Part 6: Addendum: Musical Score
Update:
Game score
Opening
This musical piece plays during the opening cinematic. The CD-ROM version is actually split into two tracks: the first track playing as you approach the house, the second starting after you enter and the door closes behind you.
Sound Blaster:
AdLib:
CD:
Exploring Derceto
The track that plays when you first gain control of the character in the loft. Killing certain enemies (the suit of armor, the Vagabond) will also trigger it.
Sound Blaster:
AdLib:
CD:
Evil Approaches
This plays when an enemy activates as well as randomly in various locations.
Sound Blaster:
AdLib:
CD:
Suspense and Intimidation
This track usually follows Evil Approaches and that's the only time it will play. In the CD-ROM version, it plays more frequently and does not seem to have any fixed trigger.
Sound Blaster:
AdLib:
CD:
Ending
As the title suggests, this track plays at the end of the game. In the floppy disk version, the bird chirps are individual sound effects layered on top of it, but in the CD-ROM release, the chirps are actually part of the song.
Sound Blaster:
AdLib:
CD:
CD-ROM exclusives
The CD-ROM version has more music and different triggers, so there isn't a one-to-one correspondence with all of the tracks in the Sound Blaster and AdLib versions. I don't have the names for these tracks, so I'll give them some unoriginal titles of my own based on how they're used in the game:
More Evil Approaches
Heightened Suspense and Intimidation
Caverns
Burning Tree
Then there's this long, brooding piece that you can listen to if you stick the disc in a CD player, but after playing through the game a couple times, I can't find it. As far as I can tell, it's never actually used:
Musical Mystery
The records (...which have already been posted, they're repeated here for the sake of completion):
Danse Macabre (Dance of Death)
Camille Saint-Saëns
A tone poem based on an old French legend. It describes Death playing his violin at midnight in a cemetery, causing the dead to rise and dance until the morning dawns, when they must return to their graves. In Alone in the Dark, playing the "Danse Macabre" record will make the ballroom ghosts dance.
Sound Blaster:
AdLib:
CD:
Valse de l'Adieu (Farewell Waltz / Waltz in A-flat major / Posthumous Op. 69 No. 1)
Frédéric Chopin
Chopin wrote this waltz for Maria Wodzińska after the breaking of their engagement. "Posthumous" here meaning that it was not published until after Chopin's death. In Alone in the Dark, the record is found in the smoking room. The first several seconds of this waltz serve as the game over music.
Sound Blaster:
AdLib:
CD:
An der Schönen Blauen Donau (The Blue Danube)
Johann Strauss
Originally a choral piece, it was re-written for the 1867 World's Fair in Paris as an instrumental work. Today, that version is much better known and is the one included as a record in Alone in the Dark, found in the ball room.
Sound Blaster:
AdLib:
CD:
Voice acting
And finally, I have to include a sample of the CD-ROM version's wondrous voice acting:
Jeremy's Suicide Letter
I don't know if it's just me, but I don't think the CD-ROM music is anywhere near as spooky or unnerving as the floppy disk music.