Actually Simon Belmont (which is the main character of Castlevania and Castlevania 2) lived in the seventeenth century so using Bach/Baroque music is very spot on
@hamiltobergeran5305 Then listen to the music on its own if you don't want his input. Surely you don't come to a commentary channel with the expectation that there'd be no commentary?
Interesting fact. A woman wrote the very 1st Castlevania Theme. She used a pseudo name James Banana. Her real name is Kinuyo Yamashita. Kinuyo Yamashita (山下 絹代, Yamashita Kinuyo) is a Japanese composer and musician known for her contributions in video games. Her best known soundtrack is Konami's Castlevania, which was also her debut work.
Without a doubt. If you don't know all you need to know by the Name Entry screen, I can't help you. The intro movie, the gorgeous choir, the theme from the library ... I would have a heck of a time picking the best game of all time, but SotN would be at the top of a short list.
Yea a Symphony of the Night video will have to be like four hours long because nearly every track is a total masterpiece. I would love to see Charles break it down!
For some reason Konami had the key to great music on that old platform. How other developers couldn't replicate that same great sound is beyond me Just proves Konami was the s*** back in the day
There's no sawtooth on the original NES, the 3rd channel is a triangle wave. In addition to the noise channel, there's also a 5th channel for playing 1-bit DPCM samples.
@@KimStennabbCaesar "There's no sawtooth on the original NES" Which is a real shame, if you ask me. NES music tends to relegate its bass lines to the wimpy triangle wave. Konami had a solution with their VRC6 chip, which had additional sound channels (including a sawtooth, and no triangle) along with its memory mapping capabilities. They used that chip in three of their Famicom cartridge games, including _Castlevania III_ (aka _Akumajō Densetsu,_ whose music sounds great with it). The problem: it only worked on the Famicom; the NES removed the audio input pin necessary for it to work from the cartridge port, moving it to the expansion port that no one ever ended up using. Technically, they could have worked around that, but I doubt anyone would have liked a game cart with a cable out the side that you had to hook up every time you wanted to play that game, or another accessory of some kind.
One of the best moments I can remember was my first weekend at MAGFest (Music and Gaming Festival) in 2012 where I not only got to meet Michiru Yamane (composer of the original Castlevania) but also went to see Bit Brigade (a metal band with an NES speedrunner as one of the band members) play her game live! She was softly crying while watching an audience of 5000 people enjoy her music as another member of the audience.
This is so amazing! I saw BitBrigade recently and it was spectacular to see a live speed run with accompanying live music. To know that Michiru got to see her music loved and appreciated in that moment brings tears to my eyes. Also how have I never heard of MAGFest!?!?
Why is my nose burning & my eyes watering 😭 Influential masters quietly witnessing the MASSIVE impact they have had with total humility & grace. It's so beautiful & heartwarming.
BACH! A colossal syllable, one that makes composers tremble, brings performers to their knees, beatifies the Bach-lover, and apparently bores the daylights out of everyone else. - Leonard Bernstein, On Music
And not a word about Satoe Terashima - one of if not the greatest mysteries in classic video game making lore. The composer of Castlevania's music (along with Kinuyo Yamashita, who is well known) is known by pseudonym only - but not a pic exists, and no other known work of hers is known of.
There is one low-quality photo online, and we do know she has worked on some other 80s Konami games, like The Goonies. But yeah, after around 1987, she just pretty much disappears. According to Yamashita, Terashima was actually the one who composed Vampire Killer, as well as Stalker, Out of Time, and Voyager. She also likely helped out on the Simon's Quest and Haunted Castle soundtracks.
Michiru Yamane though is the legend who created Symphony of the Night's epic OST and she gets more recognition due to Symphony still seen as one of the greatest games of all time in any category
And no mention of Yngwie Malmsteen. C2 was HUUUGELY inspired by him. The manor music in C2, "Dwelling of Doom" is basically a remix of his "Far Beyond the Sun". I believe that without Malmsteen in the 80's, Konami may never have chosen the route of baroque metal. Look at the timeline: Yngwie released this music in 1984 and he was huge in Japan.
How Charles does a Castlevania music review WITHOUT discussing the tracks on "Symphony of the Night" is beyond me. For most of us, that game is PEAK Castlevania. It honestly deserves it's own video with the soundtrack it has.
Maybe because each and every track on that damn game deserves a video on its own. SotN is one of the best OSTs, not only in videogames, but in any media, ever. Michiru Yamane is up there with John Williams, Ennio Morricone and Koji Kondo in the music pantheon.
Talking about Bach in Castlevania without going over Wood Carving Partita from the library of Symphony of the Night should be a crime sir! It has got to be the most baroque style piece in the whole series. Harpsichord Concerto in Castlevania.
Playing SotN on my Miyoo Mini (again, lol) and I realized earlier that the jazzy funky stuff they're playing in the colosseum is 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 like how did I not notice how hard this gets down 😅
@@MJG206 ...and right as I finished checking this notification a schmoo dropped me a crissaegrim 👍 Even the library gets dope music, lol. That librarian knows what's up
I think the composer for Bloody Tears on the Gameboy had the mindset to subvert the listeners expectations every chance they had. At this point, there's a very good chance that the player knows the original song, and every few seconds this player would be thinking... "what was that? what just happened? where is he taking this?" and the best thing is, it works! Familiar for nostalgia, but different enough to remain fresh and interesting.
Man, I was actually bullied as a kid by some chud in elementary school for listening to the Castlevania soundtrack on my walkman, and it's strangely vindicating somehow to see you get this amped about it, decades later. Thanks for doing what you do, Charles!
You're confusing 8-bit and 16-bit _audio_ (recorded sound files) with the programmable sound generator of an 8-bit CPU console and the sample-based sound chip of a 16-bit CPU console.
Bach pieces 0:00 and 8:32 Fugue No. 2 in C Minor, BWV 847 2:11 Chromatic Fantasy in D Minor, BWV 903 3:52 Keyboard Concerto No.5 in F Minor, BWV 1056: III. Presto
I simply cannot *WAIT* until he covers Symphony of the Night. ;) I mean holy--err, UNHOLY--sheet music, Batman! Charles C. is gonna be throwin' holy water all over his ivories.
It's so ironic that as much as we all love Bach and rally behind him as a representative of music in the Baroque era, Bach wasn't very well liked as a composer. Folks recognized he was a great keyboard player, but no one really liked the music he wrote, considering it too complex and too difficult to perform practically, more so his works for organ and harpsichord. Lucky not all of his work was discarded, folks simply filing it away and largely ignoring and forgetting about it for centuries. It wasn't until the 20th century during Neo Classicism that Bach was rediscovered and folks fell in love with it. EDIT: I've been corrected. Felix Mendelssohn in the 19th century brought J. S. Bach's revival. My original comment stems from the 6 cello suites with which I'm more familiar, which weren't largely brought to public light until the 20th century when Pablo Casals recorded them and made them popular.
I'm going to be full nerd mode for one sec sorry 🤓 Bach was still present in classical music because his son(s) JC and CPE Bach were very popular. His name wasn't at all forgotten as many composers like mozart and haydn studied his work a lot. It wasn't until the 19th century with Mendelssohn that Bach had a revival, when he performed one of Bach cantatas with his orchestra! Small correction, still it's incredible how ahead of his time he was... He didn't care about timbre much but to look at how he would have sounded with a huge orchestra, I highly recommend you to check out Stokowski's arrangement of the passacaglia and fugue in c minor. It sounds so epic it could be a Dark souls ost haha
Yeah, I can't imagine even 1% of the population ever thought of a Bach fugue: "yeah, this is something I could play on the harpsichord." He knew how to make a living as a Lutheran church music composer and he lived long enough to compose a lot. Not saying he wasn't great, just putting him in his context.
@@Winspur1982Wasn't he something like a 5th generation church organist and composer? It was just the family business for him (which his sons carried on), he just happened to be really excellent at it.
