User:Cabe6403/Music of the Elder Scrolls series

The music of the Elder Scrolls series refers to the soundtracks of The Elder Scrolls video games, as well as soundtrack and compilation albums. The Elder Scrolls is a video game franchise of action role-playing open world video game series developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The series began in 1994 with The Elder Scrolls: Arena with composer Eric R. Heberling who also composed the music for The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. Since the release of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind in 2002 the primary composer for the series has been Jeremy Soule.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Morrowind's soundtrack was composed by Jeremy Soule, a video game composer whose previous soundtracks for Total Annihilation and Icewind Dale had earned some acclaim from the gaming press. In a Bethesda press release, Soule stated that the "epic quality" of the Elder Scrolls series was "particularly compatible with the grand, orchestral style of music" that Soule enjoys composing "the most". Outside Bethesda press releases, some have criticized Morrowind's soundtrack. In their reviews of the game, both GameSpot and GameSpy criticized the length of the game's soundtrack and praised its general production quality. In the words of GameSpot's Greg Kasavin: "The very first time you boot up Morrowind, you'll be treated to a memorable, stirring theme filled with soaring strings and booming percussion. You'll proceed to hear it literally every five minutes or so during play." Soule was aware of the problem, and chose to create a soft and minimalist score so as not to wear out players' ears.

In a feature for Gamasutra, Scott B. Morton, although praising the music itself, declared that Morrowind's soundtrack did not work effectively with the game's gameplay, accomplishing little as an emotional device. Morrowind's soundtrack is ambient, with cues only for battle encounters. In Morton's view, the lack of variation, of response to the game's action, and of length—Morrowind's soundtrack is only 30 minutes long—leaves players detached from the game world. Alexander Brandon, in another Gamasutra feature, praised Morrowind's soundtrack for its innovative instrumentation. In Brandon's opinion, its use of orchestral elements in conjunction with synthesized ones, and the use of what Brandon termed "the 'Bolero' approach", left the game's soundtrack feeling "incredibly dramatic". In February 2003, Morrowind was nominated for the category of "Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition" at the 6th Annual Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences's Interactive Achievement Awards, but lost to Medal of Honor:Frontline.

Morrowind also contained a fair bit of voiced dialogue; an aspect somewhat better received by the gaming press. Of note is Lynda Carter, television's Wonder Woman, promoted by Bethesda for her role in voicing the Nordic race in the game. Morrowind's race-specific voice acting received praise from some reviewers, though was met with disdain from others, who disliked the discord between a culturally inflected voice spoken in an alien dialect and the grammatically flawless dialogue printed in the dialogue boxes.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Oblivion features the voices of Patrick Stewart, Lynda Carter, Sean Bean, Terence Stamp, Ralph Cosham, and Wes Johnson, with celebrity acquisition and voice production being handled by Blindlight. The voice acting received mixed reviews in the gaming press. While many publications praised it as excellent, others found fault with its repetitiveness. The issue has been blamed on the small number of voice actors and the blandness of the dialogue itself. Lead designer Ken Rolston found the plan to fully voice the game "less flexible, less apt for user projection of his own tone, more constrained for branching, and more trouble for production and disk real estate" than Morrowind's partially recorded dialogue. Rolston tempered his criticism with the suggestion that voice acting "can be a powerful expressive tool" and can contribute significantly to the charm and ambience of the game. He stated "I prefer Morrowind's partially recorded dialogue, for many reasons. But I'm told that fully-voiced dialogue is what the kids want".

Oblivion's score was composed by series mainstay Jeremy Soule, a video game composer whose past scores had earned him a BAFTA award in the "Game Music Category" and two nominations for an AIAS award for "Original Music Composition". Soule had worked with Bethesda and Todd Howard during the creation of Morrowind, and, in a press release announcing his return for Oblivion, Soule repeated the words he had said during Morrowind's press release: "The stunning, epic quality of The Elder Scrolls series is particularly compatible with the grand, orchestral style of music I enjoy composing the most". As in his compositions for Morrowind, Soule chose to create a soft and minimalist score so as not to wear out users' ears.

Soule stated that while composing the music he did not imagine any specific characters or events; rather, he wanted it "to comment on the human condition and the beauty of life". In a 2006 interview, he related that this desire came as a result of a car accident that occurred during his composition of the score. He said, "I ended up rolling in my car several times on an interstate while flying headlong into oncoming traffic ... I felt no fear ... I simply just acknowledged to myself that I've had a good life and I would soon have to say goodbye to all of it in a matter of seconds". Soule sustained only minor injuries, but commented that his feeling during the crash—"that life is indeed precious"—remained with him throughout the rest of the composition.

The official soundtrack to Oblivion is sold exclusively via Soule's digital distributor DirectSong. It features 26 tracks spanning 58 minutes, all composed by Soule. The soundtrack was generally positively received, though Square Enix Music Online gave it a 6/10, criticizing its "monotonous action tracks".

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The team employed Jeremy Soule to compose music for Skyrim after his work on Morrowind and Oblivion. He composed "Dragonborn", the game's main theme. "Dragonborn" was recorded with a choir of over thirty people, singing in the game world's dragon language. Creative director Todd Howard envisioned the theme for Skyrim as the Elder Scrolls theme sung by a choir of barbarians. This became a reality when the idea was passed by Soule, who recorded the 30-man choir and layered three separate recordings to create the effect of 90 voices. The language, Draconic, was created by Bethesda's concept artist Adam Adamowicz, and he developed a 34-character runic alphabet for the game. The lexicon of Draconic was expanded as needed; as lead designer Bruce Nesmith explained, words were introduced to the lexicon "every time [the studio wanted] to say something".

As with the previous two entries in the series, the soundtrack to Skyrim is sold exclusively via Jeremy Soule's distributor DirectSong; on November 4, 2011 a physical-only release consisting of 4audio CDs was announced, coinciding with the launch of the game. All copies preordered before December 23 will be personally autographed by Soule. Following an October 17tweet from Pete Hines, vice president of public relations and marketing at Bethesda, stating "The OST would take 4 CDs", a 4-disc CD set release was spotted by Digital Song customers during an account display error. "Day One" preorders from Amazon.de also include a 5-track promotional Skyrim soundtrack sampler.