#0 - July 17, 2008, 5 p.m.
Take the new expansion. There is a certain Wiki site that has various snippits of music (amongst other things) that includes the complete 9:04 WOTLK entro. It has now become my favorite chill-out-on-the-lightrail-evening-commute music.
The intro starts out with echos and sonorous instruments and choir augmentation evoking tundra or vast ice fields before jumping into the martial beat we're familiar with, only the beat has become more strident and elongated, punctuated with hammers on anvils and a rolling sting section.
The choir joins in and with a fanfare of horns clashing and wailing together it modulates into something akin to music you'd expect as a sound trak for visiting the high mores of Scotland or the sweeping vistas of New Zealand.
Throughout the haunting pipes and french horns are echos of war horns sounded in a subtle dissonance.
This flows into a violin interlude feeling like a gypsy lament; very haunting.
As brass and drum fanfare brings back a modified WoW march that modulates into music evoking battle scenes and struggle. Back and forth the battle rages, the choir swelling and ebbing in counterpoint blending into an almost holy invocation of song and a resounding "Gloria." The choir jumps into stride and closes out the battle music with an elven (?) chant.
The music fades out, back into the sepulcher winds and barrens of the icy north... blending back into the echos and sonorous winds and chimes....
REALLY good stuff. Blizz outdid themselves on the new intro music. As a classical musician and director, I offer my sincere grats for one of the best game soundtraks.
