Classical compositions in your favorite video games

Video games are famous for creating worlds, and a big part of those worlds is the musical landscape. Some games (The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Castlevania) have well-loved original scores. And games such as Starfield and The Elder Scrolls have even allotted a large portion of their budgets for full orchestras to perform their scores, attesting to the importance of the music. But many other titles have borrowed music from the realm of classical music.

Here are some prime examples of classical music favorites in the gaming world. How many have you played?

‘Night on Bald Mountain’ (Modest Mussorgsky)

This spooky, evocative music has been featured in many games, including Earthworm Jim and Skylanders: Trap Team. Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance bases a whole world on Disney’s Fantasia — featuring Mickey Mouse, of course — that uses music from the film, including Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers” from The Nutcracker and Mussorgsky’s popular work, as seen here.

‘Moonlight Sonata’ (Ludwig van Beethoven)

Resident Evil and Earthworm Jim 2 (below), among many other games, have featured the moody, progressively dramatic piece.

‘Requiem’ (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)

The steampunk-inspired BioShock Infinite featured an original score by Gary Schyman that took inspiration partly from Jonny Greenwood’s film score for There Will Be Blood, in keeping with the game’s 1912 setting. But it also included “Lacrimosa” (translated as “Tearful”) from Mozart’s classic Requiem, accompanying what some fans call the best scene in the game.

Mozart’s Requiem provides musical support again as its “Dies Irae” (“Days of Wrath”) is used as the theme for another Wolfgang — surname, Krauser — in Fatal Fury 2. Often used as shorthand for impending doom or death, the music is fitting for the character considered within the game as the world’s most powerful and feared martial artist.

‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ (Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov)

The Bumblebee is a character in It Takes Two, so it’s only natural that this frenetic piece would appear in that game. The buzzing earworm also has shown up in several other games over the decades, including Dungeon Encounters and Overboard! — as heard here in the latter’s trailer.

‘Ride of the Valkyries’ (Richard Wagner)

Borrowing imagery from the gunship scene in the film Apocalypse Now, this bombastic work is heard in Metal Solid Gear V: Ground Zeroes as the character Big Boss is extracted by helicopter from Camp Omega. And, yes, the Ring video game is based on the composer’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, and his music, including “Valkyries,” appears throughout.

‘Clair de Lune’ (Claude Debussy)

This serene classic is heard in the survival game The Evil Within 2 when Sebastian escapes a nightmare realm through the portal to Safe Haven. The gentle strains have a calming and almost eerie influence.

‘Mars, the Bringer of War’ (Gustav Holst)

Skylanders: Trap Team offers a remix of “Mars,” from Holst’s The Planets, during Phase 3 of the final fight against the wicked Kaos, truly bringing war to the table.

‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ (Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky)

You haven’t truly heard this Tchaikovsky classic from The Nutcracker until you’ve heard it rendered in tinny Tetris style. The delicate music befits the puzzle game’s plinky toy-piano vibe.

Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky)

George Lucas’ fantasy-themed Loom features the character of Lady Cygna Threadbare (“cygna” translates to “swan”), and other characters that are turned into the elegant creatures. Naturally, the developers included music from Tchaikovsky’s ballet, including its overture.

Other notable uses

Here are more instances of classical music in gaming.

• Gran Turismo 5 includes, among other works, Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Air on a G String,” played by pianist Lang Lang.

• The Hitman soundtrack prominently features Franz Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” which serves as the theme for Agent 47. It’s performed by the Zurich Boys’ Choir.

• In Grand Theft Auto III and GTA Liberty Stories, one radio station that gamers can hear while they drive around in a (probably stolen) vehicle is Double Clef FM, playing classical music and Italian opera. The faux station presents an aura of high-brow connoisseurs but offers suspect cultural knowledge. No matter — the music is sublime. And the host, Morgan Merryweather, is hilarious: “Now more hits from the sixties — 1760s, that is!”

• The Fallout series includes the in-game radio stations Galaxy News Radio and Enclave Radio, which offer fife and drum arrangements of patriotic tunes (“America the Beautiful,” “Stars and Stripes Forever” and “Yankee Doodle Dandy”) and jazz standards of the 1930s-‘50s (“Anything Goes,” “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire”).  Pieces also can be unlocked by completing a certain in-game task, at which time a character named Agatha performs a violin solo (among them Bach’s Partita for Violin No. 3 and Antonin Dvořák’s Violin Concerto).

• Eternal Sonata, befitting its name, is a role-playing game based on the life of composer Frederic Chopin. The game, with characters going by such musical monikers as Polka, Allegretto and Viola, features Chopin works played by pianist Stanislav Bunin.

• In the Civilization series, works such as Mozart’s “Rondo Alla Turca” and Jean-Joseph Mouret’s “Rondeau” from Symphonies and Fanfares for the King’s Supper are played depending on what time period is being built. Here’s a tour through the Renaissance from Civilization IV.

• And if you were inspired by the Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro or just have always wanted to know what it’s like to wield the baton, the game Maestro, described as an “immersive rhythmic music video game,” allows gamers to “experience the thrill of conducting a symphony orchestra” through virtual reality. A demo version is available now.

These are just a few examples of classical music’s influence in video games. Listen for more the next time you play!