ReMix:The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim "Dragonborn Symphony" 2:22

Newcomer SupremoMusico400's brief yet earnest orchestral Skyrim debut is one of a rare breed on OCR, an arrangement inspired by (yet not closely covering) an arrangement:

"I use the harp to re-adapt the guitar for symphonic orchestra. This particular ensemble consists of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, timpani, cymbals (or piatti in Italian musical terms), harp, choir (S, A, T, B), and strings (violins 1, 2; viola; cello; contrabasses).

I take inspiration from Harry Murrell's arrangement of Jeremy Soule's "Dragonborn" for classical guitar. I created this as if it were an orchestra summoned by his guitar, so his guitar part should not be considered the "solo" part, but more of a source for the orchestration process.

The beginning's simple choir introduction of 4 measures is harmonically extrapolated from the guitar's "ostinato" opening, warming the sound up for the various entrances of brass and woods, which in turn -- with short ascending melodies extrapolated from the main theme -- melt in a small opening climax, giving way to the harp, who after 2 arpeggios starts the actual guitar's opening, and giving way to the rest of the piece. As for the rest of the piece, I don't think there is much to explain without showing the score, so I will just hope the MIDI sound does its job and helps my musical thought become a listenable reality.

The birth and inspiration for this first part I'm submitting is not to be considered directly from the "Dragonborn" OST, but from the emotions the guitarist's video provoked in me, hence why I have not used any source or any official Skyrim score to create this. I created this with pure emotion and ear, not directly from Soule's OST. The reason why I'm pointing all this out is that I ended up considering this a Skyrim remix since the themes and music are inevitably a call to the original soundtrack.

I composed and processed this using MuseScore 4 and its Muse Sounds audio packs. Hope you enjoy!"

Wow, blink and you'll miss it, so keep those ears open and attentive; a brief arrangement, but well developed, as judge prophetik music attested to:

"opens with sustained choir and swelling orchestral elements. we first get real elements from the original at 0:45, but there's no real melody until 1:15 or so. it quickly moves through the dovahkiin theme before a significant dropoff at 1:35. there's a lot of gregson-williams from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in this scoring, mostly in the reliance on the choir to support the strings instead of vice versa.

this is very short and has a lot of unique material. [...] i think this arrangement is really interesting outside of a few specific areas where the scoring is too dense [...] but this is, i think, good enough to pass muster on this site."

proph's spot-on that this was cluttered during the densest parts, but the part-writing was reasonably discernable, so no major issues there. Alongside my vote, judge Hemophiliac was on the same wavelength, i.e. critiques were worth making but the overall execution was easily on solid ground:

"Excellent arrangement, I was expecting it to be more similar to the guitar performance that it was supposedly based off of. It's not though! Plenty of interpretation and plenty of source represented across the board.

The realism of the samples could be better, with precise midi editing outside of musescore (as the artist indicated) and switching of articulation specific patches. What is here though is good enough and has plenty of dynamic range and expression. In a real orchestral context you would not hear the harp so clearly during the forte and tutti portions without amplification. That's a nitpick though.

This absolutely has a place on the front page, YES"

I too was expecting a cover of Harry Murrell's guitar arrangement and was pleasantly surprised that that wasn't the case; cool to be inspired by Murrell's performance while still standing very far apart from that structure. I also didn't have any problem with the samples, bearing in mind that for the longest time OCR's bar hasn't been above what pro composers would consider mock-ups. Dynamically, this was well done, which was why it felt so substantive despite the short runtime. :-) As long as SupremoMusico400 doesn't take an arrow in the knee, we're hoping they'll adventure submitting more of their Elder Scrolls tributes!