Book Excerpt of the Day

Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (’59) is a breezy entertainment compared to the obsessive moods of Vertigo and shocking horror of Psycho, but it’s still a masterpiece of suspense with a riveting score by Herrmann. The composer started work on it right after scoring the pilot episode of TV’s The Twilight Zone. As was his practice, he wrote the score by hand, from beginning to end based on roughly sketched motifs. The sinister fandango theme music that opens the film, and ends without resolution, is melodically memorable and rhythmically invigorating. According to musicologist Christopher Husted, who wrote the booklet notes for the Rhino Records edition of the soundtrack, Herrmann claimed to have been inspired to use Latin American rhythms by star Cary Grant’s “Astaire-like agility.” Elsewhere, Herrmann uses popular melodies (“In the Still of the Night” and “It’s a Most Unusual Day”) to reinforce the romantic under current. The film’s love theme — a lyrical duet between clarinet and oboe — uses propulsive rhythms played on strings to suggest the steady forward momentum of train carrying Grant and Eva Marie Saint toward their shared destiny. The score has its share of ominous (“Kidnapped”) and thrilling sections (“On the Rocks”) wherein Herrmann combines swirling strings, stabbing winds and brass, and pulse-pounding percussion.

– from Chapter 6: A Fearful Earful of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Book Excerpt of the Day

"In scoring Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, which is generally considered the original 'slasher' movie, Bernard Herrmann provided not only gripping cues for psychological and physical terror, but also deeply emotional underscoring for plights facing Janet Leigh's character. Herrmann's score identifies with Leigh's character while commenting on her situation as a detached observer. This is hardly surprising, given Herrmann's gift for suggesting character traits of an almost subliminal nature. Unlike on his other work for Hitchcock, Herrmann works with an all-strings orchestra, as if to call attention to the horrible, almost incestuous intimacy of the story as well as its stark black and white cinematography."

– from Chapter 6: A Fearful Earful of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Book Excerpt of the Day

"Hollywood legend Bernard Herrmann's final score accompanies the gritty Taxi Driver, about a cabbie turned vigilante. The jazz-tinged orchestral score harkens back to the early years of crime jazz film and television scores, but with a darker sensibility rarely heard in the soundtracks of the '50s. The track 'Diary of a Taxi Driver,' featuring Bickle's monologue about the 'scum' on the streets, is a mini-masterpiece of brooding menace, with pulsating snare and cymbal echoing the cabbie's restlessness like a ticking time bomb."

– from Chapter 1: Crime Jazz and Felonious Funk of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Book Excerpt of the Day

"One of Bernard Herrmann's finest sci-fi scores is Fahrenheit 451. The project came along at a difficult time in the composer's private life, as he'd just gone through a painful divorce. Then Alfred Hitchcock fired Herrmann from Torn Curtain, their seventh big-screen collaboration, for failing to deliver a pop-oriented score. Ironically, it was Hitchcock disciple Francois Truffaut who hired the composer to score his adaptation of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, a cautionary tale of a dystopian future where books are forbidden and burned by firemen... When Herrmann asked Truffaut why he'd been selected when the director had access to younger, more avant-garde composers, the director said that those composers would supply him with music of the 20th century, and that Herrmann would compose music for the 21st century."

– from Chapter 5: Sci-Fidelity and the Superhero Spectrum of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Book Excerpt of the Day

"Omitting strings from the orchestration entirely, the ever-experimental [Bernard Herrmann] employs [on Journey to the Center of the Earth] thundering pipe organ, mesmerizing harp, blaring brass, crashing percussion and a rare wind instrument known as the serpent that collectively evoke the cavernous journey into the bowels of the Earth."

– from Chapter 5: Sci-Fidelity and the Superhero Spectrum of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Book Excerpt of the Day

“To create the sense of uneasiness that is critical to any suspenseful mood, [Bernard] Herrmann used dissonant harmonies that eschew comforting resolutions. What made Herrmann the master at manipulating audiences is the virtuosity at using nagging ostinatos and inconclusive harmonies to tweak their expectations while rarely providing the melodic reassurance.”

– from Chapter 6: A Fearful Earful of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979