Musique pour la tristesse de Xion (translated Music for the Sadness of Xion, aka Vector to the Heavens, or simply the Xion Theme), from Kingdom Hearts Field & Battle Piano Collections, music by Yoko Shimomura, piano arranged by Sachiko Miyano, played by Richard Yang on Yamaha N1X with Garritan CFX VST.
This is hands down my absolute favorite from the Kingdom Hearts Piano Collections (both albums). The music is filled with such power, beautiful chords, and full-scale rubato, which is what I imagined Rachmaniniov would’ve done. The OST (and almost all recordings I could find) is too unreasonably slow for my liking. I think my tempo of choice makes a lot more sense. I originally recorded both KH albums (and ALL of Final Fantasy, etc) on my Yamaha GB1 baby grand with the crappy iPhone mic, where all dynamics were lost. It had been on my bucket list to re-record this particular piece with Garritan CFX for the best possible sound. All of my early videos recorded on the grand could’ve sounded this good had I invested in the digital piano with VST earlier!
This piece really showcases rubato in overdrive. Notable pieces I’ve recorded that have rubato at this level are: Grandma from NieR and Songs of the Ancients (15 Nightmare/Arrange tracks), again from NieR, for which rach3master has an incredible recording that you should check out. These are all great materials if you want to try to understand and somehow “learn” (or at least, imitate) rubato.
As with all of my performances, I have my own interpretation, so the tempo, dynamics, etc may feel quite different from the original recording. Simply put, I play the way I like it.
