Finding out composers of certain Castlevania tracks

[Verdegrand]

Hello,
a friendly user sent me a link to this forum and I already read the Akumajo Dracula Best Music Collections BOX thread, which turned out to be a very interesting read. As far as I understand, it might not be possible to find out which composer actually composed which track, is it? I am looking for the composers of these tracks:

Theme of Simon Belmont/March of the Holy Man
Vampire Killer
Bloody Tears
Beginning
Death Fair

Now, from what I can gather, Bloody Tears was composed by Kenichi Matsubara (which could be discerned by information in liner notes, if I understand correctly what was written in the other thread. Also, I found a blot post at a VGM blog in which it states that Beginning was composed by Hidenori Maezawa. Can't give the link because it has a downloadable mp3 there, but perhaps you might know that source. Vampire Killer is supposed to have been composed by Kinuyo Yamashita, I found that info in the wikipedia Castlevania article in the music section. Does anyone know if these composers are correct?

But I am having a hard time with the other pieces. Death Fair is perhaps the most difficult to find out. I only have the Game Boy credits to work with, as also outlined in the other thread:
H. Funauchi, N. Hanzawa, S. Fukutake
Is is possible to know who composed which track? (Why would you need three composers for a soundtrack which consists of only 6 or 7 tracks that are longer than a few seconds?)

Also, for Simon's Theme (i.e. Super Castlevania IV) there's Masanori Adachi and Taro Kudou. Can't find any more information on that.

If anyone knows something about this, any help would be highly appreciated.
Many greetings

[Blitz Lunar]

(Why would you need three composers for a soundtrack which consists of only 6 or 7 tracks that are longer than a few seconds?)

lol konami

sometimes they use "sound" or "sound composer" as a blanket term for all the sound programmers, sound designers and music composers. but unfortunately they sometimes do just use a lot of composers, for whatever reason. i guess it works for them because their soundtracks are usually great, but it's intriguing anyways.

you may be able to narrow it down by checking individual composers websites (if they have them - I've noticed many inhouse composers don't) and looking at workographies, to see if they say anything about their roles on certain games. unless there's credits on an OST release though it's unlikely that you'll be able to narrow down who did what. sometimes guessing is fun though, if you're familiar enough with the composers in question! for instance, i can definitely spot some Hanzawa-isms in Castlevania Adventure.

i'd also like to know who composed Slash, personally.

edit: i meant opus 13

[The Gambler]

Why you group Theme of Simon Belmont and March of the Holy Man together? They are completely different tracks and are from completely different games / years... ?_?

Anyway:

Vampire Killer: Kinuyo Yamashita
Bloody Tears: Kenichi Matsubara

For the other tunes you mention, it's impossible to establish the composer until more evidence will shed some light (don't hold your breath for it).

Beginning: It's one of these: Hidenori Maezawa, Yukie Morimoto or Jun Funahashi
Death Fair: one of these: H. Funauchi, Norio Hanzawa, S. Fukutake
Theme of Simon Belmont: either Masanori Adachi or Taro Kudou
March of the Holy Man: one of these: Akiropito, Jigokuguruma Nakamura, Sanoppi, Mikio Saito

Yeah I know it's disappointing but you won't find more precise info around, I'm afraid.

(on a semi-unrelated note, I think Play Magazine interviewed Taro Kudou years ago but I cannot find the page's scan anymore. Someone still has / remembers this interview?)

[Verdegrand]

Hello!
Wow you guys sure know what you are talking about. I'm happy I found this place. Thank you for your help.
It's really interesting, but also very surprising. I wouldn't have thought that it would not be possible to establish the composers anymore. It seems as if the 80s are kind of the 'dark age of VGM' or something, haha. I am really curious what happens as soon as musicologists begin to take game music more serious. They would do some scientific research and perhaps shed light on questions like these. I suppose that the Castlevania games aren't the only ones suffering from this problem.

About March of the Holy Man. I thought that these titles:

Theme of Simon Belmont
Dance of the Holy Man
March of the Holy Man
Simon before the Battle with Dracula (from Castlevania Bloodlines)

refer to one and the same piece. Is that not so? What piece is March of the Holy Man, then?

Many greetings

[ReyVGM]

March of the Holy Man is the ending music to Rondo of Blood. It's officially called "March of The Righteous" though.

