Bernard Herrmann
Encyclopedia
Bernard Herrmann was an American
composer noted for his work in motion pictures.
An Academy Award-winner (for The Devil and Daniel Webster, 1941), Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock
, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest
, The Man Who Knew Too Much
, and Vertigo
. He also composed notable scores for many other movies, including Citizen Kane
, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
, Cape Fear
, and Taxi Driver
. He worked extensively in radio drama
(most notably for Orson Welles
), composed the scores for several fantasy films by Ray Harryhausen
, and many TV programs including most notably Rod Serling
's The Twilight Zone
and Have Gun–Will Travel.
. He attended high school at DeWitt Clinton High School
, at that time on 10th avenue and 59th Street in New York City
. His father encouraged music activity, taking him to the opera
, and encouraging him to learn the violin
. After winning a $100 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 also studied at the Juilliard School
and, at the age of twenty, formed his own orchestra, The New Chamber Orchestra of New York.
In 1934, he joined the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS
) as a staff conductor. Within two years he was appointed music director of the Columbia Workshop
, an experimental radio drama series for which Herrmann composed or arranged music (one notable program was The Fall of the City
). Within nine years, he had become Chief Conductor to the CBS Symphony Orchestra. He was responsible for introducing more new works to U.S. audience than any other conductor — he was a particular champion of Charles Ives
's music, which was virtually unknown at that time. Herrmann's radio programs of concert music, which were broadcast under such titles as Invitation to Music and Exploring Music
, were planned in an unconventional way and featured rarely-heard music, old and new, which was not heard in public concert halls. Examples include broadcasts devoted to Music of Famous Amateurs or to notable royal personages, such as the music of Frederick the Great of Prussia, Henry VIII, Charles I, Louis XIII and so on.
Herrmann's many US broadcast premieres during the 1940s included Miaskovsky's 22nd Symphony, Malipiero's 3rd Symphony, Richard Arnell's 1st Symphony, Edmund Rubbra's 3rd Symphony and Ives's 3rd Symphony. He performed the works of Goetz, Gretchaninov, Gade and Liszt, and received many outstanding American musical awards and grants for his unusual programming and championship of little-known composers. In Dictators of the Baton, David Ewen wrote that Herrmann was "one of the most invigorating influences in the radio music of the past decade." Also during the 1940s, Herrmann's own concert music was taken up and played by such celebrated maestri as Leopold Stokowski, Sir John Barbirolli, Sir Thomas Beecham and Eugene Ormandy.
In 1934, Herrmann met a young CBS secretary and aspiring writer, Lucille Fletcher
. Fletcher was impressed with Herrmann's work, and the two began a five-year courtship. Marriage was delayed by the objections of Fletcher's parents, who disliked the fact that Herrmann was a Jew and were put off by what they viewed as his abrasive personality. The couple finally married on October 2, 1939. Fletcher was to become a noted radio screenwriter, and she and Herrmann collaborated on several projects throughout their career. He contributed the score to the famed Campbell Playhouse adaptation of her story "The Hitch-Hiker" (starring Orson Welles
), and Fletcher helped to write the libretto for his operatic adaptation
of Wuthering Heights
. The couple divorced in 1948. The next year he married Lucille's cousin, Lucy (Kathy Lucille) Anderson. That marriage lasted 18 years, till 1964.
While at CBS, Herrmann met Orson Welles
, and wrote or arranged scores for his Mercury Theatre
broadcasts which were radio adaptations of literature. He conducted music for Welles's famous adaptation
of H. G. Wells
's The War of the Worlds
broadcast on October 30, 1938, which consisted entirely of pre-existing music. When Welles moved to movies, Herrmann went with him, writing the scores for Citizen Kane
(1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons
(1942), although the score for the latter, like the film itself, was heavily edited by the studio. Between those two movies, he wrote the score for William Dieterle
's The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), for which he won his only Oscar
. In 1947, Herrmann scored the atmospheric music for The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
.
. He wrote the scores for almost every Hitchcock film from The Trouble with Harry
(1955) to Marnie
(1964), a period which included Vertigo
, Psycho, and North by Northwest
. He oversaw the sound design in The Birds
(1963), although there was no actual music in the film as such, only electronically made bird sounds.
The music for the remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much
(1956) was only partly by Herrmann. The two most significant pieces of music in the film—the song, "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)", and the Storm Cloud Cantata played in the Royal Albert Hall
—are not by Herrmann (although he did re-orchestrate
the cantata by Australian-born composer Arthur Benjamin
written for the earlier Hitchcock film of the same name
). However, this film did give Herrmann the opportunity for an on-screen appearance: he is the conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra
in the Albert Hall scene.
Herrmann's most recognizable music is from another Hitchcock film, Psycho. Unusual for a thriller at the time, the score uses only the string section of the orchestra. The screeching violin
music heard during the famous shower scene (which Hitchcock originally suggested have no music at all) is one of the most famous moments in film score history.
His score
for Vertigo
(1958) is seen as just as masterful. In many of the key scenes Hitchcock let Herrmann's score take center stage, a score whose melodies, echoing the "Liebestod
" from Richard Wagner
's Tristan und Isolde
, dramatically convey the main character's obsessive love for the woman he tries to shape into a long-dead, past love.
A notable feature of the Vertigo score is the ominous two-note falling motif that opens the suite — it is a direct musical imitation of the two notes sounded by the fog horns located at either side of the Golden Gate Bridge
in San Francisco (as heard from the San Francisco side of the bridge). This motif has direct relevance to the film, since the horns can be clearly heard sounding in just this manner at Fort Point, the spot where the character played by Kim Novak
jumps into the bay.
Bernard Herrmann said, in a question-and-answer session at the George Eastman Museum in October 1973, that unlike most film composers who did not have any creative input into the style and tone of the score, Herrmann insisted on creative control or he would not score the film at all:
Herrmann stated that Hitchcock would invite him on to the production of a film and depending on his decision of the length of the music, would either expand or contract the scene. It was Hitchcock who asked Herrmann for the "recognition scene" near the end of Vertigo
(the scene where Jimmy Stewart's character suddenly realizes Kim Novak's identity) to be played with music.
Herrmann's relationship with Hitchcock came to an abrupt end when they disagreed over the score for Torn Curtain
. Reportedly pressured by Universal
's front office, Hitchcock wanted a score that was more jazz- and pop-influenced. Hitchcock's biographer, Patrick McGilligan
, stated that Hitchcock was worried about becoming old fashioned and felt that Herrmann's music had to change with the times as well. Herrmann initially agreed, but then went ahead and scored the film according to his own ideas in any case.
Hitchcock listened to only the prelude
of the score before turning off a recording of the music and angrily confronting Herrmann about the pop score he had promised. Herrmann, equally incensed, bellowed, "Look, Hitch, you can't outjump your own shadow. And you don't make pop pictures. What do you want with me? I don't write pop music." Hitchcock unrelentingly insisted that Herrmann change the score, violating Herrmann's general claim for creative control that he had always been maintained in their previous films. Herrmann then said, "Hitch, what's the use of my doing more with you? I had a career before you, and I will afterwards."
According to McGilligan, Herrmann later tried to patch up and repair the damage with Hitchcock, but Hitchcock refused to see him. Herrmann's widow disputes this, painting a somewhat different picture, of two friends whose egos were in the way. In a 2004 interview with Günther Kögebehn for the Bernard Herrmann Society (titled Running with the Kids: A Conversation with Norma Herrmann), she states:
In 2009, Norma Herrmann began to auction off her late husband's personal collection on Bonhams.com, adding more interesting details to the two men's relationship. While Herrmann had brought Hitchcock a copy of his classical work after the break-up, Hitchcock, in fact, gave Herrmann an inscribed copy of his Hitchcock-Truffaut interview book, signed "To Benny with my fondest wishes, Hitch." The Orson Welles website, wellesnet.com, mentions this in an article written Sunday, April 12, 2009, along with a bit more information, giving the impression that Hitchcock, more and more, wanted to patch up the damage done as his Hollywood power waned:
At any rate, Herrmann's unused score for Torn Curtain
was later commercially recorded, initially by Elmer Bernstein
for his Film Music Collection subscription record label (reissued by Warner Bros. Records), and later, in a concert suite adapted by Christopher Palmer, by Esa-Pekka Salonen
and the Los Angeles Philharmonic
for Sony
. Some of Herrmann's cues for Torn Curtain were later 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.
Ironically, Herrmann had composed some jazz for the "picnic" scene in Citizen Kane
and he later used some jazz elements (much in the vein of Maurice Ravel
's two piano concertos) for The Wrong Man
when he scored the nightclub scenes showing Henry Fonda
as a double bass player in a jazz band, and for Taxi Driver
.
Herrmann subsequently moved to England
, where he was hired by François Truffaut
to write the score for Fahrenheit 451
and, later, for The Bride Wore Black
. (During this period he unfortunately became confused with another conductor of the same name who worked with the BBC Northern Dance Orchestra.) His final work, the score for Martin Scorsese
's Taxi Driver
(1976), received high acclaim.
and the Ray Harryhausen
Dynamation epics Jason and the Argonauts, Mysterious Island
, The Three Worlds of Gulliver
, and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad .
During the same period, Herrmann turned his talents to writing scores for television shows. Perhaps most notably, he wrote the scores for several well-known episodes of the original Twilight Zone
series, including the lesser known theme used during the series' first season, as well as the opening theme to Have Gun–Will Travel.
In the mid-1960s he composed the highly-regarded music score for François Truffaut
's Fahrenheit 451
. Scored for strings, two harp
s, vibraphone
, xylophone
and glockenspiel
, Herrmann's score created a driving, neurotic mood that perfectly suited the film. It also had a direct influence on producer George Martin
's staccato string arrangement for Beatles
1966 smash hit single "Eleanor Rigby
".
In 1967, he married his third wife, Norma Shepherd.
Herrmann's last film scores included Sisters and Obsession for Brian De Palma
. His final film soundtrack, and the last work he completed before his death, was his sombre score for the 1976 film Taxi Driver
, directed by Martin Scorsese
. It was De Palma who had suggested to Scorsese to use the composer. Immediately after finishing the recording of the Taxi Driver soundtrack on December 23, 1975, Herrmann viewed the rough cut of what was to be his next film assignment, Larry Cohen
's God Told Me To
, and dined with Cohen, after which he returned to his hotel for the night. Bernard Herrmann died from cardiovascular disease
in his sleep at his hotel in Los Angeles
, during the night. Scorsese and Cohen dedicated both Taxi Driver and God Told Me To to Herrmann's memory.
As well as his many film scores, Herrmann wrote several concert pieces, including a 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
, among others. He recorded all these compositions, and several others, for the Unicorn
label during his last years in London.
in The Day the Earth Stood Still
. Robert B. Sexton has noted that this score involved the use of treble and bass theremins (played by Dr. Samuel Hoffmann and Paul Shure), electric strings
, bass
, prepared piano
, and guitar
together with various pianos and harps, electronic organ
s, brass
, and percussion
, and that Herrmann treated the theremins as a truly orchestral section.
Herrmann was a sound consultant on The Birds, which made extensive use of an electronic instrument called the mixturtrautonium
, although the instrument was performed by Oskar Sala
on the film’s soundtrack. Herrmann used several electronic instruments on his score of It’s Alive as well.