I constantly played the Castlevania games when I was a kid (I'm old). These songs are baked into my brain. Super Castlevania IV specifically has a special place in my heart.
@@DezorianGuy Yes, but he's been covering more of the greats just lately. I'm also assuming that, unlike your average gamer, he spent more of his free time perfecting his craft, so he's bound to know less about games than you and me.
Well I'm assuming he's younger and he's discovering all of these classics in his own time, regardless of the progress it's intriguing to see his opinion on it no matter how slow the process is I guess
It’s funny to see you "discovering" this type of music and explaining it to all of us, I personally study Baroque and Classical music periodes at a conservatory where my assignments are basically writing counterpoints for 4 voices, and it’s really cool seeing someone who had a totally different approach of music as mine digging through that type of work. Love your videos like always keep going please !
100% as a speedrunner who has thousands and thousands of hours in the CV series, I have said this for years. Especially notable with the pedal points in bloody tears or some of the other tracks that you have highlighted. As far as my favorite CV ost, it would have to be Castlevania 3 Dracula's Curse. Great stuff as always, thank you!
My music history teacher used to say that two things make Bach's music. Sequence and cadence. Repeat the same melody several times starting from a different diatonic step, then wrap up with a nice I-IV-IIb-V-I.
Fun fact: the Game Boy Castlevania II soundtrack also uses a portion of Debussy's Passepied (for part of Dracula's castle, IIRC)! I remember being blown away by that discovery when I was younger.
It also uses a part of Bach's Chromatic Fantasia as one of the boss themes. Which to my knowledge, is the only example in the series of a direct use of a Bach piece. Edit: My bad, it was mentioned in the video lol
Konami used to make some of the best music in the industry. Castlevania was one of the leading franchise soundtracks along with series like Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, Zone of the Enders, Contra, and the list goes on. They were even leaders in the music game genre. I think, like Square, they just tapped into what gaming music meant and what it could do to enhance their games. For a very long time, they had all my favorite gaming music. The Castlevania series still has some of my favorite gaming music of all time. Favorite tracks include Iron Blue Intention, Bloody Tears, Bloodlines, Vampire Killer, and The Tragic Prince.
First and foremost, absolutely love seeing you do some coverage of the Castlevania soundtracks, they truly were top tier for decades. Here's hoping the series makes a comeback before too long. Also, I'm so accustomed to seeing people who run channels similar to yours saying that they have perfect pitch that I guess I had assumed you did. The impressive factor of your content just took another step up learning that you, in fact, don't have perfect pitch. Some other Castlevania favorites... "Dance of Pales" from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and "Belmont's Theme" from Lords of Shadow.
They’re doing a lot of collars with games at the moment, Dead Cells has a DLC, Dead By Daylight is getting one soon, but I don’t have high hopes that they’ll make another game in the series :(
@@da703Konami is being so dumb about it. Grimoire of Souls is pretty cool but if they really want it to get attention they’d release it for Switch and tie a new game into the popular anime
Its that first intro of Castlevania IV, the ominous low strings when you cross the brixge at the start into the organ intro when you are in the castle into that gothic-classic rock soundtrack, amazing
castlevania overall is imo the videogame series with the strongest catalogue of music. literally every single entry has at least a handful of awesome tunes in its OST, some are basically flawless like SotN or CV3
Hmm. I mean, I guess it depends on how you define "strongest" here. Because if you want consistency, I tend to think Final Fantasies 1-10, largely due to Nobuo Uematsu, have the most consistent high quality and variety to their scores. At the same time, I think Koji Kondo over at Nintendo managed to create the strongest, most memorable tunes and melodies of the 80s and 90s (I mean, you hear the Zelda theme once and it's burned into your brain). Castlevania is definitely up there, and in the top ten, but . . . it's mostly inspired by very specific types of classical and baroque themes, which limits its range a bit. At least until they get better instrumentation in the PSX era with SotN and add in a large amount of rock into the mix.
@@MidlifeCrisisJoe there's a good amount of rock and contemporary influences from the first title onward too, but I get your point. mostly it's a matter of opinion, if you take the top 5 or top 10 series music wise, it's really down to what you vibe with more, I think. And CV is that for me overall. It surely helps I really like Baroque music.
@@ninjaguyYT that's like cheating, Smash has some of the best music from all those series with already great music combined in one game. unless you're talking about the smash exclusive pieces, of which many are fantastic too
I love how Charles gets all excited and wtf'ed, hahaha. You can feel his love for music during those parts. Wish I had a music teacher like him. I'm not a _musician_ anymore (maybe an audiophile/appreciator nowadays) but my former teacher was coooooold like seriously COLD! Sometimes I wonder if he really liked what he did or it was just inertia working.
14:00 By the way, this technique of playing a drone note in between every other note in a melodic line, I found out, is called "Bariolage". I can't believe it took me like 15 years after playing that kind of stuff in metal, etc. to finally learn it's terminology.
@@romajimamulo That is when some notes change while others do not. Like when you hold a chord, and lift up one of the notes to a different one, again and again.
@@VexylObbyIt’s the same idea, the base note of Bloody Tears remains the same as the other notes build the intro melody around it. It gives a lilted swing to the rhythm
Everyone is always glazing tf out of Mozart, but it's always been Beethoven and Bach the ones for me. It is their classical music that still holds up to this day!!
What I find extra astonishing about this is there are 3 intertwined melodies that you can hear, but programming it was more complicated than that. There used to be a video on RUclips somewhere that shows each individual channel the NES is using. When just the square or triangle waves are played, it’s not like hearing the “bass” or “middle” melody. But somehow put together, there are 3 distinct melodies and room for sound effects.
I've been waiting for a Castlevania video forever! Please do a Part 2, there are so many great songs to choose from. Catacombs from Circle of the Moon Sinking Old Sanctuary Silence of Daylight Successor of Fate The intro music, Prayer, and Beginning from Castlevania 3. I could go on.
Hey Charles* just chiming in to say I really love the way you talk about music not just in terms of the piece itself but how it meshes with the media it was created for. I especially enjoyed your video on Gehrman, the First Hunter. It's great to see someone with enthusiasm about the creative decisions made - and why they were made rather than just saying whoaaaa this is amazinggggg.
A few years ago I tried to learn Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D Minor and I eventually realized that that one particular section (bars 12-15) works with the same notes and structure as the staccato part of Bloody Tears, (or rather, vice versa) to the point where I would sometimes accidentally switch from Bach to Castlevania as I was playing that part.
Andras Schiff is my favorite pianist for Bach. He plays Bach with such a warm tone that is unmatched by other pianists. And the warmth works surprisingly well for Bach.
@@DesmaadDon't disgress. The man behind all these accomplishments was also a war apologist (the abusing of Japanese women in WW2 by foreigners). I can agree he was talented, but I didn't shed a tear when he passed.
I don't play any musical instruments, but I love your enthusiasm! Original Castlevania is one of my favorite side-scrolling games, and I've alway loved the soundtrack, so I had to check out this video. 👍
Great to see some much needed love for Castlevania OST,, especially the GB Bloody Tears. Personally loved that track for ages. You're reaction is 100% deserved. That track is mind blowing, might go try and pick it apart right now!
My vote for more of a Castlevania deep dive, especially for counter melodies, is Aquarius and Mad Forest in Castlevania III! And Simon's theme from Castlevania IV.
8:34 you just unlocked some hidden core memories that I completely forgot I had...it was years of listening to my older sister learn this piece, and then even more years of learning it myself afterwards and struggling with it. Good times with Bach though 🤣
The chromatic fantasia in Castlevania 2 for the gameboy was my first introduction to baroque music a few years ago. It was unlike anything I had ever heard, I was so entranced by it and it sent me down a rabbit hole of baroque/classical music.
I'm so glad that the Castlevania Legends version of Bloody Tears got featured. It was so fun seeing someone else have the same reaction I had once the song gets to the remixed part.
