Unlimited Replays: Video Games and Classical Music

by William Gibbons

Classical music is everywhere in video games. Works by composers like Bach and Mozart fill the soundtracks of games ranging from arcade classics, to indie titles, to major franchises like BioShock, Civilization, and Fallout . Children can learn about classical works and their histories from interactive iPad games. World-renowned classical orchestras frequently perform concerts of game music to sold-out audiences. But what do such combinations of art and entertainment reveal about the cultural value we place on these media? Can classical music ever be video game music, and can game music ever be classical? Delving into the shifting and often contradictory cultural definitions that emerge when classical music meets video games, Unlimited Replays offers a new perspective on the possibilities and challenges of trying to distinguish between art and pop culture in contemporary society.

Genres: Music

208 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2018

About the author

William Gibbons is Dean of the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam. He is the author of Unlimited Replays: Video Games and Classical Music and Building the Operatic Museum: Eighteenth-Century Opera and Fin-de-siècle Paris, and co-editor of the collections Music in Video Games: Studying Play and Music in the Role-Playing Game: Heroes & Harmonies.