Classical Music in NES Games?

I'd like to compile a list of Classical/Romantic/Baroque music covered in NES games. I'm currently working on an NES/Famicom cover album and I'd like to steer clear of music already done (well). So far I have:

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy [Tetris - Music 1]
Pictures at an Exhibition [Mario Is Missing - Item Screen] (I found this out after already covering it!)
Swan Lake [Final Fantasy II - Temptation of the Princess] (& somebody already covered it)
Toccata and Fugue in D minor [Battle of Olympus] [Gyruss] (I'm still doing this anyway!)

That's all at the top of my head, but I know there's a lot more. I appreciate any help.

There's been a bunch over the years in Famicompo contests. I probably missed a few more:
danooct1 - Gran Vals (Tarrega) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDX7s0_Susk
HertzDevil + Meckz - Pathetique (Beethoven) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-gdIjKd7Ic
kenshirotakahashi - Slavonic Dance (Dvorak) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQo8TuayFo0
S.W. - Spring (Vivaldi) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jre4THtHR_4
optomon - Ballade in G minor (Chopin)
madbrain - Un5th Symphony [Symphony 5] (Beethoven) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuN8ORfObR4
shock - Tarantelle (Chopin)
Yoshi Soft - Quartet in F (Mozart)
Yoshi Soft - Serenade 13 (Mozart)
Yoshi Soft - Divertimento in D (Mozart)
EXCALIpUR - Beethoven Virus [Pathetique] (Beethoven)

Brezza did French Suites 3 and 5 (Bach):
http://www.pokipoki.org/dsa/index.php?Famicom%20de%20Bach

RushJet1 did Prelude and Fugue in C minor (Bach):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_5yW8uYaeE

I did a collection:
http://rainwarrior.ca/music/classic_chips.html
Sonata 5 (Scriabin)
Suite Bergamasque (Debussy)
Prelude and Fugue 16 (Bach)
Intermezzo Op. 76 No. 7 (Brahms)
Intermezzo Op. 119 No. 2 (Brahms)
String Quartet No. 1 (Schoenberg)

I've got one more major classical piece in the works, but it's a secret.

As for games, there's a ton but it would take me a while to rack my brain to remember it all.

Golf Grand Slam: Passepied (Debussy)
Golf Grand Slam: Footsteps in the Snow (Debussy)
Winter Games: Waltz of the Flowers (Tchaikovsky)
Oishinbo: Promenade (Mussorgsky)
Oishinbo: Ode to Joy (Beethoven)
Oishinbo: Military March (Schubert)
Oishinbo: Turkish March (Mozart)
Oishinbo: Humoresque 7 (Dvorak)
Oishinbo: Fur Elise (Beethoven)

Though, honestly, classical music as it appears in NES games tends to be rather incomplete versions of things, usually under tight constraints, or not done with particular care. I wouldn't worry about covering stuff that's already been done on NES as long as you do it well.

Might & Magic: Canon in D (Pachelbel)

Thwaite: Beethoven's "Pathetique" sonata
Tetra Star: a whole bunch

I've been compiling my own list, as have editors of All The Tropes.

(also notes several others: in Pirates!, THE Battle of Olympus, Tetris...)
But then, you said done WELL, and Captain Comic...probably doesn't qualify.




Though not a NES game, Dark Legions (1994, DOS) had Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# Minor

[Syntax Fairy was here]

Captain Comic's music is okay for what it is, especially since it only uses two of the five channels. It's also heads and shoulders above any other Color Dreams game, but that's not necessarily saying much.

Tetrastar, as mentioned, has a bunch. Also, many of the Kunio/Nekketsu Koukou games have upbeat remixes of classical songs.

Road Runner on the NES has a few classical songs also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGotefv5Uz8

Matsumoto Tooru no Kabushiki Hisshou Gaku for Famicom has a few by Mussorgsky, Bach, Wagner etc.

I can't belive nobody mentionned yet Parodius. The entiere soundtrack of this game is made of (funny remixes of) classical music.

As for Final Fantasy, it has been a tradition from FF2 to steal classical music for scenes of piano or dancing. After having an apoggee in FF5 this tradition was definitely abandonned in FF6 and on. Thus, I'm prett sure FF3 steals 2 or 3 classical songs for piano and dancing but I don't remember which ones.