What is amazing about this is that these soundtracks had so much put into them and TO THIS DAY, we remember them. They touch us in our hearts during the happiest times of our childhood. Nostalgia can make anything great, but even without it, the effort and creativity put into this OST is awe inspiring.
I mean, it's clear Bach influenced rock solos, and, well, all music. It's so sad that he wasn't even discovered for several decades after his death. We almost lost Bach's history... It's an incredible story to study and one that I think would make for a good video here. Bach did A LOT during his time on Earth.
i always love the hype and energy and genuine love and surprise you bring to all your videos. You are so 100% INTO it and watching you discover stuff that blows your mind is so great. I love it every time it gets me so hyped too! Its infectious!
Um, *ayckshually* 99% of Simon's Quest does not take place in Dracula's castle. Castlevania's version of Dracula was born in the mid-11th century and became a vampire at age 32. The 15th century part of the timeline that corresponds to the historical Dracula was when Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse and Castlevania: Curse of Darkness take place. Simon Belmont, the protagonist of the original Castlevania and Simon's Quest, fought Dracula in 1691 and 1698, which is a much closer match for the Baroque period that Bach was active in. However, the game that just uses a Bach melody wholesale is Belmont's Revenge, which stars Simon's ancestor Christopher Belmont and takes place in 1591, exactly 100 years before the original, making it anachronistic from a Doylist perspective (unless you wanna believe Bach ripped Dracula). Also, the Vampire Killer arrange sample used in 13:00 isn't originally from Grimoire of Souls, but rather reused from Castlevania Judgment, which came out 11 years earlier in 2008. Nerd rant aside, I'd say the most Bach-like pieces that spring to mind from Castlevania are easily Wood Carving Partita from Symphony of the Night and its successor, Bibliotheca Ex Machina from Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, both beautiful pieces. If you want to hear Bach pieces used in other video games I'd recommend checking out the Famicom Detective Club games, both of which have fantastic original soundtracks in their own right; the first one has the piece "Ayashiro Family" which is actually a cover of Invention 13 in A Minor BWV 784, while the second has "Principal's Room" covering Invention 15 in B Minor, BWV 786.
Love that you covered CastleVania music! It's great to hear how Bach influenced this series! I've enjoyed these games since about the beginning when I first played CV1 on NES. What a series! There are some fan games called the Lecarde Chronicles that did some great remixes of some of the classic tracks from the series if anyone is interested to hear some fan love! One more fan called Arkhouse has an album with more great remixes I also recommended. Glad fans keep resurrecting this series. I'm ok with a part 2 to this if possible!
Ehhh.. I think we need to let that one go - Made in Abyss is a minefield of thinly veiled problematic content even if individual elements are cool like the music and concept etc. I won't get too much into the weeds about that but if you've seen it (or especially if you've read it) you'll know what I mean.
@@MHVideos777 Made in Abyss is ... both brilliant and disturbing at the same time. It's one of the few shows I actually couldn't finish. It's especially annoying because the first part of the first season you're thinking ok theirs some weird stuff here but pretty standard for anime and by the second season you get... Stuff that makes you want to vomit.
The anime is pretty sus, but the music is amazing and worth looking at. We can separate one artists music from another person's art they were involved in, right? Is there not hope in the human race being able to appreciate without agreeing with?
@@MHVideos777 and? He made a Harry Potter video like a year ago, and I’m ngl JK rowling’s impact on pop culture is way way worse than one manga that is creepy about its young characters (something that is frankly not unusual for anime)
Yeah the author’s the problematic one, not the composer. Kevin Penkin’s a brilliant composer, and Hanazeve Caradhina and ESPECIALLY Old Stories are beautiful pieces. I think he’d have a field day with the bitonality in Old Stories. Ngl Kevin’s work in Tower of God is pretty damn good too, I’d definitely watch to at video if he made it
Deadpool & Wolverine like a prayer when Wolverine puts on his mask. I mainly want to hear you go over where the orchestra really hits as he is putting the mask on
A little surprised in that last track that you didn't do a side-by-side comparison with Bach's fugue from Tocatta and Fugue in D minor. Still, an excellent breakdown of the baroque influences.
These send chills down my spine every time. Taku Iwasaki - Quiet Life (ending of Rurouni Kenshin OVA, but the whole OST in incredible really) Saito Tsuneyoshi - Aoi Chikyuu (OST Tide Line Blue, INCREDIBLE second part, you will be surprised) Tange Sakura - Hititsu Dake (OST Card Captor Sakura. Unfortunately I don't know the composer, but a seemingly children song can be a real tear-jerker with it's suprising harmony) Also I agree, Yoko Kanno deserves her separate video if not several!
@@francischambless5919 I can understand that. CV4 was a great game, and had some really good music. It felt groundbreaking at the time. TBH, I didn't love SotN at first. I specifically remember a buddy of mine buying a PlayStation specifically to play Final Fantasy 7, and got SotN as well. I was impressed with FF7, but then he told me, "you've gotta hear the music in the new Castlevania -- you're going to love it" ... and I was not initially blown away by it. "The samples are better, but other than that... I dunno.. it's okay I guess." But later I picked up my own PSX, and bought FF7 and SotN. That's when I fell in love with it. I last played through it, start to finish, about a year ago, and about four or five years before that too. Every few years I just have to play it again. IMO, CV4 holds up pretty well, but I don't feel that same compulsion. I do own it, and at some point I'll play it again, because it IS a good game. I could see someone preferring it, particularly if you were more inclined to 2D tile graphics and the SNES's signature sound. But for me, SotN is everything that was good about CV4 ramped up to 11, plus non-linear exploration, and charmingly terrible voice acting.
PLEASE take a closer look at Wood Carving Partita , one of the tracks from Castlevania Symphony of the Night. great music and such a perfect impression of bach harpsichord and violin concertos. Love it
It's an interesting song because it's classical instruments played with more modern rock writing. Then you go the other way with The Clock Tower. It's modern instruments with Baroque style writing.
I've heard Bloody Tears a million times, but somehow never heard the GameBoy version... my reaction to the progression changes were identical... WAHT?!
I'm not a pianist, but I very much enjoy your videos! Since I was a kid in the 80s who loved Castlevania, I've said that Bloody Tears is the best piece of music ever written for a video game. And to my ear, it hasn't been topped. Some Final Fantasy pieces have come close, but anytime I hear Bloody Tears I get chills.
I'm so glad I found your channel. Simon's quest was my first true video game love. I have always loved the music from Simon's Quest and early Castlevania games. Once I discovered Bach I was able to put two and two together. Also, other music that incorporates bach-like elements, check out the band Dance with the Dead and their song March of the Dead. It's totally badass
Bach and Beethoven. The two people who literally said “you might not be ready for that, but your offspring will love it.” They are really metalheads if you pay attention
Yes Charles, the Gameboy version of Bloody Tears somehow slaps more than the original or any remakes. No notes as to why, just does. Edit; I wonder what your opinion on Coheed and Cambria is. They do some wacky stuff. Especially when Claudio whips out the Double Neck.
@CharlesCornellStudios Castlevania: Symphony of the Night features a piece entitled Wood Carving Partita, which was very clearly inspired by Bach's work. In fact, the piece includes a passage that is literally a variation on a theme found in Bach's Fugue in B minor. Netherlands Bach Society YT channel has a performance of this piece. The theme presents at approximately the 1 minute 12 seconds mark, and the variation can be heard if you search up the Wood Carving Partita on YT, just 26 seconds in. Just thought I'd share this awesome piece of trivia with the community.
id love to listen to the references you made but a search of "Fugue in B Minor" on their channel comes up with a ton of hits! and not sure whose video of Wood Carving Partita you are referring to?
I spent so much of my childhood having absolutely no idea what to do in this game, so I listened to the soundtrack a lot. It made me question whether I could read for a while, until I realized that all the text was complete nonsense. Good times....