(short repeating patterns), novel orchestration
and, in his film scores, an ability to portray character traits not altogether obvious from other elements of the film.
Early in his life, Herrmann committed himself to a creed of personal integrity at the price of unpopularity: the quintessential artist. His philosophy is summarized by a favorite Tolstoy quote: ‘Eagles fly alone and sparrows fly in flocks.' Thus, Herrmann would only compose music for films when he was allowed the artistic liberty to compose what he wished without the director getting in the way. Most famously, after over a decade of composing for all of Hitchcock’s films, Hitchcock requested a more “pop” score from Herrmann. Herrmann’s score was not what Hitchcock had requested, and since Herrmann was so committed to having artistic liberty and would not compromise his values, the two went their separate ways, never to collaborate again. This shows Herrmann’s persistence in being able to compose as he saw fit to represent the film.
His philosophy of orchestrating film was based on the assumption that the musicians were selected and hired for the recording session—that this music was not constrained to the musical forces of the concert hall. For example, his use of ten harp
s in Beneath the 12 Mile Reef created an extraordinary underwater-like sonic landscape; his use of four bass flute
s in Citizen Kane contributed to the creepy opening, only matched by the use of 12 flute
s in his unused Torn Curtain score; and his use of the serpent
in White Witch Doctor
is possibly the first use of that instrument in a film score.
Herrmann said in an interview: "To orchestrate is like a thumbprint. I can't understand having someone else do it. It would be like someone putting color to your paintings."
Herrmann subscribed to the belief since held by many that the best film music should be able to stand on its own legs when detached from the film for which it was originally written. To this end, he made several well-known recordings for Decca of arrangements of his own film music as well as music of other prominent composers.
, was made about him. Also in 1992 a 2½ hour long National Public Radio documentary was produced on his life —Bernard Herrmann: A Celebration of his Life and Music (Bruce A. Crawford). In 1991, Steven C. Smith wrote a Herrmann biography titled A Heart at Fire's Center, a quotation from a favorite Stephen Spender
poem of Herrmann's.
His music continues to be used in films and recordings after his death. "Georgie's Theme" from Herrmann's score for the 1968 film Twisted Nerve
is whistled by one-eyed nurse Elle Driver in the hospital corridor scene in Quentin Tarantino
's Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003). The opening theme from Vertigo
was used in the prologue to Lady Gaga
's "Born This Way
" video
, and during a flashback sequence in the pilot episode of FX's American Horror Story
. Fellow film composer Danny Elfman
adapted Herrmann's music for Psycho
for use in director Gus Van Sant
's 1998 remake
and borrowed from Herrmann's "Mountaintop/Sunrise" theme, from Journey to the Center of the Earth
, for his main Batman
theme. On their 1977 album Ra, American progressive rock
group Utopia
also adapted "Mountaintop/Sunrise," in a rock arrangement, as the introduction to the album's opening song, "Communion With The Sun."
Herrmann's film music is well represented on disc. 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 also a champion of the romantic-era composer Joachim Raff
, whose music had fallen into near-oblivion in the 1960s. During the 1940s, Herrmann had played Raff's 3rd and 5th Symphonies in his CBS radio broadcasts. In May 1970, Herrmann conducted the world premiere recording of Raff's Fifth Symphony "Lenore" for the Unicorn label. The recording did not attract much notice in its time, despite receiving excellent reviews, but is now considered a major turning-point in the rehabilitation of Raff as a composer.
In 1996, Sony Classical released a recording of Herrmann's music, The Film Scores, performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic
under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen
. This disc received the 1998 Cannes Classical Music Award for "Best 20th-Century Orchestral Recording." It was also nominated for the 1998 Grammy Award
for "Best Engineered Album, Classical." In 2004 Sony Classical re-released this superb recording at a budget price in its "Great Performances" series (SNYC 92767SK).
Decca
has reissued on CD a series of Phase 4 Stereo
recordings with Herrmann conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra
mostly in excerpts from his various film scores, including one devoted to music from several of the Hitchcock films (including Psycho
, Marnie
and Vertigo
). In the liner notes for the Hitchcock Phase 4 album, Herrmann said that the suite from The Trouble with Harry
was a "portrait of Hitch". Another album was devoted to his fantasy film scores—a few of them being the films of the special effects animator Ray Harryhausen, including music from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and The Three Worlds of Gulliver. His other Phase 4 Stereo
LPs of the 1970s included Music from the Great Film Classics (suites and excerpts from Jane Eyre
, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Citizen Kane
and The Devil and Daniel Webster
); and "The Fantasy World of Bernard Herrmann" (Journey to the Center of the Earth
, The Day the Earth Stood Still
, and Fahrenheit 451
.)
Fellow composers Richard Band
, Graeme Revell
, Christopher Young
, Danny Elfman
and Brian Tyler
consider Herrmann to be a major inspiration. In 1985, Richard Band
's opening theme to Re-Animator
borrows heavily from Herrmann's opening score to Psycho
. In 1990, Graeme Revell
had adapted Herrmann's music from Psycho
for its television sequel-prequel Psycho IV: The Beginning
. Revell's early orchestral music during the early nineties, such as Child's Play 2
(which its music score being a reminiscent of Herrmann's scores to the 1973 film Sisters, due to the synthesizers incorporated in the chilling parts of the orchestral score) as well as the 1963 The Twilight Zone episode "Living Doll
" (which inspired the Child's Play franchise), were very similar to Herrmann's work. Also, Revell's score for the video game Call of Duty 2
was very much a reminiscent of Herrmann's very rare WWII music scores such as The Naked and the Dead
and Battle of Neretva. Young, who was a jazz drummer at first, listened to Herrmann's works which convinced him to be a film composer. Elfman has said he first became interested in film music upon seeing The Day the Earth Stood Still
, and he paid homage to that score in his music for Mars Attacks!
Tyler's score for Bill Paxton
's film Frailty was greatly influenced by Herrmann's film music.
Sir George Martin
, best known for producing and often adding orchestration to The Beatles
music, cites Herrmann as an influence in his own work, particularly in Martin's scoring of the Beatles' song "Eleanor Rigby
". 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 hommage 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.
Elmer Bernstein
adapted and arranged Herrmann's original score from J. Lee Thompson
's Cape Fear
(1962), and used it for the 1991 Martin Scorsese
remake. After Bernstein realized there was not enough music in the score from the original film, he added sections from Herrmann's unused score for Hitchcock's Torn Curtain, including the music composed for the murder of the character "Gromek". The score for Cape Fear evokes both the gathering clouds of the destructive hurricane and the murderous intent of killer Max Cady. Bernstein also recorded Herrmann's score for The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
, which was released in 1975 on the Varese Sarabande label later reissued on CD in the 1990s.
Charles Gerhardt
conducted a 1974 RCA recording entitled "The Classic Film Scores of Bernard Herrmann" with the National Philharmonic Orchestra
. It featured Suites from Citizen Kane (with Kiri te Kanawa singing the 'Salammbo' aria) and White Witch Doctor
, along with music from On Dangerous Ground
, Beneath the 12-Mile Reef
, and the Hangover Square
Piano Concerto.
During his last years in England, between 1966 and 1975, Herrmann made several LPs of other composers' music for assorted record labels. These included Phase 4 Stereo recordings of Gustav Holst's The Planets and Charles Ives's 2nd Symphony, as well as an album entitled "The Impressionists" (music by Satie, Debussy, Ravel, Faure and Honegger) and another entitled "The Four Faces of Jazz" (works by Weill, Gershwin, Stravinsky and Milhaud). As well as recording his own film music in Phase 4 Stereo he made LPs of movie scores by others, such as "Great Shakespearean Films" (music by Shostakovitch for Hamlet, Walton for Richard III and Rozsa for Julius Caesar), and "Great British Film Music" (movie scores by Lambert, Bax, Benjamin, Walton, Vaughan Williams, and Bliss).
For Unicorn Records, he recorded several of his own concert-hall works, including the cantata Moby Dick, his opera Wuthering Heights
, his Symphony, and the suites Welles Raises Kane and The Devil and Daniel Webster
.
Pristine Audio
has released two CDs of Herrmann's radio broadcasts. One is devoted to a CBS programme from 1945 that features music by Handel, Vaughan Williams and Elgar; the other is devoted to works by Charles Ives, Robert Russell Bennett and Herrmann himself.
respectively ranked Herrmann's scores for Psycho and Vertigo
#4 and #12 on their list of the 25 greatest film scores
. His scores for the following films were also nominated for the list:
television commercial for the Volkswagen CC
.
Music from the Vertigo soundtrack was used in BBC Four
's Spitfire Women documentary, aired in the UK in September 2010.
A 2011 TV commercial entitled "Snowpocalypse" for Dodge
all-wheel drive vehicles uses Herrmann's main title theme for Cape Fear.
"Gimme Some More" by Busta Rhymes is based on a sample from Herrmann's score from Psycho.
The prologue to Lady Gaga
's 2011 video for the song Born This Way
features Herrmann's Vertigo prelude.
The phrase "Bernard Herrmann lives" is graffiti
ed under a train overpass at the intersection of Bethlehem Pike, Skippack Pk (PA Route 73), and Camp Hill Rd. near Flourtown, Pennsylvania. It has been there for at least 20 years.
The 2011 FX
series American Horror Story
has utilized cues from "Twisted Nerve
", "Psycho", and "Vertigo
" for episode scores.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
composer noted for his work in motion pictures.
An Academy Award-winner (for The Devil and Daniel Webster, 1941), Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest
North by Northwest
North by Northwest is a 1959 American thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason, and featuring Leo G. Carroll and Martin Landau...
, The Man Who Knew Too Much
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956 film)
The Man Who Knew Too Much is a suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring James Stewart and Doris Day. The film is a remake in widescreen VistaVision and Technicolor of Hitchcock's 1934 film of the same name....
, and Vertigo
Vertigo (film)
Vertigo is a 1958 psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Barbara Bel Geddes. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A...
. He also composed notable scores for many other movies, including Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir romantic fantasy film starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. It is based on a 1945 novel written by Josephine Leslie under the pseudonym of R. A. Dick...
, Cape Fear
Cape Fear (1962 film)
Cape Fear is a 1962 film starring Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum and Polly Bergen. It was adapted by James R. Webb from the novel The Executioners by John D. MacDonald. It was directed by J. Lee Thompson, and released on April 12, 1962...
, and Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy...
. He worked extensively in radio drama
Radio drama
Radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story...
(most notably for Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
), composed the scores for several fantasy films by Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen is an American film producer and special effects creator...
, and many TV programs including most notably Rod Serling
Rod Serling
Rodman Edward "Rod" Serling was an American screenwriter, novelist, television producer, and narrator best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his science fiction anthology TV series, The Twilight Zone. Serling was active in politics, both on and off the screen and helped form...
's The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone is an American television anthology series created by Rod Serling. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist...
and Have Gun–Will Travel.
Early life and career
Herrmann, the son of a Jewish middle class family of Russian origin, was born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He attended high school at DeWitt Clinton High School
DeWitt Clinton High School
DeWitt Clinton High School is an American high school located in the Bronx, New York City, New York.-History:Clinton opened in 1897 at 60 West 13th Street at the northern end of Greenwich Village under the name of Boys High School, although this Boys High School was not related to the one in Brooklyn...
