Bizet: Beginning of the Patrie Overture. This is likely your best pick. It’s a hell of an entrance, and given that it hasn’t been mentioned yet, it’s not all that well-known.
Heroes of Might and Magic 2, Price of Loyalty expansion: Warlock castle theme. Grim percussion and brass foreshadow lots of destruction. It’s not the greatest piece of all time. For a brief opening theme, however, it cannot be beat - the problem lies in finding a copy of the disk.
Other than these, I also vote for Shostakovich’s Fifth, beginning of fourth movement. The two above are far more medieval-sounding though.
I’ve got it. Song of the Volga Boatmen. You know, the “Ohh [i ]oh* eiiiie, ohh…” tune. Perfect for Viking longships, slave galleys, and leaky Russian submarines.
Either that, or “The Kiss” or “Promentory” from the soundtrack to The Last of the Mohicans soundtrack. Both use this killer fiddle theme, though Promentory’s use of it is a bit more “hard edged.” (And, on a related note, the scenes in the movie where it’s used actually feature quite a few battle ax-ings. )
Entry of the Gladiators by Julius Fucik. Definitely check this one out.
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Yes do check it out. I’m sure you’ll find it’s very appropriate
But seriously the first piece that came to my mind was also
Montagues and Capulets by Prokofiev. Very rousing.
And a great one, I hadn’t thought of till an inspired poster mentioned it, if you are an heroic ‘good’ knight would be the Great Gate at Kiev from Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky (get Ravel’s orchestration of it as the original is a piano piece). That would be cool. It would also make great exit music if you win your fight.
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