@@christianlesniak Not all of it. There are some villagers and hidden clue books telling the truth amongst the trolls, but you have to use common sense to read between the lines, since they were so limited on letter count
@@anterax4097 If some villager had told me to take some kind of orb and then kneel for 10 seconds somewhere on some particular screen, that would've really helped me out.
Look up Paul Denais on the tube. Denais studied at the Institut grégorien in Paris, being a pupil of Philippe de Brémond d’Ars, born 1889, a friend of Widor and pupil of Vierne. Denais was very close to Geneviève de La Salle, born 1905, the best pupil of Joseph Bonnet and also his vicar. Bonnet was himself the best and the most faithful pupil of Guilmant. Denais was also a pupil of André Fleury. Paul Denais was appointed organist at Saint-Eugène church in Paris from 1970 to 1975, then organist and composer in Norway. He is the last known representant of the traditional French organ school, called the school of Lemmens who was the teacher of Guilmant and Widor). Paul Denais plays J.S. Bach exactly the way it used to be done in the 19th century.
Castlevania II was awesome, but too easy. I played it as a weekend rental and beat it in three days. Right before I had to return it. I miss those days sometimes.
Some of my favorite soundtracks come from Castlevania. Super Castlevania IV is one of my favorite game scores of all time, with Theme of Simon being one of the most badass songs ever. Bloodlines on Sega Genesis is another amazing one that deserves a LOT more attention.
Ah, yes... bloody tears. I consider that song to be one of the definitive songs for the Castlevania series as a whole. I've heard it so many times in so many different arrangements.
The Castlevania music was done by a Bach scholar, yes, but that doesn't mean Bach would've written music in the style of Castlevania if he were alive today. It also doesn't mean he would've wanted to write his music for a Castlevania videogame, had one been made back then. The game quotes Bach but the games also contain a lot of elements of rock music of the 1980s. Castlevania only uses Bach's music in order to invoke imagery of a particular time period (castles, cathedrals, giant organs etc.). It wouldn't have made sense to do that in the 1700s. On the other hand, if Bach were alive today I just don't think he'd be quite as prolific a composer, as the 21st century music scene in Berlin or Leipzig isn't nearly as prominent as the scenes in LA, NYC, London and Tokyo....the soil isn't rich enough for his great seed to have taken root in the part of the world he lived. Some would say Bach might've walked the same path as Hans Zimmer, both being German composers of significant talent. But Zimmer is very much a nonconformist, while Bach was a man of the church. I think their personalities are too different to make that assumption. "Castlevania utilizes the style of J.S. Bach in its soundtrack" is about the only honest take we can make here.
I've been a musician since i was a kid, and I really love how you clearly defined what Bach's music is about! The independent melodies creating harmonies just clicked for me. And now I understand why Bach is considered so difficult to play. Also, there's a clear style in Bach's music that defines the Baroque era. Great music content! Love the videos! More video game music, please!!!
I'm not sure how it gets more epic than SLAYING vampires rocking literal Bach 😂😂😂 Which Castlevania game has the best soundtrack??
please consider checking out Gynoug on the Megadrive (aka Wings of Wor)
your the bob ross of bach hugs to you
Symphony of the Night cause it’s just…it’s just Symphony of the Night, man lol
I think the most iconic is definitely the "symphony of the night" ost
My top 3 are SotN, Super Castlevania IV, and Rondo of Blood.
The long time composer for the Castlevania series, Michiru Yamane, wrote her college thesis based on the music of Bach.
No surprise, I guess. Japan had great composers for games for whatever reason, they still do.
She also came back for Iga to do the music for Bloodstained. :)
Thanks for the interesting info!
@@peterjansen4826 Japan teaches music at schools. That's probably a good reason.
She didnt write music for the NES games
Actually Simon Belmont (which is the main character of Castlevania and Castlevania 2) lived in the seventeenth century so using Bach/Baroque music is very spot on
@CharlesCornell0-t8k You're not tricking anyone bud
el de castlevania 1 es simon?
@@sabin97 Sí
Sheeeee
I'm also from the 17th century, and I can confirm we were ALL rocking out to Bach, back in the day. 👍
Since Simon's Quest takes place in the 1600s, when Bach was born, it actually makes perfect sense for the time period.
I can’t enjoy the music because the guy is way too enthusiastic about the music all the time
@hamiltobergeran5305 Then listen to the music on its own if you don't want his input. Surely you don't come to a commentary channel with the expectation that there'd be no commentary?
1698, specifically
I don't know even how they survived back then when it turned nighttime. It must have been tough with the waves of reanimated dead walking around.
and its not uncommon for Dracula or vampires in general to be depicted as centuries old
Interesting fact. A woman wrote the very 1st Castlevania Theme. She used a pseudo name James Banana. Her real name is Kinuyo Yamashita. Kinuyo Yamashita (山下 絹代, Yamashita Kinuyo) is a Japanese composer and musician known for her contributions in video games. Her best known soundtrack is Konami's Castlevania, which was also her debut work.
I didn't know her pseudonym though haha. That's awesome
Thanks for the fact bro :D
Castlevania soundtracks are incredible.....but Symphony of the Night is on a whole 'nother level and deserves a talk on it's own.
Without a doubt. If you don't know all you need to know by the Name Entry screen, I can't help you.
The intro movie, the gorgeous choir, the theme from the library ... I would have a heck of a time picking the best game of all time, but SotN would be at the top of a short list.
This.
heck yes.
16:17 Whaaat!
Yea a Symphony of the Night video will have to be like four hours long because nearly every track is a total masterpiece. I would love to see Charles break it down!
And they did this on an NES with 4 sound channels. Epic.
For some reason Konami had the key to great music on that old platform. How other developers couldn't replicate that same great sound is beyond me
Just proves Konami was the s*** back in the day
2 square waves, a sawtooth wave, and a noise channel.
In a cave. With a box of scraps!
There's no sawtooth on the original NES, the 3rd channel is a triangle wave. In addition to the noise channel, there's also a 5th channel for playing 1-bit DPCM samples.
@@KimStennabbCaesar "There's no sawtooth on the original NES"
Which is a real shame, if you ask me. NES music tends to relegate its bass lines to the wimpy triangle wave.
Konami had a solution with their VRC6 chip, which had additional sound channels (including a sawtooth, and no triangle) along with its memory mapping capabilities. They used that chip in three of their Famicom cartridge games, including _Castlevania III_ (aka _Akumajō Densetsu,_ whose music sounds great with it). The problem: it only worked on the Famicom; the NES removed the audio input pin necessary for it to work from the cartridge port, moving it to the expansion port that no one ever ended up using. Technically, they could have worked around that, but I doubt anyone would have liked a game cart with a cable out the side that you had to hook up every time you wanted to play that game, or another accessory of some kind.
One of the best moments I can remember was my first weekend at MAGFest (Music and Gaming Festival) in 2012 where I not only got to meet Michiru Yamane (composer of the original Castlevania) but also went to see Bit Brigade (a metal band with an NES speedrunner as one of the band members) play her game live! She was softly crying while watching an audience of 5000 people enjoy her music as another member of the audience.
Aww, you're making me tear up. I'm so glad Yamane felt so appreciated, she definitely deserves it.
This is so amazing! I saw BitBrigade recently and it was spectacular to see a live speed run with accompanying live music. To know that Michiru got to see her music loved and appreciated in that moment brings tears to my eyes. Also how have I never heard of MAGFest!?!?
Why is my nose burning & my eyes watering 😭 Influential masters quietly witnessing the MASSIVE impact they have had with total humility & grace. It's so beautiful & heartwarming.
did you see egoraptor there!!
"Wood Carved Partitia" that goes from haunting to organ shredding.
Hopefully next video he’ll get to later games in the series.
