Music can illustrate your world. It can also sign it.
Putting music on a game that “sounds good”: many know how to do that. What Yves Ruhlmann does is of another order: a musical language of his own, forged by twenty-five years of practice and a long research into the genesis of musical language, captures the deep identity of a character, a world, a mythology — and seals it into the very architecture of the music. The theme does not illustrate the character: it signs him. His path includes a high-level training in music for the image and the original scores of two auteur feature films: De Raptu Proserpinae (Claude Aubert, 2013) and Curiosa Pandora (Claude Aubert, 2016).
A character, a faction, a place, a world, a mythology, a symbolic system, a conflict, a scene, a narrative architecture, colours, shapes, numbers, cycles, an emotional intention, a dramaturgical function: for most composers, this material inspires. Here, it builds.
It works on two levels.
On the substance — in the intention, the identity and the musical meaning.
In the architecture — through Yves Ruhlmann’s work on numbers, their coding, their musical translation and the organisation of the work.
The method
When Bach signed a work, he did not write his name: he played it. The four letters B‑A‑C‑H, read as notes — B flat, A, C, B — became a motif: his very identity, turned into music. This gesture runs through the history of art music: Josquin built an entire mass on the vowels of a prince’s name, Shostakovich made his initials, D‑S‑C‑H, the musical signature of his whole output.
Musique Code Cantique, a method created by Yves Ruhlmann in 2022 after more than twenty years of research into musical language, extends and systematises this gesture. What defines a character — his name, what he carries, what he goes through, the symbols and the numbers that structure his world — is translated into numerical structures, and these structures then become musical architecture. The character’s theme is then not only inspired by him: it is built from him. The leitmotif no longer illustrates an identity — it proceeds from it.
For a studio, this means that part of the project’s deep material — a character, a faction, a place, a mythology, an element of the brief — can enter into the very construction of the music, and not only into its atmosphere. The work is heard as orchestral music in the full sense of the term; its genesis, however, belongs to the world of the game.
God’s Sword was composed for a real person, considered as a character at a given moment of his life. The brief brought together a context, intentions, an idea of expansion, a taste for the epic and the chivalric, a sensitivity to the great video game worlds and several musical references. From this material was born a work of its own, in which orchestral writing, electric guitar, epic energy and more classical and contemporary elements enter into dialogue.
Its demonstrative value is precise: to start from a character, a context, intentions, references and symbolic elements — and to build a work that proceeds from them. The result is not music that “sounds like a video game”: it is the musical signature of a character.
Two works for the image, with different functions:
Life
Amnesty International — 50 years (2012)
The original score of Curiosa Pandora can be heard on the Listen page.
Depending on the project, Yves Ruhlmann can work on original composition, a theme for a character, a place or a faction, the musical architecture of a world, arrangement, orchestration, adaptation, development from existing material, work from separate stems where they exist, occasional collaboration — or alongside a composer or an audio team already in place.
The presence of a resident composer is never an obstacle: complementary composition, arrangement, orchestration, support on a particular sequence, special collaboration or a future project remain open doors. It is never a matter of replacing anyone.
Yves Ruhlmann works with autonomy — from a world, a character, a scene or a brief — as well as under structured direction: creative director, game director, audio director, music supervisor, producer. References, constraints, feedback, requests for adaptation, narrative objectives and production requirements are part of the framework that the contract defines according to the assignment. A studio can pass on references and comparison works: they are received as landmarks, never imitated.
Yves Ruhlmann can often begin without a confidential build, unreleased cinematic or proprietary assets: a written or spoken brief that is precise enough — who the character is, what he goes through, the function of the scene, the emotion sought, what the player must feel — can be sufficient. An operational advantage for teams attentive to leaks.
When a project warrants it, a prefiguration or a first piece of musical work can be considered.
An existing work can be synchronised into a project when it genuinely corresponds to it and the rights are agreed. Some works have separate stems allowing alternative versions, reductions, rebalancing or new orchestrations — to be checked case by case. The standard professional licence does not cover these uses: they fall under a specific agreement.
The general professional selection, and the complete corpus on The works. Free and continuous discovery: Symphoniya Wave.
The quotation depends on the role entrusted, the scale, the production, the performers, the recording, the rights, exclusivity, the scope of use and the schedule.
Introduce us to your world
To evoke a character or a scene, to present narrative material, to discuss a musical collaboration:
