Bernard Herrmann
[2] Alex Ross writes that "Over four decades, he revolutionized movie scoring by abandoning the illustrative musical techniques that dominated Hollywood in the 1930s and imposing his own peculiar harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary.He is known for his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, notably The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) (where he makes a cameo as the conductor at Royal Albert Hall), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960), The Birds (1963) (as "sound consultant") and Marnie (1964) .His other credits include Jane Eyre (1943), Anna and the King of Siam (1946), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Cape Fear (1962), Fahrenheit 451 (1966) and Twisted Nerve (1968).Herrmann scored films that were inspired by Hitchcock, like François Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black (1968) and Brian De Palma's Sisters (1972) and Obsession (1976).After winning a composition prize at the age of thirteen, he decided to concentrate on music, and went to New York University, where he studied with Percy Grainger and Philip James.He performed the works of Hermann Goetz, Alexander Gretchaninov, Niels Gade and Franz Liszt, and received many outstanding American musical awards and grants for his unusual programming and championship of little-known composers.[14] Herrmann was music director for Welles's CBS radio series The Orson Welles Show (1941–1942), which included the debut of his wife Lucille Fletcher's suspense classic The Hitch-Hiker; Ceiling Unlimited (1942), a program conceived to glorify the aviation industry and dramatize its role in World War II; and The Mercury Summer Theatre on the Air (1946).[19] David Thomson notes Herrmann's "sly borrowings from Beethoven's Eroica", a recording of which can be seen in the bedroom of Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins).[20] Herrmann's score also had a direct influence on producer George Martin's staccato string arrangement for the Beatles' 1966 single "Eleanor Rigby".This motif has direct relevance to the film because the horns can be clearly heard sounding in just this manner at Fort Point, the spot where a key incident occurs involving the character played by Kim Novak.Hitchcock served only as advisor on the show, which he hosted, but Herrmann was again working with former Mercury Theatre actor Norman Lloyd, co-producer (with Joan Harrison) of the series.Truffaut writes that "Hermmann's removal is a flagrant injustice, since it is a matter of record that his contributions to The Man Who Knew Too Much, North by Northwest, and Psycho had greatly enhanced the success of these films.Herrmann, who had a full schedule of films planned for 1976, including DePalma's Carrie, The Seven Per Cent Solution and Larry Cohen's God Told Me To, was reportedly happy to be in a position to ignore Hitchcock's reunion offer.Some of Herrmann's cues for Torn Curtain were post-synched to the final cut, where they showed how remarkably attuned the composer was to the action, and how, arguably, more effective his score could have been.From the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, Herrmann scored a series of notable mythically themed fantasy films, including Journey to the Center of the Earth and the Ray Harryhausen Dynamation epics The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, Mysterious Island and The 3 Worlds of Gulliver.As well as his many film scores, Herrmann wrote several concert pieces, including his Symphony in 1941; the opera Wuthering Heights; the cantata Moby Dick (1938), dedicated to Charles Ives; and For the Fallen, a tribute to the soldiers who died in battle in World War II.Herrmann was a sound consultant on The Birds, which made extensive use of an electronic instrument called the mixturtrautonium, performed by Oskar Sala on the film's soundtrack.Herrmann used several electronic instruments on his score of It's Alive, as well as the Moog synthesizer for the main themes in Endless Night and Sisters.