A friend of mine works at this corporate team building event company and is working on a list of songs for when their clients make phony Gladiator/Braveheart-esque movies. She asked for help soliciting music that is, well, really epic. I pointed her towards “Promentory” from the Last of the Mohicans soundtrack, which is my personal gold standard, and she loved it. We’ve found plenty of others, but that’s basically spot on what she’s looking for. Care to share a few of your favorites? Can be from soundtracks, with lyrics, without, even a little tongue in cheek.
The more “march”-like music from Conan the Barbarian, and to a lesser degree Lord of the Rings*. Both influenced by O Fortuna from Carmina Burana, which would come to think of it be a good choice itself.
*Because while it’s epic, it isn’t really over the top epic like the faster bits of the Conan music.
My personal go-to epic music is either Gonna Fly Now (Theme from Rocky) or Knights of Cydonia from Muse (sounds like Ennio Morricone composed a Queen song).
And I agree with Oakminster - you can never go wrong with Wagner for flat out epic-osity.
The theme from 2001…has another name that I can’t quite remember or spell, something like Also Spach Zarrustra. Used by Ric Flair as his entrance music, good for introducing big wigs/award winners/new products…
Also, in the word of rock, well, I don’t know any power metal so I can’t make the perfect recommendation :), but some stuff by Coheed and Cambria works. For what it looks like you are looking for, The Final Cut by Co+Ca has some instrumental parts that sound like a mixture of Pink Floyd and a cheesy 80s film guitar soundtrack (IOW perfect for pomposity)
Dance of the Knights by Prokofiev Dies Irae from Verdi’s Requiem In the Hall of the Mountain King from Peer Gynt by Edvard Grieg
Also take a look at the soundtrack for Kenneth Branagh’s Othello. The intro theme is epic in a romantic way (you can pretty much hear Laurence Fishburne swooping by in tight pants)
NFL Films has commissioned a ton of music for use in various football highlight films; you hear quite a bit of it on TV commercials, as well.
There’s at least one album of it available on iTunes, called something like “Autumn Thunder”. Some of the tracks (particularly “Heroes of War”) may have that over-the-top epic feel you’re looking for.
That made me think, one form of Epic Rock Song that has thankfully fallen out of favor is sort of over the top pompostic enough to nominate in this thread: the type that start off with a verse and/or theme, then have up to 10 minutes or more of musical noodling, then a reprise of the theme.
Rush has two I can think of, YYZ and the Trees.
Led Zeppelins Moby Dick counts.
As does the Floyd’s Interstellar Overdrive and Echoes.
(And who can forget, like I almost did, Innagaddadavita?)