, at that time on 10th avenue and 59th Street in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. His father encouraged music activity, taking him to the opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
, and encouraging him to learn the violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
. After winning a $100 composition prize at the age of thirteen, he decided to concentrate on music, and went to New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
where he studied with Percy Grainger
Percy Grainger
George Percy Aldridge Grainger , known as Percy Grainger, was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many...
and Philip James
Philip James
Philip James was an American composer, conductor and music educator.Note: Composer and shakuhachi player Phil James is listed as Phil Nyokai James.-Life:...
. He also studied at the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
and, at the age of twenty, formed his own orchestra, The New Chamber Orchestra of New York.
In 1934, he joined the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
) as a staff conductor. Within two years he was appointed music director of the Columbia Workshop
Columbia Workshop
Columbia Workshop was a radio series that aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from 1936 to 1943, returning in 1946-47.-Irving Reis:...
, an experimental radio drama series for which Herrmann composed or arranged music (one notable program was The Fall of the City
The Fall of the City
The Fall of the City by Archibald MacLeish is the first American verse play written for radio. It was first broadcast over the Columbia Broadcasting System as part of the Columbia Workshop radio series on April 11, 1937, with a cast that featured Orson Welles and Burgess Meredith. Music was...
). Within nine years, he had become Chief Conductor to the CBS Symphony Orchestra. He was responsible for introducing more new works to U.S. audience than any other conductor — he was a particular champion of Charles Ives
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...
's music, which was virtually unknown at that time. Herrmann's radio programs of concert music, which were broadcast under such titles as Invitation to Music and Exploring Music
Exploring Music
Exploring Music is an internationally syndicated radio program featuring classical music, with commentary and analysis by host Bill McGlaughlin. It is a daily, one-hour show with a single in-depth theme each week. The show, which debuted in 2003, is produced by WFMT Radio Network...
, were planned in an unconventional way and featured rarely-heard music, old and new, which was not heard in public concert halls. Examples include broadcasts devoted to Music of Famous Amateurs or to notable royal personages, such as the music of Frederick the Great of Prussia, Henry VIII, Charles I, Louis XIII and so on.
Herrmann's many US broadcast premieres during the 1940s included Miaskovsky's 22nd Symphony, Malipiero's 3rd Symphony, Richard Arnell's 1st Symphony, Edmund Rubbra's 3rd Symphony and Ives's 3rd Symphony. He performed the works of Goetz, Gretchaninov, Gade and Liszt, and received many outstanding American musical awards and grants for his unusual programming and championship of little-known composers. In Dictators of the Baton, David Ewen wrote that Herrmann was "one of the most invigorating influences in the radio music of the past decade." Also during the 1940s, Herrmann's own concert music was taken up and played by such celebrated maestri as Leopold Stokowski, Sir John Barbirolli, Sir Thomas Beecham and Eugene Ormandy.
In 1934, Herrmann met a young CBS secretary and aspiring writer, Lucille Fletcher
Lucille Fletcher
Lucille Fletcher was an American screenwriter of film, radio and television. Her full name was Violet Lucille Fletcher...
. Fletcher was impressed with Herrmann's work, and the two began a five-year courtship. Marriage was delayed by the objections of Fletcher's parents, who disliked the fact that Herrmann was a Jew and were put off by what they viewed as his abrasive personality. The couple finally married on October 2, 1939. Fletcher was to become a noted radio screenwriter, and she and Herrmann collaborated on several projects throughout their career. He contributed the score to the famed Campbell Playhouse adaptation of her story "The Hitch-Hiker" (starring Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
), and Fletcher helped to write the libretto for his operatic adaptation
Wuthering Heights (Herrmann)
Wuthering Heights is the sole opera written by Bernard Herrmann. He worked on it from 1943 to 1951. It is cast in a prologue, 4 acts, and an epilogue that repeats the music of the prologue...
of Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...
. The couple divorced in 1948. The next year he married Lucille's cousin, Lucy (Kathy Lucille) Anderson. That marriage lasted 18 years, till 1964.
While at CBS, Herrmann met Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
, and wrote or arranged scores for his Mercury Theatre
Mercury Theatre
The Mercury Theatre was a theatre company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and John Houseman. After a string of live theatrical productions, in 1938 the Mercury Theatre progressed into their best-known period as The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a radio series that included one of the...
broadcasts which were radio adaptations of literature. He conducted music for Welles's famous adaptation
The War of the Worlds (radio)
The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker...
of H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
's The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds is an 1898 science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells.The War of the Worlds may also refer to:- Radio broadcasts :* The War of the Worlds , the 1938 radio broadcast by Orson Welles...
broadcast on October 30, 1938, which consisted entirely of pre-existing music. When Welles moved to movies, Herrmann went with him, writing the scores for Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
(1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons
The Magnificent Ambersons (film)
The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1942 American drama film written and directed by Orson Welles. His second feature film, it is based on the 1918 novel of the same name by Booth Tarkington and stars Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins...
(1942), although the score for the latter, like the film itself, was heavily edited by the studio. Between those two movies, he wrote the score for William Dieterle
William Dieterle
William Dieterle was a German actor and film director, who worked in Hollywood for much of his career. His best known films include The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Hunchback of Notre Dame...
's The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), for which he won his only Oscar
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
. In 1947, Herrmann scored the atmospheric music for The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir romantic fantasy film starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. It is based on a 1945 novel written by Josephine Leslie under the pseudonym of R. A. Dick...
.
Collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock
Herrmann is most closely associated with the director Alfred HitchcockAlfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
. He wrote the scores for almost every Hitchcock film from The Trouble with Harry
The Trouble with Harry
The Trouble With Harry is a 1955 American black comedy film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, based on the novel of the same name by Jack Trevor Story. It was released in the United States on October 3, 1955 then rereleased once the distribution rights were acquired by Universal Pictures in 1984...
(1955) to Marnie
Marnie (film)
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
(1964), a period which included Vertigo
Vertigo (film)
Vertigo is a 1958 psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Barbara Bel Geddes. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A...
, Psycho, and North by Northwest
North by Northwest
North by Northwest is a 1959 American thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason, and featuring Leo G. Carroll and Martin Landau...
. He oversaw the sound design in The Birds
The Birds (film)
The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
(1963), although there was no actual music in the film as such, only electronically made bird sounds.
The music for the remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956 film)
The Man Who Knew Too Much is a suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring James Stewart and Doris Day. The film is a remake in widescreen VistaVision and Technicolor of Hitchcock's 1934 film of the same name....
(1956) was only partly by Herrmann. The two most significant pieces of music in the film—the song, "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)", and the Storm Cloud Cantata played in the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
—are not by Herrmann (although he did re-orchestrate
Orchestration
Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...
the cantata by Australian-born composer Arthur Benjamin
Arthur Benjamin
Arthur Leslie Benjamin was an Australian composer, pianist, conductor and teacher. He is best known as the composer of Jamaican Rhumba, composed in 1938.-Biography:...
written for the earlier Hitchcock film of the same name
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934 film)
The Man Who Knew Too Much is a British suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, featuring Peter Lorre, and released by Gaumont British. It was one of the most successful and critically acclaimed films of Hitchcock's British period....
). However, this film did give Herrmann the opportunity for an on-screen appearance: he is the conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
in the Albert Hall scene.
Herrmann's most recognizable music is from another Hitchcock film, Psycho. Unusual for a thriller at the time, the score uses only the string section of the orchestra. The screeching violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
music heard during the famous shower scene (which Hitchcock originally suggested have no music at all) is one of the most famous moments in film score history.
His score
Vertigo (film score)
The music score for Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 film Vertigo was composed by Bernard Herrmann between 3 January and 19 February 1958. The recordings were made in London and Vienna, with orchestra conducted by Muir Mathieson...
for Vertigo
Vertigo (film)
Vertigo is a 1958 psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Barbara Bel Geddes. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A...
(1958) is seen as just as masterful. In many of the key scenes Hitchcock let Herrmann's score take center stage, a score whose melodies, echoing the "Liebestod
Liebestod
Liebestod is the title of the final, dramatic aria from the opera Tristan und Isolde by Richard Wagner. When used as a literary term, liebestod refers to the theme of erotic death or "love death" meaning the two lovers' consummation of their love in death or after death...
" from Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
, dramatically convey the main character's obsessive love for the woman he tries to shape into a long-dead, past love.
A notable feature of the Vertigo score is the ominous two-note falling motif that opens the suite — it is a direct musical imitation of the two notes sounded by the fog horns located at either side of the Golden Gate Bridge
Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1, the structure links the city of San Francisco, on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to...
in San Francisco (as heard from the San Francisco side of the bridge). This motif has direct relevance to the film, since the horns can be clearly heard sounding in just this manner at Fort Point, the spot where the character played by Kim Novak
Kim Novak
Kim Novak is an American film and television actress. She began her career with her roles in Pushover and Phffft! but achieved greater prominence in the 1955 film Picnic...
jumps into the bay.
Bernard Herrmann said, in a question-and-answer session at the George Eastman Museum in October 1973, that unlike most film composers who did not have any creative input into the style and tone of the score, Herrmann insisted on creative control or he would not score the film at all:
I have the final say, or I don’t do the music. The reason for insisting on this is simply, compared to Orson WellesOrson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
, a man of great musical culture, most other directors are just babes in the woods. If you were to follow their taste, the music would be awful. There are exceptions. I once did a film The Devil and Daniel Webster with a wonderful director William DieterleWilliam DieterleWilliam Dieterle was a German actor and film director, who worked in Hollywood for much of his career. His best known films include The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Hunchback of Notre Dame...
. He was also a man of great musical culture. And Hitchcock, you know, is very sensitive; he leaves me alone. It depends on the person. But if I have to take what a director says, I’d rather not do the film. I find it’s impossible to work that way.
Herrmann stated that Hitchcock would invite him on to the production of a film and depending on his decision of the length of the music, would either expand or contract the scene. It was Hitchcock who asked Herrmann for the "recognition scene" near the end of Vertigo
Vertigo (film)
Vertigo is a 1958 psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Barbara Bel Geddes. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A...
(the scene where Jimmy Stewart's character suddenly realizes Kim Novak's identity) to be played with music.
Herrmann's relationship with Hitchcock came to an abrupt end when they disagreed over the score for Torn Curtain
Torn Curtain
Torn Curtain is a 1966 American political thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews.-Plot:On a cruise ship en route to Copenhagen, Michael Armstrong , an esteemed American physicist and rocket scientist, is to attend a scientific conference...
. Reportedly pressured by Universal
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
's front office, Hitchcock wanted a score that was more jazz- and pop-influenced. Hitchcock's biographer, Patrick McGilligan
Patrick McGilligan (biographer)
Patrick McGilligan is an Irish American biographer, film historian and writer. His biography on Alfred Hitchcock, Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light was a finalist for the Edgar Award. He is the author of two New York Times Notable Books, and he lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin...
, stated that Hitchcock was worried about becoming old fashioned and felt that Herrmann's music had to change with the times as well. Herrmann initially agreed, but then went ahead and scored the film according to his own ideas in any case.
