, upright bearing. A beautifully extended oboe solo develops the cue’s melodic material before handing it off to uilleann pipes calling from some far-distant hill above the moors. “Sorceress” almost resembles a miniature harpsichord concerto, combining the playfulness of the earlier cues with a touch of mystery. “Warlock” is just as elaborately constructed, but its woodwind soli and string harmonies are sharper and more harmonically ambivalent.

Heroes of Might and Magic may not outright revolutionise the Western fantasy game score, but it unquestionably takes the genre to a new level. That is, before Heroes of Might and Magic II would magnify almost everything great about this soundtrack and push the series into genuinely unprecedented territory.