IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey Soundtrack

IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey Soundtrack, Jeremy Soule, 2009

IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey arrived at the tail end of the Second World War game genre’s great boom. By that point, game music listeners had already encountered a wide range of approaches to underscoring the most devastating conflict of the twentieth century. Above all, Michael Giacchino’s work had shown just how many different ways war could be translated into music.

Jeremy Soule had not tackled a Second World War game before Birds of Prey and the same year’s Order of War. Yet the fantastic action writing of Total Annihilation, with its militaristic ferocity and soaring momentum, already made him an obvious candidate for a flight-combat game like this. True, the game itself added nothing new to video games’ depiction of the clash between Allied and Axis forces. Soule’s IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey soundtrack, however, found an approach that was at once novel and firmly rooted in the composer’s previous work.

What Soule attempts here is to monumentalise the conflict he is underscoring – even more so than Giacchino did in Medal of Honor: Frontline. In many earlier scores, Soule had displayed classical ambitions, realised with varying degrees of success. IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey is his most overt attempt to write in conscious dialogue with the great masters of classical music. It is a lofty ambition, especially for a composer whose oeuvre so often drifts into atmospheric meandering. Yet Soule pulls off the feat and produces a work of astonishing weight and seriousness.

From “The Engagement” onwards, Soule makes clear that he is far more interested in achieving a sense of overwhelming awe and grandeur than in capturing the dizzying motion of combat aircraft darting across the sky – something Giacchino’s Secret Weapons Over Normandy was much more concerned with. Birds of Prey moves at a comparatively measured pace, making little attempt to impress through sheer agitation. Instead, it establishes a majestic presence that feels unstoppable in its heroic force. Monumentalism of this kind comes with obvious risks, since the line between the sublime and the ridiculous can be perilously thin. Thankfully, Soule remains firmly on the right side of that divide.

What, then, is the shape of the classically inspired sound Soule is trying to emulate? Interestingly, Birds of Prey departs from the approach taken by many other ambitious orchestral game scores. Those works often dazzle through complexity, whether in texture, thematic design, or some other area. Soule chooses a different path. Much of the IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey soundtrack is built on constantly churning string ostinati, over which he layers towering brass fanfares and melodies, punctuated by beautiful woodwind interludes. The approach is clearly indebted to Anton Bruckner’s symphonies, whose influence is felt most strongly in “Theatre of the Delusionary”.

It is a risky method. In weaker hands, it could easily harden into monotonous, dreary bombast. It is precisely here, however, that Soule triumphs. He mimics his models with remarkable conviction. In the way these pieces shape their motifs, melodies, rhythms, and harmonic progressions, they genuinely do resemble Romantic orchestral works written for the concert hall.

While Birds of Prey leaves the brass to do most of the heavy lifting, that emphasis never becomes a liability. Soule seems able to summon an endless stream of genuinely stirring material. Few game scores allow the brass section to shine as fully as this one does. The contrast is striking when set against the brass writing in many Remote Control-influenced game scores, where the instrument group is often asked to generate drama and gravitas in disappointingly lazy fashion. IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey is nothing less than a masterclass in brass writing.

For proof of just how powerful Soule’s method can be, go straight to “Valor and Triumph”. The cue presents what may be the boldest and most memorable theme of Soule’s career. It is a proud brass melody with the force of a battering ram. In its tremendous sweep, achieved through vast tidal rises and falls, “Valor and Triumph” also points to another trait Soule wisely borrows from classical music: an unwavering sense of patient, unhurried development.

That patience shapes the whole album, but “Code of Honor” offers the clearest demonstration of it. The piece grows across its entire running time from a faint choral opening and a tentative French horn line. Gradually, it becomes more and more impassioned until it reaches a solemn, deeply felt climax. “Theatre of the Delusionary” paces itself just as intelligently, easing back after its thunderous opening before beginning its ascent once more. Even then, it withholds its great release until the very end, to cathartic effect.

This magnificently realised command of development also brings with it a real sense of dynamism, since Soule clearly understands that musical bombast needs quieter passages if it is to make its full impact. Again and again, Birds of Prey’s robust action cues recognise when it is best to draw back. “The Hunt”, for instance, surprises with tender passages for solo cello. It is another example of the risks Soule is willing to take on this album, and of the heights those risks can carry him to when he is working at his best.