Hitchcock listened to only the prelude
Prelude (music)
A prelude is a short piece of music, the form of which may vary from piece to piece. The prelude can be thought of as a preface. It may stand on its own or introduce another work...
of the score before turning off a recording of the music and angrily confronting Herrmann about the pop score he had promised. Herrmann, equally incensed, bellowed, "Look, Hitch, you can't outjump your own shadow. And you don't make pop pictures. What do you want with me? I don't write pop music." Hitchcock unrelentingly insisted that Herrmann change the score, violating Herrmann's general claim for creative control that he had always been maintained in their previous films. Herrmann then said, "Hitch, what's the use of my doing more with you? I had a career before you, and I will afterwards."
According to McGilligan, Herrmann later tried to patch up and repair the damage with Hitchcock, but Hitchcock refused to see him. Herrmann's widow disputes this, painting a somewhat different picture, of two friends whose egos were in the way. In a 2004 interview with Günther Kögebehn for the Bernard Herrmann Society (titled Running with the Kids: A Conversation with Norma Herrmann), she states:
I met Hitchcock very briefly. Everybody says they never spoke again. I met him, it was cool, it was not a warm meeting. It was in Universal Studios, this must be 69, 70, 71ish. And we were in Universal for some other reason and Herrmann said: 'See that tiny little office over there, that’s Hitch’. And that stupid little parking place. Hitch used to have an empire with big offices and a big staff. Then they made it down to half that size, then they made it to half that size… We are going over to say hello.' Actually [Herrmann] got a record; he was always intending to give him a record he just made. But it wasn’t a film thing. It was either Moby Dick or something of his concert pieces to take it and give to Hitch. Peggy, Hitchcock’s secretary was there. Hitch came out, Benny said: 'I thought you’d like a copy of this.' 'How are you?' etc. and he introduced me. And Hitchcock was cool, but they did meet. They met, I was there. And when Herrmann came out again he said: “What a great reduction in Hitch’s status."
In 2009, Norma Herrmann began to auction off her late husband's personal collection on Bonhams.com, adding more interesting details to the two men's relationship. While Herrmann had brought Hitchcock a copy of his classical work after the break-up, Hitchcock, in fact, gave Herrmann an inscribed copy of his Hitchcock-Truffaut interview book, signed "To Benny with my fondest wishes, Hitch." The Orson Welles website, wellesnet.com, mentions this in an article written Sunday, April 12, 2009, along with a bit more information, giving the impression that Hitchcock, more and more, wanted to patch up the damage done as his Hollywood power waned:
Of course, once Herrmann felt he had been wronged, he was not going to say 'yes' to Hitchcock unless he was courted and it seems unlikely that Hitchcock would be willing to do that, although apparently Hitchcock did ask Herrmann back to score his last film Family Plot right before Herrmann died. 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.
At any rate, Herrmann's unused score for Torn Curtain
Torn Curtain
Torn Curtain is a 1966 American political thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews.-Plot:On a cruise ship en route to Copenhagen, Michael Armstrong , an esteemed American physicist and rocket scientist, is to attend a scientific conference...
was later commercially recorded, initially by Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein was an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career which spanned fifty years, he composed music for hundreds of film and television productions...
for his Film Music Collection subscription record label (reissued by Warner Bros. Records), and later, in a concert suite adapted by Christopher Palmer, by Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.-Early career:...
and the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Los Angeles Philharmonic
The Los Angeles Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California, United States. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September...
for Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
. Some of Herrmann's cues for Torn Curtain were later 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.
Ironically, Herrmann had composed some jazz for the "picnic" scene in Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
and he later used some jazz elements (much in the vein of Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
's two piano concertos) for The Wrong Man
The Wrong Man
The Wrong Man is a 1956 film by Alfred Hitchcock which stars Henry Fonda and Vera Miles. The film is based on a true story of an innocent man charged for a crime he did not commit...
when he scored the nightclub scenes showing Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
as a double bass player in a jazz band, and for Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy...
.
Herrmann subsequently moved to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, where he was hired by François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
to write the score for Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451 (1966 film)
Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 film directed by François Truffaut, in his first colour film as well as his only English-language film. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury....
and, later, for The Bride Wore Black
The Bride Wore Black
The Bride Wore Black is a 1968 French film directed by François Truffaut and based on the novel of the same name by William Irish, a pseudonym for Cornell Woolrich. It stars Jeanne Moreau, Charles Denner, Alexandra Stewart, Michel Bouquet, Michael Lonsdale, Claude Rich and Jean-Claude Brialy.It is...
. (During this period he unfortunately became confused with another conductor of the same name who worked with the BBC Northern Dance Orchestra.) His final work, the score for Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
's Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy...
(1976), received high acclaim.
Other works
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 EarthJourney to the Center of the Earth (1959 film)
Journey to the Center of the Earth is a 1959 adventure film adapted by Charles Brackett from the novel by Jules Verne. It stars Pat Boone, James Mason, Arlene Dahl, Peter Ronson, Diane Baker, Thayer David and Alan Napier...
and the Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen is an American film producer and special effects creator...
Dynamation epics Jason and the Argonauts, Mysterious Island
Mysterious Island (1961 film)
Mysterious Island is a 1961 film released by Morningside Productions. Based very loosely upon the novel The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, the film was produced by Charles H. Schneer and Ray Harryhausen. Directed by Cy Endfield, it was released through Columbia Pictures...
, The Three Worlds of Gulliver
The Three Worlds of Gulliver
The Three Worlds of Gulliver is a 1960 Columbia Pictures fantasy film loosely based upon the 18th-century English novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. The film stars Kerwin Mathews as the titular character, June Thorburn as his fiancée Elizabeth, and child actor Sherry Alberoni as...
, and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad .
During the same period, Herrmann turned his talents to writing scores for television shows. Perhaps most notably, he wrote the scores for several well-known episodes of the original Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)
The Twilight Zone is an American anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. The series consisted of unrelated episodes depicting paranormal, futuristic, dystopian, or simply disturbing events; each show typically featured a surprising...
series, including the lesser known theme used during the series' first season, as well as the opening theme to Have Gun–Will Travel.
In the mid-1960s he composed the highly-regarded music score for François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
's Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451 (1966 film)
Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 film directed by François Truffaut, in his first colour film as well as his only English-language film. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury....
. Scored for strings, two harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
s, vibraphone
Vibraphone
The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....
, xylophone
Xylophone
The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets...
and glockenspiel
Glockenspiel
A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
, Herrmann's score created a driving, neurotic mood that perfectly suited the film. It also had a direct influence on producer George Martin
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...
's staccato string arrangement for Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
1966 smash hit single "Eleanor Rigby
Eleanor Rigby
"Eleanor Rigby" is a song by The Beatles, simultaneously released on the 1966 album Revolver and on a 45 rpm single. The song was written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney...
".
In 1967, he married his third wife, Norma Shepherd.
Herrmann's last film scores included Sisters and Obsession for Brian De Palma
Brian De Palma
Brian Russell De Palma is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission:...
. His final film soundtrack, and the last work he completed before his death, was his sombre score for the 1976 film Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy...
, directed by Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
. It was De Palma who had suggested to Scorsese to use the composer. Immediately after finishing the recording of the Taxi Driver soundtrack on December 23, 1975, Herrmann viewed the rough cut of what was to be his next film assignment, Larry Cohen
Larry Cohen
Lawrence G. "Larry" Cohen is an American film producer, director, and screenwriter. He is best known as a B-Movie auteur of horror and science fiction films - often containing a police procedural element - during 1970s and 1980s...
's God Told Me To
God Told Me To
God Told Me To is a 1976 science fiction/horror film written and directed by Larry Cohen...
, and dined with Cohen, after which he returned to his hotel for the night. Bernard Herrmann died from cardiovascular disease
Cardiovascular disease
Heart disease or cardiovascular disease are the class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels . While the term technically refers to any disease that affects the cardiovascular system , it is usually used to refer to those related to atherosclerosis...
in his sleep at his hotel in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, during the night. Scorsese and Cohen dedicated both Taxi Driver and God Told Me To to Herrmann's memory.
As well as his many film scores, Herrmann wrote several concert pieces, including a symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
in 1941; the opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights (Herrmann)
Wuthering Heights is the sole opera written by Bernard Herrmann. He worked on it from 1943 to 1951. It is cast in a prologue, 4 acts, and an epilogue that repeats the music of the prologue...
; the cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
Moby Dick (1938), dedicated to Charles Ives
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...
; and For the Fallen, a tribute to the soldiers who died in battle in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, among others. He recorded all these compositions, and several others, for the Unicorn
Unicorn-Kanchana
Unicorn-Kanchana was a British independent record label. Originally known as Unicorn Records, the name Kanchana was added later to distinguish the company from Unicorn Records of Montréal, Canada...
label during his last years in London.
Use of electronic instruments
Herrmann's involvement with electronic musical instruments dates back to 1951, when he used the thereminTheremin
The theremin , originally known as the aetherphone/etherophone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without discernible physical contact from the player. It is named after its Russian inventor, Professor Léon Theremin, who patented the device...
in The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 American science fiction film directed by Robert Wise and written by Edmund H. North based on the short story "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates. The film stars Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe, and Hugh Marlowe...
. Robert B. Sexton has noted that this score involved the use of treble and bass theremins (played by Dr. Samuel Hoffmann and Paul Shure), electric strings
Electric violin
An electric violin is a violin equipped with an electronic output of its sound. The term most properly refers to an instrument purposely made to be electrified with built-in pickups, usually with a solid body...
, bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, prepared piano
Prepared piano
A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sound altered by placing objects between or on the strings or on the hammers or dampers....
, and guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
together with various pianos and harps, electronic organ
Electronic organ
An electronic organ is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally, it was designed to imitate the sound of pipe organs, theatre organs, band sounds, or orchestral sounds....
s, brass
Brass
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin...
, and percussion
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
, and that Herrmann treated the theremins as a truly orchestral section.
Herrmann was a sound consultant on The Birds, which made extensive use of an electronic instrument called the mixturtrautonium
Trautonium
The trautonium is a monophonic electronic musical instrument invented about 1929 by Friedrich Trautwein in Berlin at the Musikhochschule's music and radio lab, the Rundfunkversuchstelle. Soon Oskar Sala joined him, continuing development until Sala's death in 2002. Instead of a keyboard, its manual...
, although the instrument was performed by Oskar Sala
Oskar Sala
Oskar Sala was a 20th century German physicist, composer and a pioneer of electronic music born in Greiz. He played an instrument called the Trautonium, a predecessor to the synthesizer.-Studies:...
on the film’s soundtrack. Herrmann used several electronic instruments on his score of It’s Alive as well.
Compositional style and philosophy
Herrmann's music is typified by frequent use of ostinatiOstinato
In music, an ostinato is a motif or phrase, which is persistently repeated in the same musical voice. An ostinato is always a succession of equal sounds, wherein each note always has the same weight or stress. The repeating idea may be a rhythmic pattern, part of a tune, or a complete melody in...
(short repeating patterns), novel orchestration
Orchestration
Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...
and, in his film scores, an ability to portray character traits not altogether obvious from other elements of the film.