Castlevania SOTN
BACH! A colossal syllable, one that makes composers tremble, brings performers to their knees, beatifies the Bach-lover, and apparently bores the daylights out of everyone else.
- Leonard Bernstein, On Music
You could say that he makes composers _treble_
@@Feniquis How _clefer_ of you!
Guyyyyyyys...
@@plebcrabslayer Counterpoint: yes
This got ritarted fast.
And not a word about Satoe Terashima - one of if not the greatest mysteries in classic video game making lore. The composer of Castlevania's music (along with Kinuyo Yamashita, who is well known) is known by pseudonym only - but not a pic exists, and no other known work of hers is known of.
There is one low-quality photo online, and we do know she has worked on some other 80s Konami games, like The Goonies. But yeah, after around 1987, she just pretty much disappears.
According to Yamashita, Terashima was actually the one who composed Vampire Killer, as well as Stalker, Out of Time, and Voyager. She also likely helped out on the Simon's Quest and Haunted Castle soundtracks.
Michiru Yamane though is the legend who created Symphony of the Night's epic OST and she gets more recognition due to Symphony still seen as one of the greatest games of all time in any category
And no mention of Yngwie Malmsteen.
C2 was HUUUGELY inspired by him.
The manor music in C2, "Dwelling of Doom" is basically a remix of his "Far Beyond the Sun".
I believe that without Malmsteen in the 80's, Konami may never have chosen the route of baroque metal.
Look at the timeline: Yngwie released this music in 1984 and he was huge in Japan.
Yngwie is brilliant
@@fjorddenierbear4832
I'm a big metal head and that little island of Japan has been holding it down musically for decades now.
Bloody Tears is what convinced me to start the Piano. First song I learned to play. it's been like 5 years now.
That was me around 20 years ago now. Don't stop, but give yourself room to breathe 🎉
Guy im working on code for plays and has had paying gigs all week.
How Charles does a Castlevania music review WITHOUT discussing the tracks on "Symphony of the Night" is beyond me. For most of us, that game is PEAK Castlevania. It honestly deserves it's own video with the soundtrack it has.
Maybe because each and every track on that damn game deserves a video on its own. SotN is one of the best OSTs, not only in videogames, but in any media, ever. Michiru Yamane is up there with John Williams, Ennio Morricone and Koji Kondo in the music pantheon.
Talking about Bach in Castlevania without going over Wood Carving Partita from the library of Symphony of the Night should be a crime sir! It has got to be the most baroque style piece in the whole series. Harpsichord Concerto in Castlevania.
Agreed. Sotn soundtrack is the pinnacle masterpiece of the whole series.
Playing SotN on my Miyoo Mini (again, lol) and I realized earlier that the jazzy funky stuff they're playing in the colosseum is 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 like how did I not notice how hard this gets down 😅
@@thepolarphantasm2319 The coliseum track is one of my if not my favorite track from SOTN.
@@MJG206 ...and right as I finished checking this notification a schmoo dropped me a crissaegrim 👍
Even the library gets dope music, lol. That librarian knows what's up
@thepolarphantasm2319 Wandering Ghosts is the name of the track, and yes it's my favorite.
I think the composer for Bloody Tears on the Gameboy had the mindset to subvert the listeners expectations every chance they had.
At this point, there's a very good chance that the player knows the original song, and every few seconds this player would be thinking... "what was that? what just happened? where is he taking this?" and the best thing is, it works!
Familiar for nostalgia, but different enough to remain fresh and interesting.
Man, I was actually bullied as a kid by some chud in elementary school for listening to the Castlevania soundtrack on my walkman, and it's strangely vindicating somehow to see you get this amped about it, decades later. Thanks for doing what you do, Charles!
@@reaonford8590 Well if all you do is think about the pimps and chuds, you’ll never appreciate New York City.
Bullies are automatically idiots. If you're pissing them off, you're doing something right.
Keep your head high & do what you love.
Chud life!
Ha!
Vindication.
Forgive that kid.
always stand up for yourself, even if you get beat up
NES and SNES musical composers were all frickin geniuses. What they did with 8 and 16 bit compression is absolutely unreal.
Dude there were some crappy games on those consoles, not all games were good
You're confusing 8-bit and 16-bit _audio_ (recorded sound files) with the programmable sound generator of an 8-bit CPU console and the sample-based sound chip of a 16-bit CPU console.
Castlevania combines gothic classical and rock music to create a sophisticated symphony.
That's a bit of an oversimplification it plays with all kinds of genres and sometimes it just plays it straight no fusion whatsoever.
A symphony... of the night?
Of the night
Bach pieces
0:00
and 8:32
Fugue No. 2 in C Minor, BWV 847
2:11
Chromatic Fantasy in D Minor, BWV 903
3:52
Keyboard Concerto No.5 in F Minor, BWV 1056: III. Presto
Thank you for this! To add to it, what Charles put on for comparison at 3:53 was the harpsichord version of Concerto No. 5, so BWV 1056 instead.
it's not only just counterpoint. it's also the use of circle of fiths progressions that make the music so memorable.
I simply cannot *WAIT* until he covers Symphony of the Night. ;) I mean holy--err, UNHOLY--sheet music, Batman! Charles C. is gonna be throwin' holy water all over his ivories.
explain urself
Bloody Tears is my run music on loop. It never fails to energize me
It's so ironic that as much as we all love Bach and rally behind him as a representative of music in the Baroque era, Bach wasn't very well liked as a composer. Folks recognized he was a great keyboard player, but no one really liked the music he wrote, considering it too complex and too difficult to perform practically, more so his works for organ and harpsichord. Lucky not all of his work was discarded, folks simply filing it away and largely ignoring and forgetting about it for centuries. It wasn't until the 20th century during Neo Classicism that Bach was rediscovered and folks fell in love with it.
EDIT: I've been corrected. Felix Mendelssohn in the 19th century brought J. S. Bach's revival. My original comment stems from the 6 cello suites with which I'm more familiar, which weren't largely brought to public light until the 20th century when Pablo Casals recorded them and made them popular.
"Come on, Johann, write something that normal people can play!"
I'm going to be full nerd mode for one sec sorry 🤓
Bach was still present in classical music because his son(s) JC and CPE Bach were very popular. His name wasn't at all forgotten as many composers like mozart and haydn studied his work a lot.
It wasn't until the 19th century with Mendelssohn that Bach had a revival, when he performed one of Bach cantatas with his orchestra!
Small correction, still it's incredible how ahead of his time he was...
He didn't care about timbre much but to look at how he would have sounded with a huge orchestra, I highly recommend you to check out Stokowski's arrangement of the passacaglia and fugue in c minor. It sounds so epic it could be a Dark souls ost haha
@@nathanbegel4505 Well said. Been a while since I was in music history (since 2015).
Yeah, I can't imagine even 1% of the population ever thought of a Bach fugue: "yeah, this is something I could play on the harpsichord." He knew how to make a living as a Lutheran church music composer and he lived long enough to compose a lot. Not saying he wasn't great, just putting him in his context.
@@Winspur1982Wasn't he something like a 5th generation church organist and composer? It was just the family business for him (which his sons carried on), he just happened to be really excellent at it.
I constantly played the Castlevania games when I was a kid (I'm old). These songs are baked into my brain. Super Castlevania IV specifically has a special place in my heart.
Amazing, somehow underrated soundtrack. So many different moods and experimentation with tempo swings
The first stage of S.C.IV soundtrack blew my ass off when I was 10 years old.
Charles is basically experiencing what our childhood and puberty was like as far as videogames are concerned, and I'm here for it.
And that's I went so hard into the Fresh Aire series by Mannheim Steamroller waay before their Christmas CD brought even MORE attention to them!
You understand that he isn't new to video games right?
@@DezorianGuy Yes, but he's been covering more of the greats just lately. I'm also assuming that, unlike your average gamer, he spent more of his free time perfecting his craft, so he's bound to know less about games than you and me.
