A Short and Grumpy Review of the BBC Proms’ ‘From 8-Bit to Infinity’
Not even Jessica Curry could save this one.
I am no stranger to live video game symphonies; I remember frequenting shows like ‘Video Games Live!’ during my teenage years with father and brother in tow. These would often involve audience participation, complimentary video projections and walk-on guest appearances. They were knowingly and transparently made for the people who played the games being presented and they were all the more fun for it.
The BBC Proms however, carry different conventions: where musicians and their ideas are given room to breathe and showcase their merits to audiences old and new in a measured and dignified manner. Video game music is functionally more repetitive on account of their generally adaptive nature, conjuring melodies to mark organic events from the small and spontaneous to the grand and meticulous.
Lone highlights of ‘8-Bit to Infinity’ include suites by Tim Follin and Austin Wintory constructed with tangible structure in mind however vague, while general-use greatest hits from Koji Kondo, Kow Otani, Nobuo Uematsu and Yoko Shimomura are inexpertly smashed together into phoned-in medleys, tributes and excerpts.
A potentially intriguing change of pace from Hildur Guðnadóttir is quashed as the achingly trendy presenters are quick to remind people of Hildur’s background in film and TV, implicitly devaluing the medium they’re supposed to be convincing everyone is now finally being taken seriously, blatantly unaware of the many times when gaming had comfortably “proven itself” already.
The opportunity to introduce audiences to the stories and concepts explored in their original contexts (something Disney’s Fantasia pulled off expertly in 1940) is frustratingly missed with scant immersive grounding provided beyond reminding live attendees of an ill-defined sense of nostalgia felt when playing video games as children.
Video gaming has had one foot stuck in childhood since its commercial breakout with Nintendo during the Reagan administration and that lack of self-esteem is hard to shake even today as the show’s presenters talk down to a crowd of grown adults all too eager to applaud before the music has even stopped (a massive classical concert faux-pas!), egged on for woops and cheers as shallow debate ensues over which creature is better to start a game of Pokémon with.
The over-representation of stock signifiers like pixelated coins, neon tanks, cars driving through rain-slicked cyberpunk cities and ear-splitting faux-retro vibrato effects infused with the live instruments reflects a severe lack of ambition from this entire production.
‘From 8-Bit to Infinity’ doesn’t do much to engage BBC Proms regulars with the merits of video gaming as an artistic medium. The ways in which the music is bombastically presented here may elevate the work with the grander setting, but it also doesn’t do much to engage video game fans with the merits of their construction and why those favourite pieces of theirs became favourites in the first place: the best of neither world.
We would never see music from the great classic writers of compositions past treated as such an afterthought by anyone, let alone the BBC; why should video game music be any different?
Written by George A. Cheal
‘Gaming Music at the Proms: From 8-Bit To Infinity’ is available to watch on BBC iPlayer until August 2023