[38] "Georgie's Theme" from Herrmann's score for the 1968 film Twisted Nerve is whistled by assassin Elle Driver in the hospital corridor scene in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003).More recently, the first and fourth episodes of Amazon Prime's 2018 streaming series Homecoming used cues from Herrmann's Vertigo and The Day the Earth Stood Still respectively.His friend, John Steven Lasher, has produced several albums featuring Urtext recordings, including Battle of Neretva, Citizen Kane, The Kentuckian, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Night Digger and Sisters, under various labels owned by Fifth Continent Australia Pty Ltd. Herrmann was an early and enthusiastic proponent of the music of Charles Ives.Herrmann later made a recording of the work in 1972 and this reunion with the LSO, after more than a decade, was significant to him for several reasons – he had long hoped to record his own interpretation of the symphony, feeling that Leonard Bernstein's 1951 version was "overblown and inaccurate"; on a personal level, it also served to assuage Herrmann's long-held feeling that he had been snubbed by the orchestra after his first visit in 1956.The notoriously prickly composer had also been enraged by the recent appointment of the LSO's new chief conductor André Previn, who Herrmann detested, and deprecatingly referred to as "that jazz boy".In 1996, Sony Classical released The Film Scores, a recording of Herrmann's music performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen.Charles Gerhardt conducted a 1974 RCA recording titled The Classic Film Scores of Bernard Herrmann with the National Philharmonic Orchestra.It featured suites from Citizen Kane (with Kiri Te Kanawa singing Salammbo's Aria) and White Witch Doctor, along with music from On Dangerous Ground, Beneath the 12-Mile Reef, and the Hangover Square piano concerto.His work has left a profound influence on composers of film music that followed him, the most notable being John Williams,[42] Elmer Bernstein,[43] Jerry Goldsmith,[44][45] Howard Shore, Lalo Schifrin,[46] James Horner,[47] Carter Burwell[48] and others.In addition to Elfman, fellow film composers Richard Band, Graeme Revell, Christopher Young, Alexandre Desplat and Brian Tyler consider Herrmann to be a major inspiration.Martin later expanded on this as an extended suite for McCartney's 1984 film Give My Regards to Broad Street, which features a very recognizable homage to Herrmann's score for Psycho.Avant-garde composer/saxophonist/producer John Zorn, in the biographical film A Bookshelf on Top of the Sky, cited Bernard Herrmann as one of his favorite composers and a major influence.
BBC Northern Dance OrchestraLos AngelesBeth David CemeteryJuilliard SchoolNew York UniversityLucille Fletcher1941 Academy AwardMusic Score of a Dramatic PictureThe Devil and Daniel Webster1976 BAFTA AwardBest Film MusicTaxi Drivercomposerconductorfilm scoringAlex RossAcademy Awardradio dramaOrson WellesThe Mercury Theater on the AirCitizen KaneAlfred HitchcockThe Man Who Knew Too MuchRoyal Albert HallVertigoNorth by NorthwestPsychoThe BirdsMarnieJane EyreAnna and the King of SiamThe Ghost and Mrs. MuirThe Day the Earth Stood StillCape FearFahrenheit 451Twisted NerveFrançois TruffautThe Bride Wore BlackBrian De PalmaSistersObsessionRay HarryhausenHave Gun – Will TravelRod SerlingThe Twilight ZoneMartin ScorseseUkraineDeWitt Clinton High SchoolPercy GraingerPhilip JamesColumbia WorkshopThe Fall of the CityCBS Symphony OrchestraCharles IvesFrederick the GreatHenry VIIICharles I of EnglandLouis XIIIMyaskovskyGian Francesco MalipieroRichard ArnellEdmund Rubbra3rd SymphonyHermann GoetzAlexander GretchaninovNiels GadeFranz LisztLeopold StokowskiJohn BarbirolliThomas BeechamEugene OrmandyThe Hitch-HikerThe Orson Welles Showhis operatic adaptationWuthering HeightsThe Mercury Theatre on the AirMercury Theatre on the AirCampbell PlayhouseWelles's famous adaptationH.G. WellsThe War of the WorldsRebeccaRKO PicturesAcademy Award nominationDorothy ComingoreThe Magnificent AmbersonsCeiling UnlimitedPeter BogdanovichWilliam DieterlePauline KaelRaising Kanescreenplay for Citizen KaneThe Trouble with HarryQue Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)Storm Clouds CantataorchestratecantataArthur Benjaminfilm of the same nameLondon Symphony OrchestraThe Wrong ManHenry FondaDavid ThomsonBeethovenEroicaAnthony PerkinsGeorge Martinthe BeatlesEleanor RigbyLiebestodRichard WagnerTristan und IsoldeGolden Gate BridgeFort PointKim NovakMuir MathiesonGeorge Eastman HouseThe Alfred Hitchcock HourMercury TheatreNorman LloydJoan HarrisonTorn CurtainUniversalPatrick McGilliganpreludeJohn Addison