ABSTRACT
Each January since 1996, the UK-based radio station Classic FM has conducted a poll to determine listeners’ favorite works. Later in the year, the station unveils the 300 most-frequently recommended works, creating programming around this “Hall of Fame” and publishing the full list on their website. The list is invariably fascinating, a quirky barometer of public opinion on the classical repertoire (loosely defined). At the time of my writing, one question in the brief “About the Hall of Fame” portion of the Classic FM website asks, “How has the chart changed in recent years?” “Three words,” the answer succinctly begins—“video game music.” 1 That video-game soundtracks are infiltrating the sacred spaces of ‘classical music’ should be no surprise to anyone familiar with US concert programming of the past few years, but which game soundtracks made the cut is revealing. In 2012, the first work of game music appeared on the list: “Aerith’s Theme,” from Nobuo Uematsu’s (b. 1959) score to Final Fantasy VII (Square Enix, 1997). The following year, Uematsu’s music—this time for the entire Final Fantasy series—rose even higher, to number three; and in 2013, it was not alone. Joining in the illustrious Top Ten was Jeremy Soule’s music for the Elder Scrolls series. Since 2013, these two scores have been the highest-rated game soundtracks on the list, and have yet to fall out of the Top 20 (see Table 33.1).
