There was an event in 2015 where an orchestra played some popular pieces from The Legend of Zelda Nintendo Franchise. This one is called The Ballad of the Wind Fish. It's part of the game Link's Awakening which was for the Game Boy Color and had a remake for the Nintendo Switch.

I played this game many years ago on the Game Boy Color. In this instalment of the franchise, you survive a shipwreck and awake in a mysterious island. You have to go through some dungeons and defeat Nightmares to collect some musical instruments. Then, you play all of them in from of the egg of the Wind Fish in order to wake it. Plot twist, the island is being dreamt by this entity and there are monsters in there because its having nightmares. Pretty cool thing.

TLOZ games have amazing sound tracks. That's for sure. The first time I listened to this particular song was a life-changing experience. I think my taste for instrumental musical is closely tied to videogames. No wonder this piece caught me now for so long. I must have listened to this version plenty of times.

I love the whole counterpoint and fugues played by these musicians. It's way better than that 16-bit version, but it still keeps it's essence intact.

The air of nostalgia present in the piece denotes that idea of dreams coming to an end. While you play your adventures in the dream island, you come to the realisation your time there isn't eternal. As the Wind Fish wakes up, the whole place disappears. And the game comes to a sad conclusion. The ballad gets stuck in your head.

A cool element of the song is that whole you collect the instruments in the game you can play incomplete versions of the ballad until you have collected all 8 instruments and can progress.

Make sure yo check out some of the other pieces played by this Orchestra. It might not be 2015 anymore, but the videos will be on the internet for quite some time and I'm sure you'll love their playing a lot. It's just so good!

It was a challenge not picking anything from my country. We have a lot of great instrumental music. However, I think it got easier once I realised some of my choices had already been mentioned in previous posts. So, it's good to keep showing some other parts of this taste in music.

This one stroke a note right back into my childhood and my struggles to beat the game, but also the satisfaction of being able to complete such a difficult task and having the reward that amazing performance that put all the power of a handheld console at the service of music. It's simply outstanding!

Thanks a lot for reading me. See you in the comment section!

Is there any piece of instrumental music you like a lot? Let me know on the comments below!

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