@@BeastOfSoda fair enaugh, it's a good thing we have chaps like him promoting video game music to a broader audience.
Well I'm assuming he's younger and he's discovering all of these classics in his own time, regardless of the progress it's intriguing to see his opinion on it no matter how slow the process is I guess
It’s funny to see you "discovering" this type of music and explaining it to all of us, I personally study Baroque and Classical music periodes at a conservatory where my assignments are basically writing counterpoints for 4 voices, and it’s really cool seeing someone who had a totally different approach of music as mine digging through that type of work. Love your videos like always keep going please !
@CharlesCornell3 lmao sorry but I’m not 10 years old try to find a real way to make a living next time, anyway report this account please
100% as a speedrunner who has thousands and thousands of hours in the CV series, I have said this for years. Especially notable with the pedal points in bloody tears or some of the other tracks that you have highlighted. As far as my favorite CV ost, it would have to be Castlevania 3 Dracula's Curse. Great stuff as always, thank you!
For that counterpoint example at roughly 10:20 it is in Clocktower from CV3 as well.
Castlevania 3 was one of my favorites to play, I love that game. Syfa is awesome.
Dracula’s curse is also my favorite too. Clock tower and evergreen might be my favorites from that game.
Idk if i can have a favorite. They are all goat
My music history teacher used to say that two things make Bach's music. Sequence and cadence. Repeat the same melody several times starting from a different diatonic step, then wrap up with a nice I-IV-IIb-V-I.
I never thought I'd ever get to hear Charles play "Vampire Killer." This episode is a fever dream...and a dream come true.
Well, it's a Castlevania video. If he didn't play it, there would be torches and pitchforks a plenty. lol
@@AdamBladeTaylor No, you’re 100% right. But I also never thought I’d get to see a Castlevania video from him at all lol
@@AdamBladeTaylori am just watching the video and needed to know you reference this song.
As a kid both playing Bach and playing Castlevania II in 1988, this tickles my nostalgia bone.
Fun fact: the Game Boy Castlevania II soundtrack also uses a portion of Debussy's Passepied (for part of Dracula's castle, IIRC)! I remember being blown away by that discovery when I was younger.
Same here! My parents were listening to classic music and Passpied came on and I was like "where have I heard this before?!"
It also uses a part of Bach's Chromatic Fantasia as one of the boss themes.
Which to my knowledge, is the only example in the series of a direct use of a Bach piece.
Edit: My bad, it was mentioned in the video lol
Konami used to make some of the best music in the industry. Castlevania was one of the leading franchise soundtracks along with series like Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, Zone of the Enders, Contra, and the list goes on. They were even leaders in the music game genre. I think, like Square, they just tapped into what gaming music meant and what it could do to enhance their games. For a very long time, they had all my favorite gaming music.
The Castlevania series still has some of my favorite gaming music of all time. Favorite tracks include Iron Blue Intention, Bloody Tears, Bloodlines, Vampire Killer, and The Tragic Prince.
So much of that 8-bit 16-bit music is amazing. They did so much with so little.
Literally every track in this game is an iconic banger. We need this sound track turned into a a full symphony.
First and foremost, absolutely love seeing you do some coverage of the Castlevania soundtracks, they truly were top tier for decades. Here's hoping the series makes a comeback before too long.
Also, I'm so accustomed to seeing people who run channels similar to yours saying that they have perfect pitch that I guess I had assumed you did. The impressive factor of your content just took another step up learning that you, in fact, don't have perfect pitch.
Some other Castlevania favorites... "Dance of Pales" from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and "Belmont's Theme" from Lords of Shadow.
They’re doing a lot of collars with games at the moment, Dead Cells has a DLC, Dead By Daylight is getting one soon, but I don’t have high hopes that they’ll make another game in the series :(
@@da703Konami is being so dumb about it. Grimoire of Souls is pretty cool but if they really want it to get attention they’d release it for Switch and tie a new game into the popular anime
Being suggested a video that confirms that Castlevania's music is awesome is definitely the best thing that happened to me today
For the Saturn version of Symphony of the Night, there is a jazz band version of one of the main themes. It's called Beginning.
Its that first intro of Castlevania IV, the ominous low strings when you cross the brixge at the start into the organ intro when you are in the castle into that gothic-classic rock soundtrack, amazing
castlevania overall is imo the videogame series with the strongest catalogue of music.
literally every single entry has at least a handful of awesome tunes in its OST, some are basically flawless like SotN or CV3
Hmm. I mean, I guess it depends on how you define "strongest" here. Because if you want consistency, I tend to think Final Fantasies 1-10, largely due to Nobuo Uematsu, have the most consistent high quality and variety to their scores. At the same time, I think Koji Kondo over at Nintendo managed to create the strongest, most memorable tunes and melodies of the 80s and 90s (I mean, you hear the Zelda theme once and it's burned into your brain).
Castlevania is definitely up there, and in the top ten, but . . . it's mostly inspired by very specific types of classical and baroque themes, which limits its range a bit. At least until they get better instrumentation in the PSX era with SotN and add in a large amount of rock into the mix.
@@MidlifeCrisisJoe there's a good amount of rock and contemporary influences from the first title onward too, but I get your point.
mostly it's a matter of opinion, if you take the top 5 or top 10 series music wise, it's really down to what you vibe with more, I think.
And CV is that for me overall. It surely helps I really like Baroque music.
Nah, super smash Bros
@@ninjaguyYT that's like cheating, Smash has some of the best music from all those series with already great music combined in one game.
unless you're talking about the smash exclusive pieces, of which many are fantastic too
Don’t forget Ys
I love how Charles gets all excited and wtf'ed, hahaha. You can feel his love for music during those parts. Wish I had a music teacher like him. I'm not a _musician_ anymore (maybe an audiophile/appreciator nowadays) but my former teacher was coooooold like seriously COLD! Sometimes I wonder if he really liked what he did or it was just inertia working.
14:00 By the way, this technique of playing a drone note in between every other note in a melodic line, I found out, is called "Bariolage". I can't believe it took me like 15 years after playing that kind of stuff in metal, etc. to finally learn it's terminology.
Is it also called pedal point or is that something else?
THANK YOU!!!! I knew it absolutely _had_ to have a name, but I could never find out what it was.
@@romajimamulo That is when some notes change while others do not. Like when you hold a chord, and lift up one of the notes to a different one, again and again.
@@VexylObby huh. Weird, well, glad to know it's Bariolage
@@VexylObbyIt’s the same idea, the base note of Bloody Tears remains the same as the other notes build the intro melody around it. It gives a lilted swing to the rhythm
Everyone is always glazing tf out of Mozart, but it's always been Beethoven and Bach the ones for me. It is their classical music that still holds up to this day!!
"Riddle" from Castlevania 3 will blow your mind
Riddle is such a dope track!
I prefer Clockwork.
My favorite is just "Beginning" from Castlevania 3. Sets the stage so well!
"Aquarius" is super awesome, too.
@@jacekmw Especially on the Japanese version with the VRC6 chip.
Castlevania has the most amazing soundtracks ever🥹. I love dissecting video game OSTs. I listen to every little detail
What I find extra astonishing about this is there are 3 intertwined melodies that you can hear, but programming it was more complicated than that. There used to be a video on RUclips somewhere that shows each individual channel the NES is using. When just the square or triangle waves are played, it’s not like hearing the “bass” or “middle” melody. But somehow put together, there are 3 distinct melodies and room for sound effects.
Speaking of the connection between Bach and music from Castlevania, *Wood Carving Partita* deserves _special attention_
I've been waiting for a Castlevania video forever! Please do a Part 2, there are so many great songs to choose from.
Catacombs from Circle of the Moon
Sinking Old Sanctuary
Silence of Daylight
Successor of Fate
The intro music, Prayer, and Beginning from Castlevania 3.
I could go on.
