Without Hope, Without Warmth/Heart’s Lament

Track 2-18 : Without Hope, Without Warmth (Day/Night)

As I wrote in my post on the Winterlands theme, the music for OT2’s snowy regions evokes the bitter cruelty that cold and snow can create. The steady, calm accompaniment on electric piano conveys loneliness, while the melody adds a sense of being beyond all rescue or redemption.

On its own, though, that would be a little lacking in musical interest, so the middle section has a bit more sentimentality, hinting at the path Osvald is fated to walk and how his life reached this point.

Track 2-20: Heart’s Lament

Another piece of multipurpose event music, this one used for sorrowful scenes like deaths and other tragedies. Instead of powerful swells of emotion, it evokes a grief so crushing and heartbreaking that the only reaction possible is quiet despair. As a result, instead of raising the energy level with strings or a full orchestra, I thought it would be more appropriate to convey that sadness quietly, on piano, keeping the strings in reserve to add some flavor partway through.

The arrangement plays a huge role in the emotional punch a piece of music has. For example, setting this piece’s melody for a string-based ensemble would make it feel dramatically tragic, instead of the subdued effect here. Particularly for scenes depicting delicate emotional states, a solid understanding of what you hope to convey not just through melody and chords but also through the arrangement is a vital part of composing.

Translation: Matt Treyvaud