Devil World

Ohh! Ohh! I did a 2A03 rendition of Maurice Ravel's "Bolero" a while ago and it would be perfect for this! Here's the .FTM file.

I really wish I could have added all 18 sections, but I was only able to pull off 4 with 2A03's limited instruments. One day, I might revisit this and extend it in VRC6.

"Bolero" is modern orchestral music, not classical music. The Legend of Zelda was going to have "Bolero" at some point in the game until Maurice Ravel's publisher complained. Copyright in Ravel's works expired in most of the world at the end of 2007, but U.S. copyright in "Bolero" doesn't expire until 2024.

In many contexts it is perfectly acceptable to use "Classical music" to refer to modern orchestral music.

Oh pish-posh, everyone knows copyright laws in the United States actually last forever less one day!

But seriously, would copyright infringement really be a problem when there are already legal complications with creating NES cartridges? Also, going with what rainwarrior said, "classical" could be loosely defined as any song with a lasting cultural influence long after it's creation. But regardless, it's up to Jedi QuestMaster whether or not my song qualifies.

We all own this discussion collectively; JediMaster is not the sole arbiter of what is relevant. Bolero should be relevant, though. I'm surprised that nobody ever pointed out to me that my "Classic Chips" album doesn't actually have anything from the classical music period on it.

Yes, Bolero is a copyright problem.

What legal complications do you think there are in producing an NES cartridge? (I'm aware of none.)

Even if a cartridge had a legal problem, in what way would this alleviate the copyright issue with Bolero?

[Mod note: Potential legal complications have been split to another topic.]

I'm aware of three different views of what "classical music" is, from widest to narrowest:

1. Any Western art music, mostly orchestral or chamber music
2. Any such music published prior to 1923 and whose composer died more than 70 years ago
3. Any such music published after the Baroque period and before the Romantic period, roughly 1730 to 1820

"Rhapsody in Blue" and "Bolero" are classical-a, but not classical-b or classical-c. You mean "Classic Chips" has no classical-c music, correct?

In any case, classical-b is probably the most relevant definition for homebrew game development. But there's probably enough Beethoven to go around for any game style. I encourage you to buy a copy of Herbert von Karajan's recording of Beethoven's symphonies and put it on repeat on your MP3 player. You can't use the recording in your own works, but you wouldn't want to anyway on a cartridge-based platform. It's more for finding snippets to arrange for your game.

Or you can try public domain recordings of public domain music, while listening to such music I had commented that it sounds so basic as to be the base of most of the chiptune music I had been listening to at the time.

The periods only have soft dates, and they overlap with individual composers usually being put in one or the other category during overlapping years. The end of the Classical period is particularly fuzzy, especially if you consider Beethoven as transitonal to Romantic (at least one author has argued that he remained Classical while his contemporaries began to pursue Romantic music). There are some broad stylistic changes that trend through these times, and of course there are figures like C.P.E. Bach who sometimes gets called "proto-classical", as his post-Baroque music directly incited a lot of what became the Classical style, but it never fully takes on that form.

Yes, I had no "classical-c" music in my album, though on the first page if follow the link to Brezza's Bach French Suite No. 3 you may find a different "classical C".

I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone use your "classical-b" definition (since the word classical is confused enough, and when speaking of copyright usually you want precision), but yes, the public domain thing is an important distinction when you want to borrow music.

The adventures of Dr Franken proto has the entire accurate score of "Moonlight sonata"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOMprmU563M

The title screen is Bach's C minor fugue from WTC1 (BWV 847).

The in-game music appears to be only the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata.

I'm surprised that the NES port of Thexder doesn't have its own version of the Moonlight Sonata first movement, since the original version used it for the game over screen.

I thought only the first movement was called Moonlight Sonata?

There are places where you can cross over the 2nd movement of Moonlight and the 1st movement of Pathetique with another composer's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" and nobody outside the classical fandom will notice your medley meddling.

Put NES Mario Bros Arcade and push Start,

That kinda goes beyond "copying" and approaches "synthesis", which is what original art is actually doing anyway.