Ludomusicology

Video Game Heroes | Friday 2 September 2011 | Royal Festival Hall

Last night’s extravaganza at the RFH was undoubtedly an enjoyable evening, and a successful project for the LPO.  It kick-started the Vision Sound Music Festival, of which I wish I could see more.  Iain Lee, fromRetro Gamer, was an amusing, if on occasion somewhat inappropriate host (I can only hope that the innuendo and drug references were lost on the considerable proportion of the audience who had not yet reached the age of 16).  This highlighted the target audience, although it may not have been clear through the advertising, as predominantly teen and young-adult gamers, which was particularly evident when the theme from Final Fantasy was announced to be met with tumultuous excitement from a small sect at the back of the Rear Stalls.  Much amusement and laughter was derived from the various arrangements of video-game classics such as Tetris and Super Mario Brothers, especially when the large orchestral build-up to the former resulted in a comically anti-climactic rendition of the theme on the middle-octaves of the piano.  The audience was here to have fun, and many were clearly very relaxed (consistent chatter and rustling occasionally became an irritating distraction).  I must say, the last time I attended a concert at the RFH, it was for Mahler 3, and before that, the complete Goldberg’s.  The difference in audience behavior was interesting to me, as I wondered whether it somewhat undermined the attempts to breach the boundaries of mass-consumer culture and move toward more ‘serious’ ‘high-art’.  I can safely suggest this was a partial aim, alongside having a great deal of fun (and, dare I say, making much needed money), as Iain Lee himself alluded to the issue, and emphasized how he felt he had finally ‘arrived’, standing alongside ‘one of the world’s best orchestras… with ‘London’ in their title!’  The complexity and craftsmanship which he quite rightly highlighted was well demonstrated, although, for me, it rarely crossed over into the realms of ‘art’.  I’ll avoid the sticky and tiresome debate around defining that term.  Suffice to say, I couldn’t help myself from trying to judge the music, and the only way I could seem to do it, was by imagining what impact it would make on the usual clientele of the hall.