Music
Masashi Hamauzu composed the game's soundtrack. His previous work on the series was as a co-composer for Final Fantasy X and as the main composer for Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII. The game was the first main-series Final Fantasy game to not include any compositions by original series composer Nobuo Uematsu. Although Uematsu was originally announced to compose the main theme of the game, this role was taken over by Hamauzu after Uematsu signed on to compose the soundtrack to Final Fantasy XIV. The score features some pieces orchestrated by Yoshihisa Hirano, Toshiyuki Oomori, and Kunihito Shiina, with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. The song "My Hands", from British singer Leona Lewis' second album Echo, was chosen to replace Final Fantasy XIII's original theme song, "Kimi ga Iru Kara" by Sayuri Sugawara, for the game's international release. Square Enix President Yoichi Wada later said that it would have been better if the American branch of the company had produced a theme song from scratch, but a lack of staff led to the decision of licensing an existing song.
Music from the game has been released in several albums. Square Enix released the main soundtrack album, Final Fantasy XIII Original Soundtrack, on four Compact Discs in 2010. The album sold 16,000 copies the day of its release. Square Enix released selections from the soundtrack on two gramophone record albums in 2010: W/F: Music from Final Fantasy XIII and W/F: Music from Final Fantasy XIII Gentle Reveries. An album of arranged pieces from the soundtrack, Final Fantasy XIII Original Soundtrack -PLUS-, was also released by Square Enix in 2010, as was an album of piano arrangements. For Life Music published a single of the theme song for the Japanese version of the game, "Kimi ga Iru Kara" (君がいるから, "Because You're Here"), in 2009.
Read more about this topic: Final Fantasy XIII
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora and the music of Memnon, what should be man’s morning work in this world?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“On the first days, like a piece of music that one will later be mad about, but that one does not yet distinguish, that which I was to love so much in [Bergotte’s] style was not yet clear to me. I could not put down the novel that I was reading, but I thought that I was only interested in the subject, as in the first moments of love when one goes every day to see a woman at some gathering, or some pastime, by the amusements to which one believes to be attracted.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“Truly fertile Music, the only kind that will move us, that we shall truly appreciate, will be a Music conducive to Dream, which banishes all reason and analysis. One must not wish first to understand and then to feel. Art does not tolerate Reason.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)