Castlevania on the N64, The Castle Center music is just amazing. Really nostalgic and a gratis composition.
ruclips.net/video/iWQ1p7CYzt0/видео.htmlsi=wjIdf_Qq1-kbrTyD
i love the mirroring princeples and the concepts that allow you to play the same song many different ways
Castlevania - Symphony Of The Night, is my favorite. A masterpiece.
I know nothing of music but wish he had touched the SOTN track on this . Great video!
Bach DID, in fact, write Video Game Music! ;) See Gyruss Stage 1 for the NES.
One of the tracks from castlvania 2 has stuck in my head for past 34 years. I still find myself humming that tune.
Hey Charles* just chiming in to say I really love the way you talk about music not just in terms of the piece itself but how it meshes with the media it was created for. I especially enjoyed your video on Gehrman, the First Hunter. It's great to see someone with enthusiasm about the creative decisions made - and why they were made rather than just saying whoaaaa this is amazinggggg.
💯
A few years ago I tried to learn Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D Minor and I eventually realized that that one particular section (bars 12-15) works with the same notes and structure as the staccato part of Bloody Tears, (or rather, vice versa) to the point where I would sometimes accidentally switch from Bach to Castlevania as I was playing that part.
Because I heard The Consouls jazz cover first, I never realised how Bach-like Simon's Quest is. Great video!
The Consouls are excellent!
Andras Schiff is my favorite pianist for Bach. He plays Bach with such a warm tone that is unmatched by other pianists. And the warmth works surprisingly well for Bach.
Bach always reminds me of the NES Dragon Warrior music. I want to say it is the Brandenburg Concertos, in particular.
The composer for that series, Koichi Sugiyama, was classically trained, after all (also a fascist, but I'm digressing).
@@DesmaadDon't disgress. The man behind all these accomplishments was also a war apologist (the abusing of Japanese women in WW2 by foreigners).
I can agree he was talented, but I didn't shed a tear when he passed.
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
Notice that with each video, Charles' chin is raised higher and higher - one day, he might instal the camera on the ceiling .... we will never know
His chin is high…makes me trust him.
I don't play any musical instruments, but I love your enthusiasm! Original Castlevania is one of my favorite side-scrolling games, and I've alway loved the soundtrack, so I had to check out this video. 👍
That OG gameboy version of bloody tears was sick, never heard that one. I would love to hear a modern arrangement using those ideas.
Best version of it I've ever heard, someone needs to tackle this asap
Great to see some much needed love for Castlevania OST,, especially the GB Bloody Tears. Personally loved that track for ages. You're reaction is 100% deserved. That track is mind blowing, might go try and pick it apart right now!
My vote for more of a Castlevania deep dive, especially for counter melodies, is Aquarius and Mad Forest in Castlevania III! And Simon's theme from Castlevania IV.
8:34 you just unlocked some hidden core memories that I completely forgot I had...it was years of listening to my older sister learn this piece, and then even more years of learning it myself afterwards and struggling with it.
Good times with Bach though 🤣
The chromatic fantasia in Castlevania 2 for the gameboy was my first introduction to baroque music a few years ago. It was unlike anything I had ever heard, I was so entranced by it and it sent me down a rabbit hole of baroque/classical music.
I'm so glad that the Castlevania Legends version of Bloody Tears got featured. It was so fun seeing someone else have the same reaction I had once the song gets to the remixed part.
What is amazing about this is that these soundtracks had so much put into them and TO THIS DAY, we remember them. They touch us in our hearts during the happiest times of our childhood. Nostalgia can make anything great, but even without it, the effort and creativity put into this OST is awe inspiring.
I mean, it's clear Bach influenced rock solos, and, well, all music. It's so sad that he wasn't even discovered for several decades after his death. We almost lost Bach's history... It's an incredible story to study and one that I think would make for a good video here. Bach did A LOT during his time on Earth.
i always love the hype and energy and genuine love and surprise you bring to all your videos. You are so 100% INTO it and watching you discover stuff that blows your mind is so great. I love it every time it gets me so hyped too! Its infectious!
Um, *ayckshually*
99% of Simon's Quest does not take place in Dracula's castle.
Castlevania's version of Dracula was born in the mid-11th century and became a vampire at age 32. The 15th century part of the timeline that corresponds to the historical Dracula was when Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse and Castlevania: Curse of Darkness take place. Simon Belmont, the protagonist of the original Castlevania and Simon's Quest, fought Dracula in 1691 and 1698, which is a much closer match for the Baroque period that Bach was active in. However, the game that just uses a Bach melody wholesale is Belmont's Revenge, which stars Simon's ancestor Christopher Belmont and takes place in 1591, exactly 100 years before the original, making it anachronistic from a Doylist perspective (unless you wanna believe Bach ripped Dracula).
Also, the Vampire Killer arrange sample used in 13:00 isn't originally from Grimoire of Souls, but rather reused from Castlevania Judgment, which came out 11 years earlier in 2008.
Nerd rant aside, I'd say the most Bach-like pieces that spring to mind from Castlevania are easily Wood Carving Partita from Symphony of the Night and its successor, Bibliotheca Ex Machina from Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, both beautiful pieces. If you want to hear Bach pieces used in other video games I'd recommend checking out the Famicom Detective Club games, both of which have fantastic original soundtracks in their own right; the first one has the piece "Ayashiro Family" which is actually a cover of Invention 13 in A Minor BWV 784, while the second has "Principal's Room" covering Invention 15 in B Minor, BWV 786.
Love that you covered CastleVania music! It's great to hear how Bach influenced this series! I've enjoyed these games since about the beginning when I first played CV1 on NES. What a series! There are some fan games called the Lecarde Chronicles that did some great remixes of some of the classic tracks from the series if anyone is interested to hear some fan love! One more fan called Arkhouse has an album with more great remixes I also recommended. Glad fans keep resurrecting this series. I'm ok with a part 2 to this if possible!
I need a Made in Abyss OST video so bad. VOH is one of the pieces that still hits me like a train
Ehhh.. I think we need to let that one go - Made in Abyss is a minefield of thinly veiled problematic content even if individual elements are cool like the music and concept etc. I won't get too much into the weeds about that but if you've seen it (or especially if you've read it) you'll know what I mean.
@@MHVideos777 Made in Abyss is ... both brilliant and disturbing at the same time. It's one of the few shows I actually couldn't finish. It's especially annoying because the first part of the first season you're thinking ok theirs some weird stuff here but pretty standard for anime and by the second season you get... Stuff that makes you want to vomit.
The anime is pretty sus, but the music is amazing and worth looking at. We can separate one artists music from another person's art they were involved in, right? Is there not hope in the human race being able to appreciate without agreeing with?
@@MHVideos777 and? He made a Harry Potter video like a year ago, and I’m ngl JK rowling’s impact on pop culture is way way worse than one manga that is creepy about its young characters (something that is frankly not unusual for anime)
Yeah the author’s the problematic one, not the composer. Kevin Penkin’s a brilliant composer, and Hanazeve Caradhina and ESPECIALLY Old Stories are beautiful pieces. I think he’d have a field day with the bitonality in Old Stories.
Ngl Kevin’s work in Tower of God is pretty damn good too, I’d definitely watch to at video if he made it
Deadpool & Wolverine like a prayer when Wolverine puts on his mask. I mainly want to hear you go over where the orchestra really hits as he is putting the mask on
A little surprised in that last track that you didn't do a side-by-side comparison with Bach's fugue from Tocatta and Fugue in D minor.
Still, an excellent breakdown of the baroque influences.
These send chills down my spine every time.
Taku Iwasaki - Quiet Life (ending of Rurouni Kenshin OVA, but the whole OST in incredible really)
Saito Tsuneyoshi - Aoi Chikyuu (OST Tide Line Blue, INCREDIBLE second part, you will be surprised)
Tange Sakura - Hititsu Dake (OST Card Captor Sakura. Unfortunately I don't know the composer, but a seemingly children song can be a real tear-jerker with it's suprising harmony)
Also I agree, Yoko Kanno deserves her separate video if not several!