Early in his life, Herrmann committed himself to a creed of personal integrity at the price of unpopularity: the quintessential artist. His philosophy is summarized by a favorite Tolstoy quote: ‘Eagles fly alone and sparrows fly in flocks.' Thus, Herrmann would only compose music for films when he was allowed the artistic liberty to compose what he wished without the director getting in the way. Most famously, after over a decade of composing for all of Hitchcock’s films, Hitchcock requested a more “pop” score from Herrmann. Herrmann’s score was not what Hitchcock had requested, and since Herrmann was so committed to having artistic liberty and would not compromise his values, the two went their separate ways, never to collaborate again. This shows Herrmann’s persistence in being able to compose as he saw fit to represent the film.
His philosophy of orchestrating film was based on the assumption that the musicians were selected and hired for the recording session—that this music was not constrained to the musical forces of the concert hall. For example, his use of ten harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
s in Beneath the 12 Mile Reef created an extraordinary underwater-like sonic landscape; his use of four bass flute
Bass flute
The bass flute is the bass member of the flute family. It is in the key of C, pitched one octave below the concert flute. Because of the length of its tube , it is usually made with a "J" shaped head joint, which brings the embouchure hole within reach of the player...
s in Citizen Kane contributed to the creepy opening, only matched by the use of 12 flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s in his unused Torn Curtain score; and his use of the serpent
Serpent (instrument)
A serpent is a bass wind instrument, descended from the cornett, and a distant ancestor of the tuba, with a mouthpiece like a brass instrument but side holes like a woodwind. It is usually a long cone bent into a snakelike shape, hence the name. The serpent is closely related to the cornett,...
in White Witch Doctor
White Witch Doctor (film)
White Witch Doctor is a 1953 adventure film made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Henry Hathaway and produced by Otto Lang from a screenplay by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, based on the 1950 novel by Louise A. Stinetorf...
is possibly the first use of that instrument in a film score.
Herrmann said in an interview: "To orchestrate is like a thumbprint. I can't understand having someone else do it. It would be like someone putting color to your paintings."
Herrmann subscribed to the belief since held by many that the best film music should be able to stand on its own legs when detached from the film for which it was originally written. To this end, he made several well-known recordings for Decca of arrangements of his own film music as well as music of other prominent composers.
Legacy and recording
Herrmann is still a prominent figure in the world of film music today, despite his passing over 30 years ago. As such, his career has been studied extensively by biographers and documentarians. His string-only score for Psycho, for example, set the standard when it became a new way to write music for thrillers (rather than big fully orchestrated pieces). In 1992 a documentary, Music for the Movies: Bernard HerrmannMusic for the Movies: Bernard Herrmann
Music for the Movies: Bernard Herrmann is a 1992 documentary film directed by Joshua Waletzky. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.-Cast:* Elmer Bernstein - Himself* Claudine Bouché - Herself* Royal S...
, was made about him. Also in 1992 a 2½ hour long National Public Radio documentary was produced on his life —Bernard Herrmann: A Celebration of his Life and Music (Bruce A. Crawford). In 1991, Steven C. Smith wrote a Herrmann biography titled A Heart at Fire's Center, a quotation from a favorite Stephen Spender
Stephen Spender
Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBE was an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work...
poem of Herrmann's.
His music continues to be used in films and recordings after his death. "Georgie's Theme" from Herrmann's score for the 1968 film Twisted Nerve
Twisted Nerve
Twisted Nerve is a 1968 British psychological thriller film about a disturbed young man, Martin, who pretends, under the name of Georgie, to be mentally retarded in order to be near Susan, a girl he has become infatuated with, killing those who get in his way.-Plot:The film opens with Martin...
is whistled by one-eyed nurse Elle Driver in the hospital corridor scene in Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
's Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003). The opening theme from Vertigo
Vertigo (film)
Vertigo is a 1958 psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Barbara Bel Geddes. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A...
was used in the prologue to Lady Gaga
Lady GaGa
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta , better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in New York City, she primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and briefly attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before withdrawing to...
's "Born This Way
Born This Way (song)
"Born This Way" is a song by American recording artist Lady Gaga, from her second studio album, Born This Way. Written and produced by Gaga, Fernando Garibay, Jeppe Laursen and DJ White Shadow, "Born This Way" was developed while Gaga was on the road with The Monster Ball Tour...
" video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
, and during a flashback sequence in the pilot episode of FX's American Horror Story
American Horror Story
American Horror Story is a horror-drama television series created and produced by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. The series centers on the Harmon family: Ben, Vivien and their daughter Violet, who move from Boston to Los Angeles after Vivien has a miscarriage and Ben has an affair...
. Fellow film composer Danny Elfman
Danny Elfman
Daniel Robert "Danny" Elfman is an American composer, best known for scoring music for television and film. Up until 1995, he was the lead singer and songwriter in the rock band Oingo Boingo, a group he formed in 1976...
adapted Herrmann's music for Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...
for use in director Gus Van Sant
Gus Van Sant
Gus Green Van Sant, Jr. is an American director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician, and author. He is a two time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director for his 1997 film Good Will Hunting and his 2008 film Milk, both of which were also nominated for Best Picture, and won the...
's 1998 remake
Psycho (1998 film)
Psycho is a 1998 American horror film produced and directed by Gus Van Sant for Universal Pictures, a remake of the 1960 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock...
and borrowed from Herrmann's "Mountaintop/Sunrise" theme, from Journey to the Center of the Earth
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959 film)
Journey to the Center of the Earth is a 1959 adventure film adapted by Charles Brackett from the novel by Jules Verne. It stars Pat Boone, James Mason, Arlene Dahl, Peter Ronson, Diane Baker, Thayer David and Alan Napier...
, for his main Batman
Batman (score)
Batman: Original Motion Picture Score is the score album for the 1989 film Batman by Danny Elfman. According to the Batman DVD Special Edition, Elfman said that producer Jon Peters was not sure about him as a composer until Tim Burton made him play the main titles...
theme. On their 1977 album Ra, American progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
group Utopia
Utopia (rock band)
Utopia was an American progressive rock band, led by Todd Rundgren that toured and recorded from 1973 to 1986.-History:The first two albums, Todd Rundgren's Utopia and Another Live featured lengthy, complex and highly arranged progressive rock pieces, performed by a six-piece multi-instrumentalist...
also adapted "Mountaintop/Sunrise," in a rock arrangement, as the introduction to the album's opening song, "Communion With The Sun."
Herrmann's film music is well represented on disc. His friend, John Steven Lasher, has produced several albums featuring urtext
Urtext edition
An urtext edition of a work of classical music is a printed version intended to reproduce the original intention of the composer as exactly as possible, without any added or changed material...
recordings, including Battle of Neretva, Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
, The Kentuckian
The Kentuckian
The Kentuckian is a 1955 adventure film directed by Burt Lancaster, who also starred. It also marked the feature film debut of Walter Matthau. The picture is an adaptation of the novel The Gabriel Horn by Felix Holt...
, The Magnificent Ambersons
The Magnificent Ambersons (film)
The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1942 American drama film written and directed by Orson Welles. His second feature film, it is based on the 1918 novel of the same name by Booth Tarkington and stars Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins...
, The Night Digger
The Night Digger
The Night Digger is a 1971 British thriller film that was based on the novel Nest in a Fallen Tree by Joy Cowley. It was adapted by Roald Dahl and starred his wife Patricia Neal. The Night Digger was the American title; it was originally released in the United Kingdom as The Road Builder.-Cast:*...
and Sisters, under various labels owned by Fifth Continent Australia Pty Ltd.
Herrmann was also a champion of the romantic-era composer Joachim Raff
Joachim Raff
Joseph Joachim Raff was a German-Swiss composer, teacher and pianist.-Biography:Raff was born in Lachen in Switzerland. His father, a teacher, had fled there from Württemberg in 1810 to escape forced recruitment into the military of that southwestern German state that had to fight for Napoleon in...
, whose music had fallen into near-oblivion in the 1960s. During the 1940s, Herrmann had played Raff's 3rd and 5th Symphonies in his CBS radio broadcasts. In May 1970, Herrmann conducted the world premiere recording of Raff's Fifth Symphony "Lenore" for the Unicorn label. The recording did not attract much notice in its time, despite receiving excellent reviews, but is now considered a major turning-point in the rehabilitation of Raff as a composer.
In 1996, Sony Classical released a recording of Herrmann's music, The Film Scores, performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Los Angeles Philharmonic
The Los Angeles Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California, United States. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September...
under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.-Early career:...
. This disc received the 1998 Cannes Classical Music Award for "Best 20th-Century Orchestral Recording." It was also nominated for the 1998 Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for "Best Engineered Album, Classical." In 2004 Sony Classical re-released this superb recording at a budget price in its "Great Performances" series (SNYC 92767SK).
Decca
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
has reissued on CD a series of Phase 4 Stereo
Phase 4 Stereo
Phase 4 Stereo was a branch of London Records created in 1961. Phase 4 Stereo supposedly created better sound by being recorded on a 10-channel, and later 20-channel, recording console...
recordings with Herrmann conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra
London Philharmonic Orchestra
The London Philharmonic Orchestra , based in London, is one of the major orchestras of the United Kingdom, and is based in the Royal Festival Hall. In addition, the LPO is the main resident orchestra of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera...
mostly in excerpts from his various film scores, including one devoted to music from several of the Hitchcock films (including Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...
, Marnie
Marnie (film)
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
and Vertigo
Vertigo (film)
Vertigo is a 1958 psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Barbara Bel Geddes. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A...
). In the liner notes for the Hitchcock Phase 4 album, Herrmann said that the suite from The Trouble with Harry
The Trouble with Harry
The Trouble With Harry is a 1955 American black comedy film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, based on the novel of the same name by Jack Trevor Story. It was released in the United States on October 3, 1955 then rereleased once the distribution rights were acquired by Universal Pictures in 1984...
was a "portrait of Hitch". Another album was devoted to his fantasy film scores—a few of them being the films of the special effects animator Ray Harryhausen, including music from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and The Three Worlds of Gulliver. His other Phase 4 Stereo
Phase 4 Stereo
Phase 4 Stereo was a branch of London Records created in 1961. Phase 4 Stereo supposedly created better sound by being recorded on a 10-channel, and later 20-channel, recording console...
LPs of the 1970s included Music from the Great Film Classics (suites and excerpts from Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published in London, England, in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. with the title Jane Eyre. An Autobiography under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was released the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York...
, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
and The Devil and Daniel Webster
The Devil and Daniel Webster
"The Devil and Daniel Webster" is a short story by Stephen Vincent Benét. This retelling of the classic German Faust tale is based on the short story "The Devil and Tom Walker", written by Washington Irving...
); and "The Fantasy World of Bernard Herrmann" (Journey to the Center of the Earth
Journey to the Center of the Earth
A Journey to the Center of the Earth is a classic 1864 science fiction novel by Jules Verne. The story involves a German professor who believes there are volcanic tubes going toward the center of the Earth...
, The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 American science fiction film directed by Robert Wise and written by Edmund H. North based on the short story "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates. The film stars Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe, and Hugh Marlowe...
, and Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
.)
Fellow composers Richard Band
Richard Band
Richard Howard Band is a composer of film music. He has scored more than 70 films, including From Beyond, which won the award for Best Original Soundtrack at the Catalonian International Film Festival in Sitges Spain...
, Graeme Revell
Graeme Revell
Graeme Revell is a New Zealand film score composer.Revell attended Auckland Grammar School, where he finished his final year in 7A...
, Christopher Young
Christopher Young
Christopher Young is an American music composer for both film and television.Many of his music compositions are for horror films, including Hellraiser, Tales from the Hood, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, Urban Legend, and Drag Me to Hell...
