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Skyrim soundtrack beats Beethoven in Classic FM poll

Skyrim_Dragon

The soundtrack for the Elder Scrolls series has been voted the fifth most popular classical work ever in a poll conducted by Classic FM. Back in February, just a day after my birthday, I was bleating excitedly about the news that it had climbed to the 238th spot. This was with the help of a campaign started by the games industry PR Mark Robins. Well, 238th is now a distant memory, and that same campaign has also helped the Final Fantasy series soundtrack climb up to third place.

In February, the works being voted on were much narrower in their classification: the Skyrim soundtrack and Aerith’s Theme, from Final Fantasy 7. The entries have been broadened to include the games’ series, rather than individual titles, and this has probably helped them rise so high. Both series have featured brilliant soundtracks which are among the very best in the business and are increasingly performed live at events such as Play! They’re also widely covered by musicians on YouTube and the Elder Scrolls theme in particular is perennially popular. At the time of writing, this fan-made Skyrim cover-meets-music video has nearly twenty million views:

Since Morrowind, the music for the Elder Scrolls series has been composed by the BAFTA award winning Jeremy Soule, who last month launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for his first symphony, just in time for Nick’s birthday. Soule asked for $10,000 and met that total within two days. His fundraising total currently stands at $66,000 and there’s still 11 days to go.

By scoring the fifth spot, Soule landed just above Beethoven, who had his highest entry at number six with Piano Concerto No.5 in E flat major. The poll was topped by Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.2 in C minor and the other two spaces in the top five were taken byVaughan Williams, whose The Lark Ascending and Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis came in at number two and number four respectively.

Thanks, Eurogamer.