The power of love over war

by Scott

Our new arrangement this week is from the acclaimed Japanese anime series Hunter x Hunter, which features a story arc involving the rise and fall of a species of ant-humans led by a brutal and ruthless power-hungry king. The music “Elegy of the Dynast” has a tragic feel and occurs towards the end of the story arc, when the king’s outlook on humanity and feeling of invincibility have been transformed by his love for the fragile blind girl who manages to consistently defeat him in the story’s fictional board game, Gungi.

To thank our recent financial supporters, we have been asking for arrangement requests from each of them. One of the requests from a fellow YouTuber Mad Piano Life , was this piece. We happened to have just recently finished watching the anime, and loved the music, so I jumped on the opportunity to arrange the piece! Of the many memorable moments from the soundtrack, this one stood out as one of the most powerful.

While arranging the “Elegy”, I wanted to show the conversational nature of duet playing, by having phrases alternate between the primo and secondo parts, particularly in the return of the main theme after the climax. Since the characters are male and female, I thought it would be more appropriate for me to take the bass part, and Clare take the treble, something we rarely do, mainly out of habit!

I wanted to capture the orchestral sound of the original music, so through a lot of careful listening, I tried to fit as many instrumental lines into our 20 fingers. After the highly dissonant climax at 1:17, I wanted the return of the main theme to feature a conversation between the bass and treble parts, so this part departs from the original in the changes of register from one bar to the next (1:22-1:44). This represents the touching story featured in the anime, where the power of love transforms characters in fascinating ways.

For behind-the-scenes stories, check out Clare’s post!