, Danny Elfman
Danny Elfman
Daniel Robert "Danny" Elfman is an American composer, best known for scoring music for television and film. Up until 1995, he was the lead singer and songwriter in the rock band Oingo Boingo, a group he formed in 1976...
and Brian Tyler
Brian Tyler (composer)
Brian Tyler is an American composer, producer, conductor, and film producer most known for his scores of Eagle Eye, The Expendables, Battle: Los Angeles, The Final Destination, Rambo, Fast & Furious, Fast Five, and Final Destination 5. Tyler is a symphonic conductor and conducts his own scores....
consider Herrmann to be a major inspiration. In 1985, Richard Band
Richard Band
Richard Howard Band is a composer of film music. He has scored more than 70 films, including From Beyond, which won the award for Best Original Soundtrack at the Catalonian International Film Festival in Sitges Spain...
's opening theme to Re-Animator
Re-Animator
Re-Animator is a 1985 American science fiction horror film based on the H. P. Lovecraft story "Herbert West–Reanimator." Directed by Stuart Gordon, it was the first film in the Re-Animator series. The film has since become a cult film, driven by fans of Jeffrey Combs and H. P...
borrows heavily from Herrmann's opening score to Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...
. In 1990, Graeme Revell
Graeme Revell
Graeme Revell is a New Zealand film score composer.Revell attended Auckland Grammar School, where he finished his final year in 7A...
had adapted Herrmann's music from Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...
for its television sequel-prequel Psycho IV: The Beginning
Psycho IV: The Beginning
Psycho IV: The Beginning is a 1990 made-for-cable-television horror film that serves as both the third sequel and a prequel to Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho, as it includes both events after Psycho III while focusing on flashbacks of events that took place prior to the original film...
. Revell's early orchestral music during the early nineties, such as Child's Play 2
Child's Play 2
Child's Play 2 is a 1990 American horror film, the sequel to Child's Play, written by Don Mancini and directed by John Lafia . It was released on November 9, 1990. Veteran actors Gerrit Graham and Emmy and BAFTA-winner Jenny Agutter, star as Andy's foster parents...
(which its music score being a reminiscent of Herrmann's scores to the 1973 film Sisters, due to the synthesizers incorporated in the chilling parts of the orchestral score) as well as the 1963 The Twilight Zone episode "Living Doll
Living Doll (The Twilight Zone)
"Living Doll" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.-Synopsis:Little Christie's mother, Annabelle, buys her a new doll, trying to make up for her new stepfather's indifference. As they pull into the driveway, Annabelle instructs Christie to run upstairs with...
" (which inspired the Child's Play franchise), were very similar to Herrmann's work. Also, Revell's score for the video game Call of Duty 2
Call of Duty 2
Call of Duty 2 is a first-person shooter video game and the second installment in the critically acclaimed Call of Duty series. It was developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. It was released on October 25, 2005 for Microsoft Windows and on November 22, 2005 as a launch game for the...
was very much a reminiscent of Herrmann's very rare WWII music scores such as The Naked and the Dead
The Naked and the Dead (film)
The Naked and the Dead is a 1958 widescreen film based on Norman Mailer's World War II novel The Naked and the Dead. Directed by Raoul Walsh and filmed in Panama the screenplay attributed to the Sanders Brothers adds a strip tease and larger action scenes to Mailer's original narrative...
and Battle of Neretva. Young, who was a jazz drummer at first, listened to Herrmann's works which convinced him to be a film composer. Elfman has said he first became interested in film music upon seeing The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 American science fiction film directed by Robert Wise and written by Edmund H. North based on the short story "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates. The film stars Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe, and Hugh Marlowe...
, and he paid homage to that score in his music for Mars Attacks!
Mars Attacks!
Mars Attacks! is a 1996 American science fiction film directed by Tim Burton and based on the cult trading card series of the same name. The film uses elements of black comedy, surreal humour, and political satire, and claims to be also a parody of multiple science fiction B movies...
Tyler's score for Bill Paxton
Bill Paxton
William "Bill" Paxton is an American actor and film director. He gained popularity after starring roles in the films Apollo 13, Twister, Aliens, True Lies, and Titanic...
's film Frailty was greatly influenced by Herrmann's film music.
Sir George Martin
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...
, best known for producing and often adding orchestration to The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
music, cites Herrmann as an influence in his own work, particularly in Martin's scoring of the Beatles' song "Eleanor Rigby
Eleanor Rigby
"Eleanor Rigby" is a song by The Beatles, simultaneously released on the 1966 album Revolver and on a 45 rpm single. The song was written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney...
". Martin later expanded on this as an extended suite for McCartney's 1984 film Give My Regards to Broad Street
Give My Regards to Broad Street
Give My Regards to Broad Street is the soundtrack album to the 1984 film of the same name. Unlike the film, the album was successful, achieving #1 in the UK chart and its lead single "No More Lonely Nights" was BAFTA and Golden Globe award nominated....
, which features a very recognizable hommage to Herrmann's score for Psycho.
Avant-garde composer/saxophonist/producer John Zorn
John Zorn
John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...
, in the biographical film A Bookshelf on Top of the Sky
A Bookshelf on Top of the Sky: 12 Stories About John Zorn
A Bookshelf on Top of the Sky: 12 Stories About John Zorn is a documentary film on avant garde composer and musician John Zorn directed by Claudia Heuermann. It features performances of a range of Zorn's music and includes appearances by Joey Baron, Greg Cohen, Dave Douglas, Fred Frith, Ikue Mori,...
, cited Bernard Herrmann as one of his favorite composers and a major influence.
Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein was an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career which spanned fifty years, he composed music for hundreds of film and television productions...
adapted and arranged Herrmann's original score from J. Lee Thompson
J. Lee Thompson
John Lee Thompson , better known as J. Lee Thompson, was an English film director, active in England and Hollywood.- Early years :...
's Cape Fear
Cape Fear (1962 film)
Cape Fear is a 1962 film starring Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum and Polly Bergen. It was adapted by James R. Webb from the novel The Executioners by John D. MacDonald. It was directed by J. Lee Thompson, and released on April 12, 1962...
(1962), and used it for the 1991 Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
remake. After Bernstein realized there was not enough music in the score from the original film, he added sections from Herrmann's unused score for Hitchcock's Torn Curtain, including the music composed for the murder of the character "Gromek". The score for Cape Fear evokes both the gathering clouds of the destructive hurricane and the murderous intent of killer Max Cady. Bernstein also recorded Herrmann's score for The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir romantic fantasy film starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. It is based on a 1945 novel written by Josephine Leslie under the pseudonym of R. A. Dick...
, which was released in 1975 on the Varese Sarabande label later reissued on CD in the 1990s.
Charles Gerhardt
Charles Gerhardt
Charles Gerhardt may refer to:*Charles Frédéric Gerhardt , French chemist*Charles H. Gerhardt , American general*Charles Gerhardt , American conductor...
conducted a 1974 RCA recording entitled "The Classic Film Scores of Bernard Herrmann" with the National Philharmonic Orchestra
National Philharmonic Orchestra
The National Philharmonic Orchestra was a British orchestra created exclusively for recording purposes. It was founded by RCA producer Charles Gerhardt and orchestra leader / contractor Sidney Sax due in part to the requirements of the Reader's Digest-History:...
. It featured Suites from Citizen Kane (with Kiri te Kanawa singing the 'Salammbo' aria) and White Witch Doctor
White Witch Doctor (film)
White Witch Doctor is a 1953 adventure film made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Henry Hathaway and produced by Otto Lang from a screenplay by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, based on the 1950 novel by Louise A. Stinetorf...
, along with music from On Dangerous Ground
On Dangerous Ground
On Dangerous Ground is a film noir directed by Nicholas Ray and produced by John Houseman. The screenplay was written by A. I. Bezzerides based on the novel Mad with Much Heart, by Gerald Butler...
, Beneath the 12-Mile Reef
Beneath the 12-Mile Reef
Beneath the 12-Mile Reef is a 1953 American adventure film directed by Robert D. Webb. The screenplay by A. I. Bezzerides was inspired by Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare...
, and the Hangover Square
Hangover Square
Hangover Square is a 1941 novel by English playwright and novelist Patrick Hamilton . Subtitled A tale of Darkest Earl's Court it is set in that area of London in 1939....
Piano Concerto.
During his last years in England, between 1966 and 1975, Herrmann made several LPs of other composers' music for assorted record labels. These included Phase 4 Stereo recordings of Gustav Holst's The Planets and Charles Ives's 2nd Symphony, as well as an album entitled "The Impressionists" (music by Satie, Debussy, Ravel, Faure and Honegger) and another entitled "The Four Faces of Jazz" (works by Weill, Gershwin, Stravinsky and Milhaud). As well as recording his own film music in Phase 4 Stereo he made LPs of movie scores by others, such as "Great Shakespearean Films" (music by Shostakovitch for Hamlet, Walton for Richard III and Rozsa for Julius Caesar), and "Great British Film Music" (movie scores by Lambert, Bax, Benjamin, Walton, Vaughan Williams, and Bliss).
For Unicorn Records, he recorded several of his own concert-hall works, including the cantata Moby Dick, his opera Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights (Herrmann)
Wuthering Heights is the sole opera written by Bernard Herrmann. He worked on it from 1943 to 1951. It is cast in a prologue, 4 acts, and an epilogue that repeats the music of the prologue...
, his Symphony, and the suites Welles Raises Kane and The Devil and Daniel Webster
The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941 film)
The Devil and Daniel Webster is a 1941 fantasy film, adapted by Stephen Vincent Benét and Dan Totheroh from Benét's short story, "The Devil and Daniel Webster". The film's title was changed to All That Money Can Buy to avoid confusion with another film released by RKO that year, The Devil and Miss...
.
Pristine Audio
Pristine Audio
Pristine Audio was founded in 2002 by Andrew Rose, then a BBC Radio sound engineer, as an audio transfer and restoration business.Following its relocation from the United Kingdom to France in 2004, the company began to concentrate on the restoration and remastering of historic classical music...
has released two CDs of Herrmann's radio broadcasts. One is devoted to a CBS programme from 1945 that features music by Handel, Vaughan Williams and Elgar; the other is devoted to works by Charles Ives, Robert Russell Bennett and Herrmann himself.
AFI
The American Film InstituteAmerican Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
respectively ranked Herrmann's scores for Psycho and Vertigo
Vertigo (film)
Vertigo is a 1958 psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Barbara Bel Geddes. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A...
#4 and #12 on their list of the 25 greatest film scores
AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores
Part of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores is a list of the top 25 film scores in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute in 2005.-The List:-External links:**...
. His scores for the following films were also nominated for the list:
- The Devil and Daniel Webster, aka All That Money Can Buy (1941)
- Citizen KaneCitizen KaneCitizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
(1941) - The Day the Earth Stood StillThe Day the Earth Stood StillThe Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 American science fiction film directed by Robert Wise and written by Edmund H. North based on the short story "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates. The film stars Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe, and Hugh Marlowe...
(1951) - The Ghost and Mrs. MuirThe Ghost and Mrs. MuirThe Ghost and Mrs. Muir romantic fantasy film starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. It is based on a 1945 novel written by Josephine Leslie under the pseudonym of R. A. Dick...
