Squids in the Danube: The Hungarian Connection to Squid Game

You’d have to be living under a rock not to know that the most sensational show these days is the South Korean Netflix series Squid Game. The show is the most watched in the streaming juggernaut’s history, and is only picking up steam. Inspiring real life versions of the games, restaurants, and parodies, the show is an instant classic. But did you know that a Hungarian company and Hungarian musicians had a hand in the score? Neither did we until local news site Index broke the story.

The site reposts that the version of Blue Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss, and much of the incidental and background music, was provided by LA based company Budapest Scoring, which connects the deep pool of talented Hungarian musicians with the global entertainment industry.

Founded by Bálint Sapszon, a Hungarian who has been living in Los Angeles since 2007, Budapest Scoring was hired to help with the music on Squid Game after their successful collaboration with the South Korean filmmakers behind the Oscar winning film Parasite.

When we were working on the music for Squid Game, we didn’t even know exactly what it was all about. The big band and the symphony orchestra also contributed to the recordings. In each episode, Johann Strauss's Orbit of the Blue Danube and Haydn's trumpet would be performed by trumpet player László Tóth. The orchestral recordings of both classical music, jazz big band and original film music took place in Budapest — Sapszon told Index.

Sapszon went on to tell the news site that South Korean audiences have different expectations regarding background music in film, which explains why there is seemingly upbeat music playing during the most harrowing, gruesome scenes in the series, over the course of which, hundreds of competitors in the ‘game’ are executed.

There are very brutal series of images in the series, which become even more shocking with the musical background and achieve their effect a lot, Sapszon told Index.

Squid Game can claim, by Netflix’s own numbers, 111,000,000 viewers, rounding to millions. To call is widely watched would be an understatement. That Hungarian musicians contributed with Blue Danube Waltz, which feels very fitting considering that we sit on the Danube, allows us some to enjoy some local pride in this international hit.

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