Charles, you should check the Castlevania Symphony of the Night OST, it's absolute dope
idfk how he left out SOTN.
@@guitaristforfunn I'm going to assume he hasn't covered it yet, because there's nowhere to go but down, from there.
@@nickwallette6201 I guess I don't get it. I enjoyed the music from Castlevania IV far more than SOTN. The game as well.
@@francischambless5919 I can understand that. CV4 was a great game, and had some really good music. It felt groundbreaking at the time.
TBH, I didn't love SotN at first. I specifically remember a buddy of mine buying a PlayStation specifically to play Final Fantasy 7, and got SotN as well. I was impressed with FF7, but then he told me, "you've gotta hear the music in the new Castlevania -- you're going to love it" ... and I was not initially blown away by it. "The samples are better, but other than that... I dunno.. it's okay I guess."
But later I picked up my own PSX, and bought FF7 and SotN. That's when I fell in love with it. I last played through it, start to finish, about a year ago, and about four or five years before that too. Every few years I just have to play it again.
IMO, CV4 holds up pretty well, but I don't feel that same compulsion. I do own it, and at some point I'll play it again, because it IS a good game. I could see someone preferring it, particularly if you were more inclined to 2D tile graphics and the SNES's signature sound. But for me, SotN is everything that was good about CV4 ramped up to 11, plus non-linear exploration, and charmingly terrible voice acting.
As a guitarist, some of my favorite things to try and learn/incorporate into my playing lately is classical stuff. Love it ❤
PLEASE take a closer look at Wood Carving Partita , one of the tracks from Castlevania Symphony of the Night. great music and such a perfect impression of bach harpsichord and violin concertos. Love it
It's an interesting song because it's classical instruments played with more modern rock writing.
Then you go the other way with The Clock Tower. It's modern instruments with Baroque style writing.
Thank you for introducing me to the Castlevania Legends soundtrack. I had never heard it before and it has blown my mind!
I've heard Bloody Tears a million times, but somehow never heard the GameBoy version... my reaction to the progression changes were identical... WAHT?!
I'm not a pianist, but I very much enjoy your videos! Since I was a kid in the 80s who loved Castlevania, I've said that Bloody Tears is the best piece of music ever written for a video game. And to my ear, it hasn't been topped. Some Final Fantasy pieces have come close, but anytime I hear Bloody Tears I get chills.
Charles: That's what makes *Bach Bach*.
Chicken: And I took that personally.
I'm so glad I found your channel. Simon's quest was my first true video game love. I have always loved the music from Simon's Quest and early Castlevania games. Once I discovered Bach I was able to put two and two together. Also, other music that incorporates bach-like elements, check out the band Dance with the Dead and their song March of the Dead. It's totally badass
This is my ringtone
Bloody tears
Mine is OG Castlevania Vampire Killer and it has been for a decade now
Bach and Beethoven. The two people who literally said “you might not be ready for that, but your offspring will love it.” They are really metalheads if you pay attention
0:55 Chopsticks!
I hate you. In the most musicians loving each other way possible.
😂
These video game music evaluations are what I've always wanted!
Thank you Thank you Thank you!
Yes Charles, the Gameboy version of Bloody Tears somehow slaps more than the original or any remakes.
No notes as to why, just does.
Edit; I wonder what your opinion on Coheed and Cambria is. They do some wacky stuff. Especially when Claudio whips out the Double Neck.
Your passion for comp is clear, instant sub! Love how you dive, thanks for sharing!
What's the piece at 0:28 called?
A requiem. You hear it when you beat Castlevania 2.
"Wicked Tears" really is such a brilliant tune. The soundtracks for the first two Castlevanias are legendary, epic.
His enthusiasm when hearing unexpected chords is infectious. :)
@CharlesCornellStudios Castlevania: Symphony of the Night features a piece entitled Wood Carving Partita, which was very clearly inspired by Bach's work. In fact, the piece includes a passage that is literally a variation on a theme found in Bach's Fugue in B minor. Netherlands Bach Society YT channel has a performance of this piece. The theme presents at approximately the 1 minute 12 seconds mark, and the variation can be heard if you search up the Wood Carving Partita on YT, just 26 seconds in. Just thought I'd share this awesome piece of trivia with the community.
id love to listen to the references you made but a search of "Fugue in B Minor" on their channel comes up with a ton of hits! and not sure whose video of Wood Carving Partita you are referring to?
I spent so much of my childhood having absolutely no idea what to do in this game, so I listened to the soundtrack a lot. It made me question whether I could read for a while, until I realized that all the text was complete nonsense. Good times....
@@christianlesniak Not all of it. There are some villagers and hidden clue books telling the truth amongst the trolls, but you have to use common sense to read between the lines, since they were so limited on letter count
@@anterax4097 If some villager had told me to take some kind of orb and then kneel for 10 seconds somewhere on some particular screen, that would've really helped me out.
Look up Paul Denais on the tube. Denais studied at the Institut grégorien in Paris, being a pupil of Philippe de Brémond d’Ars, born 1889, a friend of Widor and pupil of Vierne. Denais was very close to Geneviève de La Salle, born 1905, the best pupil of Joseph Bonnet and also his vicar. Bonnet was himself the best and the most faithful pupil of Guilmant. Denais was also a pupil of André Fleury.
Paul Denais was appointed organist at Saint-Eugène church in Paris from 1970 to 1975, then organist and composer in Norway. He is the last known representant of the traditional French organ school, called the school of Lemmens who was the teacher of Guilmant and Widor).
Paul Denais plays J.S. Bach exactly the way it used to be done in the 19th century.
Impossible for my brain to listen to Castlevania II theme and don't hear the nerd screaming THIS GAME IS ASSSSSS in the background
Memory unlocked 😂
Castlevania II was awesome, but too easy. I played it as a weekend rental and beat it in three days. Right before I had to return it. I miss those days sometimes.
And you have to take a swig of Rolling Rock every time he says it😂
Some of my favorite soundtracks come from Castlevania. Super Castlevania IV is one of my favorite game scores of all time, with Theme of Simon being one of the most badass songs ever. Bloodlines on Sega Genesis is another amazing one that deserves a LOT more attention.
FIRST
But yes, we do love Bach video game style
SECOND
MINUTE
wait what are we doing again?
HOUR
Uhhhh
Third
Ah, yes... bloody tears. I consider that song to be one of the definitive songs for the Castlevania series as a whole. I've heard it so many times in so many different arrangements.
The Castlevania music was done by a Bach scholar, yes, but that doesn't mean Bach would've written music in the style of Castlevania if he were alive today. It also doesn't mean he would've wanted to write his music for a Castlevania videogame, had one been made back then. The game quotes Bach but the games also contain a lot of elements of rock music of the 1980s. Castlevania only uses Bach's music in order to invoke imagery of a particular time period (castles, cathedrals, giant organs etc.). It wouldn't have made sense to do that in the 1700s.
On the other hand, if Bach were alive today I just don't think he'd be quite as prolific a composer, as the 21st century music scene in Berlin or Leipzig isn't nearly as prominent as the scenes in LA, NYC, London and Tokyo....the soil isn't rich enough for his great seed to have taken root in the part of the world he lived. Some would say Bach might've walked the same path as Hans Zimmer, both being German composers of significant talent. But Zimmer is very much a nonconformist, while Bach was a man of the church. I think their personalities are too different to make that assumption.
"Castlevania utilizes the style of J.S. Bach in its soundtrack" is about the only honest take we can make here.
I've been a musician since i was a kid, and I really love how you clearly defined what Bach's music is about! The independent melodies creating harmonies just clicked for me. And now I understand why Bach is considered so difficult to play. Also, there's a clear style in Bach's music that defines the Baroque era. Great music content! Love the videos! More video game music, please!!!