(1947) - Jane EyreJane Eyre (1944 film)Jane Eyre is a classic film adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel of the same name, made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by William Goetz, Kenneth Macgowan, and Orson Welles . The screenplay was by John Houseman, Aldous Huxley, Henry Koster, and Robert...
(1944) - North by NorthwestNorth by NorthwestNorth by Northwest is a 1959 American thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason, and featuring Leo G. Carroll and Martin Landau...
(1959) - Taxi DriverTaxi DriverTaxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy...
(1976)
In popular culture
Part of Herrmann's score for The Trouble with Harry was used in a 2010 U.S.United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
television commercial for the Volkswagen CC
Volkswagen Passat CC
The Volkswagen Passat CC is a 4-door coupé version of the Volkswagen Passat. It debuted in January 2008 at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit...
.
Music from the Vertigo soundtrack was used in BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
's Spitfire Women documentary, aired in the UK in September 2010.
A 2011 TV commercial entitled "Snowpocalypse" for Dodge
Dodge
Dodge is a United States-based brand of automobiles, minivans, and sport utility vehicles, manufactured and marketed by Chrysler Group LLC in more than 60 different countries and territories worldwide....
all-wheel drive vehicles uses Herrmann's main title theme for Cape Fear.
"Gimme Some More" by Busta Rhymes is based on a sample from Herrmann's score from Psycho.
The prologue to Lady Gaga
Lady GaGa
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta , better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in New York City, she primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and briefly attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before withdrawing to...
's 2011 video for the song Born This Way
Born This Way (song)
"Born This Way" is a song by American recording artist Lady Gaga, from her second studio album, Born This Way. Written and produced by Gaga, Fernando Garibay, Jeppe Laursen and DJ White Shadow, "Born This Way" was developed while Gaga was on the road with The Monster Ball Tour...
features Herrmann's Vertigo prelude.
The phrase "Bernard Herrmann lives" is graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
ed under a train overpass at the intersection of Bethlehem Pike, Skippack Pk (PA Route 73), and Camp Hill Rd. near Flourtown, Pennsylvania. It has been there for at least 20 years.
The 2011 FX
FX
- Entertainment :* FX , an international cable/satellite television network * F/X, a movie set in the world of special effects* F/X: The Series, a television program based on the movie...
series American Horror Story
American Horror Story
American Horror Story is a horror-drama television series created and produced by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. The series centers on the Harmon family: Ben, Vivien and their daughter Violet, who move from Boston to Los Angeles after Vivien has a miscarriage and Ben has an affair...
has utilized cues from "Twisted Nerve
Twisted Nerve
Twisted Nerve is a 1968 British psychological thriller film about a disturbed young man, Martin, who pretends, under the name of Georgie, to be mentally retarded in order to be near Susan, a girl he has become infatuated with, killing those who get in his way.-Plot:The film opens with Martin...
", "Psycho", and "Vertigo
Vertigo
Vertigo is a form of dizziness.Vertigo may also refer to:* Vertigo , a 1958 film by Alfred Hitchcock**Vertigo , its soundtrack** Vertigo effect, or Dolly zoom, a special effect in film, named after the movie...
" for episode scores.
Film scores
| Year | Title | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1941 | Citizen Kane Citizen Kane Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film... |
Orson Welles Orson Welles George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio... |
Oscar nominee |
| The Devil and Daniel Webster |
William Dieterle William Dieterle William Dieterle was a German actor and film director, who worked in Hollywood for much of his career. His best known films include The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Hunchback of Notre Dame... |
Oscar winner | |
| 1942 | The Magnificent Ambersons The Magnificent Ambersons (film) The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1942 American drama film written and directed by Orson Welles. His second feature film, it is based on the 1918 novel of the same name by Booth Tarkington and stars Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins... |
Orson Welles | Uncredited |
| 1944 | Jane Eyre Jane Eyre (1944 film) Jane Eyre is a classic film adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel of the same name, made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by William Goetz, Kenneth Macgowan, and Orson Welles . The screenplay was by John Houseman, Aldous Huxley, Henry Koster, and Robert... |
Robert Stevenson Robert Stevenson Robert Stevenson may refer to:* Robert Stevenson , United States* Robert Stevenson , first head men's basketball coach at DePaul University... |
|
| 1945 | Hangover Square Hangover Square (film) Hangover Square is a film noir directed by John Brahm, based on the novel Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton. The screenplay was written by Barré Lyndon who made a number of changes to the novel, including the transformation of George Harvey Bone into a classical composer-pianist and filming the... |
John Brahm John Brahm John Brahm was a film and television director possibly best known today for directing a dozen of the original Twilight Zone episodes including the now classic "Time Enough at Last"... |
|
| 1946 | Anna and the King of Siam | John Cromwell John Cromwell (director) Elwood Dager Cromwell , known as John Cromwell, was an American film actor, director and producer.-Biography:... |
Oscar nominee |
| 1947 | The Ghost and Mrs. Muir The Ghost and Mrs. Muir The Ghost and Mrs. Muir romantic fantasy film starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. It is based on a 1945 novel written by Josephine Leslie under the pseudonym of R. A. Dick... |
Joseph L. Mankiewicz Joseph L. Mankiewicz Joseph Leo Mankiewicz was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career and is best known as the writer-director of All About Eve , which was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six. He was brother to screenwriter and drama critic Herman J... |
|
| 1948 | Portrait of Jennie Portrait of Jennie Portrait of Jennie is a 1948 fantasy film based on the novella by Robert Nathan. The film was directed by William Dieterle and produced by David O. Selznick. It stars Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten.-Plot:... |
William Dieterle | Theme |
| 1951 | The Day the Earth Stood Still The Day the Earth Stood Still The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 American science fiction film directed by Robert Wise and written by Edmund H. North based on the short story "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates. The film stars Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe, and Hugh Marlowe... |
Robert Wise Robert Wise Robert Earl Wise was an American sound effects editor, film editor, film producer and director... |
Golden Globe nominee |
| On Dangerous Ground On Dangerous Ground On Dangerous Ground is a film noir directed by Nicholas Ray and produced by John Houseman. The screenplay was written by A. I. Bezzerides based on the novel Mad with Much Heart, by Gerald Butler... |
Nicholas Ray Nicholas Ray Nicholas Ray was an American film director best known for the movie Rebel Without a Cause.... |
||
| 1952 | 5 Fingers 5 Fingers 5 Fingers, known also as Five Fingers, is a 1952 American 20th Century Fox spy film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by Otto Lang. The screenplay by Michael Wilson and Mankiewicz was based on Operation Cicero by L.C... |
Joseph L. Mankiewicz | |
| The Snows of Kilimanjaro | Henry King Henry King (director) Henry King was an American film director.Before coming to film, King worked as an actor in various repertoire theatres, and first started to take small film roles in 1912. He directed for the first time in 1915, and grew to become one of the most commercially successful Hollywood directors of the... |
||
| 1953 | White Witch Doctor White Witch Doctor (film) White Witch Doctor is a 1953 adventure film made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Henry Hathaway and produced by Otto Lang from a screenplay by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, based on the 1950 novel by Louise A. Stinetorf... |
Henry Hathaway Henry Hathaway Henry Hathaway was an American film director and producer. He is best known as a director of Westerns, especially starring John Wayne.-Background:... |
|
| Beneath the 12-Mile Reef Beneath the 12-Mile Reef Beneath the 12-Mile Reef is a 1953 American adventure film directed by Robert D. Webb. The screenplay by A. I. Bezzerides was inspired by Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare... |
Robert Webb Robert Webb Robert Webb may refer to:*Robert Webb , English actor, comedian and writer*Robert Webb , University of Virginia professor*Robert Webb, the creator of polyhedra software Stella*Robert D. Webb, film maker*Robert Wallace Webb, geoscientist... |
||
| King of the Khyber Rifles King of the Khyber Rifles King of the Khyber Rifles is a novel by British writer Talbot Mundy. Captain Athelstan King is a secret agent for the British Raj at the beginning of the First World War... |
Henry King | ||
| 1954 | Garden of Evil Garden of Evil Garden of Evil is a Western film about three somewhat disreputable 19th-century soldiers of fortune, played by Gary Cooper, Richard Widmark, and Cameron Mitchell, who are hired by a woman, portrayed by Susan Hayward, to rescue her husband... |
Henry Hathaway | |
| The Egyptian The Egyptian (film) The Egyptian is an American 1954 epic film made in CinemaScope by 20th Century Fox, directed by Michael Curtiz and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. It is based on Mika Waltari's novel and the screenplay was adapted by Philip Dunne and Casey Robinson... |
Michael Curtiz Michael Curtiz Michael Curtiz was an Academy award winning Hungarian-American film director. He had early creditsas Mihály Kertész and Michael Kertész... |
Co-composer: Alfred Newman Alfred Newman Alfred Newman was an American composer, arranger, and conductor of music for films.In a career which spanned over forty years, Newman composed music for over two hundred films. He was one of the most respected film score composers of his time, and is today regarded as one of the greatest... |
|
| Prince of Players Prince of Players Prince of Players is a 1955 20th Century Fox biographical film about the 19th century American actor Edwin Booth. The film was directed and produced by Philip Dunne from a screenplay by Moss Hart, based on the book by Eleanor Ruggles. The music score was by Bernard Herrmann and the cinematography... |
Philip Dunne Philip Dunne (writer) Philip Dunne was a Hollywood screenwriter, film director and producer, who worked prolifically from 1932 until 1965. He spent the majority of his career at 20th Century Fox crafting well regarded romantic and historical dramas, usually adapted from another medium... |
||
| 1955 | The Trouble with Harry The Trouble with Harry The Trouble With Harry is a 1955 American black comedy film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, based on the novel of the same name by Jack Trevor Story. It was released in the United States on October 3, 1955 then rereleased once the distribution rights were acquired by Universal Pictures in 1984... |
Alfred Hitchcock Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood... |
|
| The Kentuckian The Kentuckian The Kentuckian is a 1955 adventure film directed by Burt Lancaster, who also starred. It also marked the feature film debut of Walter Matthau. The picture is an adaptation of the novel The Gabriel Horn by Felix Holt... |
Burt Lancaster Burt Lancaster Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile... |
||
| 1956 | The Man Who Knew Too Much The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956 film) The Man Who Knew Too Much is a suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring James Stewart and Doris Day. The film is a remake in widescreen VistaVision and Technicolor of Hitchcock's 1934 film of the same name.... |
Alfred Hitchcock | |
| The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, by Sloan Wilson, is a 1955 novel about the American search for purpose in a world dominated by business. Tom and Betsy Rath share a struggle to find contentment in their hectic and material culture while several other characters fight essentially the same battle,... |