[Verdegrand]

Oh I see, hm, I must have read it wrong then. But Dance of the Holy Man IS Simon't Theme, is that correct? And 'Simon before the Battle with Dracula' is a version of this track that plays before the final battle in Bloodlines, right? So I could name this track 'Theme of Simon Belmont' or 'Dance of the Holy Man' alike?

[Prime Blue]

__________

[The Gambler]

no doubt a typo - a missing dakuten, more than the will to spell it as "Belmont".

[Verdegrand]

Hello!
Thank you for your detailed reply! It is really very interesting. The complexity amazes me. I also find it astonishing that official release have so many typos and mistakes. When I understand correctly, on one of the OSTs the titles of tracks two and three from Castlevania Adventure were switched (Darkness and Death Fair), and now many people refer to one with the other. It seems, the more soundtracks, the more difficult it becomes to keep everything in 'canon'.

I am surprised that Dance of the Holy Man seems to be a false title. I see that YouTube links are allowed if I am not mistaken? So take a look at this one, it's a Simon's Theme collection with all different versions and it's titled 'Dance of the Holy Man':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFjPjsQtpGo

Also, many videos on YouTube that have Simon's Theme are titled Dance of the Holy Man. Is this a mistake that just gets repeated by many people?

Many greetings

[Prime Blue]

__________

[Verdegrand]

Hi!
Ok Thanks for the info. I will then assume that "Simon's Theme" or "Theme of Simon Belmont" are the only titles of this piece.
Many greetings

[Cedille]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPt99OdekvE

About one year ago, an Austria metal band released an album called Project Destiny which looks like a Commercial (formerly, Official) release, and while part of the eighth track sounds like "Beginning" but they give the credit to Taro Kudou who was apparently not involved in Castlevania III (I'm not overly familiar with this IP, though). If they got a permission from Konami, this might be an official credit anyway. Or Kudou might be the arranger of this track on Castlevania IV.

http://www.dignityband.com/discography

"Inner Demons" arranged and written by Frank Pitters and Taro Kudou

[bucky]

Sorry this doesn't really help at all (I always appreciate more comprehensive composer information being available), but I'd just like to chime in...

Originally Posted by Verdegrand

(Why would you need three composers for a soundtrack which consists of only 6 or 7 tracks that are longer than a few seconds?)

Bad Dudes is one of my favorite offenders. It basically has 3 or 4 and half songs and a couple jinlges, but credits 6 people for sound! That's just baffling to me. haha

[Verdegrand]

Hi,
thanks for pointing out that band and the album! I listened to that one track and 'Beginning' seems to be only a short segment of that piece. From the other source I thought that Hidenori Maezawa was the composer of the original. Perhaps, when crediting Taro Kudou, they mean the remix of Castlevania IV which is very popular and well-known because of the popularity of the game. Interesting info though, thanks!

And I didn't know about Bad Dudes, but that sounds weird haha. Six composers for three pieces, perhaps it's like one composer for each note of the chords

I have a quick question, is it allowed to post YouTube links to one's own videos in here, or is that not so appreciated and would be regarded annoying or spam? If you allow, I could show you what I researched all that info for.
Many greetings

[The Gambler]

Originally Posted by Cedille

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPt99OdekvE

About one year ago, an Austria metal band released an album called Project Destiny which looks like a Commercial (formerly, Official) release, and while part of the eighth track sounds like "Beginning" but they give the credit to Taro Kudou who was apparently not involved in Castlevania III (I'm not overly familiar with this IP, though). If they got a permission from Konami, this might be an official credit anyway. Or Kudou might be the arranger of this track on Castlevania IV.

http://www.dignityband.com/discography

To add mistery to mistery, while Taro Kudou is credited on their homepage, on the booklet the track doesn't mention him, konami or castlevania at all. Instead it mentions as a source for Inner Demons Dale Shenker's "Saber Raider and the Starsheriffs" soundtrack.

Maybe they assumed incorrectly that this was the source, and realized the mistake later, correcting on the website. Weird stuff.

[Cedille]

Originally Posted by Verdegrand

Also, I found a blot post at a VGM blog in which it states that Beginning was composed by Hidenori Maezawa.

"Beginning" was composed by Jun Funahashi (confirmed by Motoaki Furukawa's comment).