Music of the Spheres

Music of the Spheres was the musical foundation for the music of Destiny written by Marty O'Donnell, Mike Salvarori, and Paul McCartney, which started production in 2012 and was sent off to an orchestra in early 2013. The full version of its second movement, titled "The Union", was performed live at Video Games Live 2013, and it was announced that Music of the Spheres would be released as a standalone work, having planned to be released in August 2014, one month before Destiny's final release date, to be kept with the composers' intention of a "musical prequel" to the full franchise. It consisted of eight movements and a total of 48 minutes.

Track List

1. The Path

2. The Union

3. The Ruin

4. The Tribulation

5. The Rose

6. The Ecstasy

7. The Prison

8. The Hope

Production

Bungie management came to lead composer Marty O'Donnell, asking him to write music ahead of time in 2012. O'Donnell always said that he preferred to write music at the last minute, due to things getting changed or cut, such as the Halo 2 original ending or the many levels that were cut out of Halo 1, 2, and 3, and it also provides him with a better understanding of the level and its role in the overall story. He came up with a concept he described as "centuries old", which was "music for the sake of music". He wrote music that "told its own story", and would be released before the full game to introduce people to the music of Destiny.

At E3 2013, publisher Activision reworked O'Donnell's audio for a trailer entirely at the last minute. They replaced the music with library music and hired a completely unrelated voice actor for the narration. O'Donnell expressed his frustrations on Twitter, stating the music was not his own. This began a legal battle with O'Donnell and Activision, as well as Bungie management CEO Harold Ryan. O'Donnell's work ethic was determined "unacceptable" and he was later fired on April 11th, 2014. O'Donnell made a tweet stating he was fired without cause and went on to sue Bungie, Inc. This court case was resolved on September 4th, 2015 in favor of O'Donnell.

Music of the Spheres was never published in its entirety as a byproduct of the court case.

Legacy

2 months after the court suite was settled, Owen Spence (u/OS_Epsilon at Destiny's Reddit page) could no longer attend school due to medical issues. He decided to try to make Music of the Spheres using what was in public domain. He went through 6 hours of game files, commercials, video documentaries, and marketing materials in his search. In April 2016 his work was complete and he posted "Music of the Spheres: 40 Minute Edition" on Reddit. Marty O'Donnell himself was contacted on Twitter by several people who liked Spence's work, and O'Donnell sent Owen Spence an email praising the effort he put in, promising that someday the full work would be released. O'Donnell mentioned the work in 2 different interviews over the following months. He described Spence's interpretation as "amazingly close", although it isn't what he wanted to be avaliable in place of the original work.

Shortly after the 40 minute cut went up, Spence approached his friend Jafet Meza, who at the time was transcribing the entire Halo soundtrack in MIDI. He asked Meza if he could help with a recreation of the Union, and Meza recommended they take it a step further and recreate the entire piece. Spence made a Reddit post with a short mix of Union that was originally intended to go onto the popular Destiny YouTube page PlanetDestiny. Spence recruited his friend Lady Desiree into the project shortly before it went on Reddit. The project was later renamed "Harmony of the Spheres".