Nunnally Johnson | ||
| The Wrong Man The Wrong Man The Wrong Man is a 1956 film by Alfred Hitchcock which stars Henry Fonda and Vera Miles. The film is based on a true story of an innocent man charged for a crime he did not commit... |
Alfred Hitchcock | ||
| Williamsburg: the Story of a Patriot Williamsburg: the Story of a Patriot Williamsburg: the Story of a Patriot, an orientation film produced by Paramount Pictures and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in 1957, has the distinction of being the longest-running motion picture in history, having been shown continually in the Colonial Williamsburg Visitor Center for over... |
George Seaton George Seaton George Seaton was an American screenwriter, playwright, film director and producer, and theatre director.Born George Stenius in South Bend, Indiana, Seaton moved to Detroit after graduating from college to work as an actor on radio station WXYZ. John L... |
Short subject | |
| 1957 | A Hatful of Rain A Hatful of Rain A Hatful of Rain is a 1957 dramatic film. The movie was a rarity for its time in its frank depiction of the effect of drug addiction.It is a medically and sociologically accurate account of the effects of morphine on an addict and his family .... |
Fred Zinnemann Fred Zinnemann Fred Zinnemann was an Austrian-American film director. He won four Academy Awards and directed films like High Noon, From Here to Eternity and A Man for All Seasons.-Life and career:... |
|
| 1958 | Vertigo Vertigo (film) Vertigo is a 1958 psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Barbara Bel Geddes. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A... |
Alfred Hitchcock | |
| The Naked and the Dead The Naked and the Dead The Naked and the Dead is a 1948 novel by Norman Mailer. It was based on his experiences with the 112th Cavalry Regiment during the Philippines Campaign in World War II... |
Raoul Walsh | ||
| The 7th Voyage of Sinbad | Nathan H. Juran | ||
| 1959 | North by Northwest North by Northwest North by Northwest is a 1959 American thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason, and featuring Leo G. Carroll and Martin Landau... |
Alfred Hitchcock | |
| Blue Denim Blue Denim Blue Denim was a successful Broadway play by writer James Leo Herlihy, the author of the novels All Fall Down and Midnight Cowboy . It starred Carol Lynley, Warren Berlinger and newcomer Burt Brinckerhoff in the lead male role... |
Philip Dunne | ||
| Journey to the Center of the Earth Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959 film) Journey to the Center of the Earth is a 1959 adventure film adapted by Charles Brackett from the novel by Jules Verne. It stars Pat Boone, James Mason, Arlene Dahl, Peter Ronson, Diane Baker, Thayer David and Alan Napier... |
Henry Levin Henry Levin Henry Levin began as a stage actor and director but was most notable as an American film director of over fifty feature films. He broke into film in 1943 as a dialogue director for the films Dangerous Blondes and Appointment in Berlin for Columbia Pictures... |
||
| 1960 | Psycho | Alfred Hitchcock | |
| The Three Worlds of Gulliver The Three Worlds of Gulliver The Three Worlds of Gulliver is a 1960 Columbia Pictures fantasy film loosely based upon the 18th-century English novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. The film stars Kerwin Mathews as the titular character, June Thorburn as his fiancée Elizabeth, and child actor Sherry Alberoni as... |
Jack Sher | ||
| 1961 | Mysterious Island Mysterious Island (1961 film) Mysterious Island is a 1961 film released by Morningside Productions. Based very loosely upon the novel The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, the film was produced by Charles H. Schneer and Ray Harryhausen. Directed by Cy Endfield, it was released through Columbia Pictures... |
Cy Endfield Cy Endfield Cyril Raker Endfield was an American screenwriter, film director, theatre director, author, magician and inventor, based in Britain from 1953.- Biography :... |
|
| 1962 | Tender Is the Night | Henry King | |
| Cape Fear Cape Fear (1962 film) Cape Fear is a 1962 film starring Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum and Polly Bergen. It was adapted by James R. Webb from the novel The Executioners by John D. MacDonald. It was directed by J. Lee Thompson, and released on April 12, 1962... |
J. Lee Thompson J. Lee Thompson John Lee Thompson , better known as J. Lee Thompson, was an English film director, active in England and Hollywood.- Early years :... |
||
| 1963 | Jason and the Argonauts | Don Chaffey | |
| The Birds The Birds (film) The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few... |
Alfred Hitchcock | ||
| 1964 | Marnie Marnie (film) Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:... |
Alfred Hitchcock | |
| 1965 | Joy in the Morning Joy in the Morning (film) Joy in the Morning is a 1965 American film directed by Alex Segal and starring Richard Chamberlain, Yvette Mimieux and Oskar Homolka. It was adapted from the 1963 novel by Betty Smith. The musical score for the film is by Bernard Herrmann.... |
Alex Segal | |
| 1966 | Torn Curtain Torn Curtain Torn Curtain is a 1966 American political thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews.-Plot:On a cruise ship en route to Copenhagen, Michael Armstrong , an esteemed American physicist and rocket scientist, is to attend a scientific conference... |
Alfred Hitchcock | unused score |
| Fahrenheit 451 Fahrenheit 451 (1966 film) Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 film directed by François Truffaut, in his first colour film as well as his only English-language film. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury.... |
François Truffaut François Truffaut François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five... |
||
| 1968 | The Bride Wore Black The Bride Wore Black The Bride Wore Black is a 1968 French film directed by François Truffaut and based on the novel of the same name by William Irish, a pseudonym for Cornell Woolrich. It stars Jeanne Moreau, Charles Denner, Alexandra Stewart, Michel Bouquet, Michael Lonsdale, Claude Rich and Jean-Claude Brialy.It is... |
François Truffaut | |
| Twisted Nerve Twisted Nerve Twisted Nerve is a 1968 British psychological thriller film about a disturbed young man, Martin, who pretends, under the name of Georgie, to be mentally retarded in order to be near Susan, a girl he has become infatuated with, killing those who get in his way.-Plot:The film opens with Martin... |
Roy Boulting | main theme featured in Kill Bill, Vol. 1 Kill Bill Kill Bill Volume 1 is a 2003 action thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is the first of two volumes that were theatrically released several months apart, the second volume being Kill Bill Volume 2.... (2003) |
|
| 1969 | Battle of Neretva | Veljko Bulajić Veljko Bulajic Veljko Bulajić , today is a Croatian film director and actor of Montenegrin descent, most of his life working in Croatia... |
|
| 1971 | The Night Digger The Night Digger The Night Digger is a 1971 British thriller film that was based on the novel Nest in a Fallen Tree by Joy Cowley. It was adapted by Roald Dahl and starred his wife Patricia Neal. The Night Digger was the American title; it was originally released in the United Kingdom as The Road Builder.-Cast:*... |
Alastair Reid Alastair Reid (director) Alastair Reid was a British television director whose credits include the TV series Traffik and Tales of the City.... |
|
| Endless Night Endless Night (1972 film) Endless Night is a 1972 British crime film directed by Sidney Gilliat and starring Hayley Mills, Britt Ekland, Per Oscarsson, Hywel Bennett and George Sanders. It is based on the novel Endless Night by Agatha Christie.-Plot:... |
Sidney Gilliatt | ||
| 1973 | Sisters | Brian De Palma Brian De Palma Brian Russell De Palma is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission:... |
|
| 1974 | It's Alive | Larry Cohen | |
| 1976 | Obsession | Brian De Palma | Oscar nominee |
| Taxi Driver Taxi Driver Taxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy... |
Martin Scorsese Martin Scorsese Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation... |
Oscar and Grammy nominee; BAFTA winner |
Melodrams
These works are for narrator and full orchestra, intended to be broadcast over the radio (since a human voice would not be able to be heard over the full volume of an orchestra). In a 1938 broadcast, Herrmann distinguished "melodrama" from "melodram" and explained that these works are not part of the former, but the latter. The 1935 works were composed before June 1935.- La Belle Dame Sans Merci (September 1934)
- The City of Brass (December 1934)
- Annabel Lee (1934–1935)
- Poem Cycle (1935):
- The Willow Leaf
- Weep No More, Sad Fountains
- Something Tells
- A Shropshire Lad (1935)
- Cynara (1935)
Incidental music for radio shows and dramas
- Palmolive Beauty Box (1935?) (2 existing cues)
- Dauber (October 1936)
- Rhythm of the Jute Mill (December 1936)
- Gods of the Mountain (1937)
- A Christmas Carol (1954, a CBS-TV special, after Dickens)
- A Child Is Born (1955, a TV special hosted by Ronald Reagan with singers Nadine Conner and Theodor Uppman)
- Brave New World (1956)
Stage works
- Wuthering HeightsWuthering Heights (Herrmann)Wuthering Heights is the sole opera written by Bernard Herrmann. He worked on it from 1943 to 1951. It is cast in a prologue, 4 acts, and an epilogue that repeats the music of the prologue...
: Opera (1951) - The King of Schnorrers (1968) Musical comedy
Concert works
- The Forest: Tone poem for Large Orchestra (1929)
- November Dusk: Tone Poem for Large Orchestra (1929)
- Tempest and Storm: Furies Shrieking!: for Piano (1929)
- The Dancing Faun and The Bells: Two Songs for Medium Voice and Small Chamber Orchestra (1929)
- Requiescat: Violin and Piano (1929)
- Twilight: Violin and Piano (1929)
- March Militaire (1932), ballet music for Americana Revue (1932)
- Aria for Flute and Harp (1932)
- Variations on "Deep River" and "Water Boy" (1933)
- Prelude to Anathema: for Fifteen Instruments (1933)
- Silent Noon: for Fourteen Instruments (1933)
- The Body Beautiful (1935), music from the Broadway play
- NocturneNocturneA nocturne is usually a musical composition that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night...
and ScherzoScherzoA scherzo is a piece of music, often a movement from a larger piece such as a symphony or a sonata. The scherzo's precise definition has varied over the years, but it often refers to a movement which replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or...
(1935) - Sinfonietta for Strings (1935)
- Currier and Ives Suite (1935)
- Violin ConcertoConcertoA concerto is a musical work usually composed in three parts or movements, in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra.The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words...
: Unfinished (1937) - Moby Dick: Cantata (1937)
- Johnny AppleseedJohnny AppleseedJohnny Appleseed , born John Chapman, was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois...
: Unfinished Cantata (1940) - Symphony (1941)
- The Fantasticks (1942)
- The Devil and Daniel Webster Suite (1942)
- For the Fallen (1943)
- Welles Raises Kane (1943)
- Echoes: String QuartetString quartetA string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
(1965) - Souvenirs de Voyage (1967)
See also
- Columbia WorkshopColumbia WorkshopColumbia Workshop was a radio series that aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from 1936 to 1943, returning in 1946-47.-Irving Reis:...
- a radio series for which Herrmann was music director and composed or arranged many episodes. - High AnxietyHigh AnxietyHigh Anxiety is a 1977 comedy film produced and directed by Mel Brooks, who also plays the lead. This is Brooks' first film as a producer and first "speaking" lead role...
—a comedy spoof that parodies many Hitchcock devices including Herrmann's music. - Hitchcock & HerrmannHitchcock & HerrmannHitchcock & Herrmann is the title of a play written by David Knijnenburg which examines the relationship between Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann.-Synopsis:...
—a stage play about the relationship between Herrmann and Alfred Hitchcock.
External links
- The Bernard Herrmann Estate (website incomplete as of November 2011)
- The Bernard Herrmann Society (without a list of Herrmann's music)
- Bernard Herrmann papers, at the University of California, Santa BarbaraUniversity of California, Santa BarbaraThe University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...
Library. - Bernard Herrmann: The Early Years
- Bernard Herrmann at Soundtrackguide.net
- Bernard Herrmann: A Celebration of his Life and Music
- Bernard Herrmann: A Centennial Tribute
- Gramophone magazine obituary, February 1976.