Film Score Focus

Ah! Bernard Herrmann. My favorite film composer of all time. Few understand the marriage between music and images as well as Herrmann. He got his start scoring over three-hundred radio dramas for Orson Wells in the 1930s. When Wells crossed over into film and directed CITIZEN KANE (1941), Herrmann went along with him and composed his first feature film score. From there he made a name for himself working with many accomplished directors including Robert Wise, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Ray Harryhausen, Alfred Hitchcock, Brian DePalma, and Martin Scorsese to name a few.



This week on Film Score Focus we're going to listen to scores that are either rare or perhaps not as well known from this composer. Most of the cinema loving population are already familiar with VERTIGO (1958), NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959), or PSYCHO (1960). This time out I wanted to focus on some of his other scores that you may not have heard before or realized that he had composed. They showcase Herrmann's genius just as much as his more famous acheivements helping cement him as one of the greatest and most beloved film composers who ever lived.

Here is the lineup for FSF-096 Silver Age Rarities: Bernard Herrmann



Luckily for us, there aren't many scores by Bernard Herrmann that just don't exist on CD. Even his rare rejected score for TORN CURTAIN (1966) has been released on several different albums in the last decade. The one score however I'm still holding out hope for is WHITE WITCH DOCTOR (1953). It's a very obscure (I haven't even seen the film) title that has yet to garner a proper album release. A few cuts from the score do make an appearance on the compilation rerecording album called CITIZEN KANE: THE CLASSIC FILM SCORES OF BERNARD HERRMANN by Charles Gerhardt. Other than these tracks I know of no other existence of this score. There's always hope.

The good folks over at Film Score Monthly have done a miraculous job releasing other less well known works by Herrmann. In the past decade they've released JOY IN THE MORNING (1965), THE EGYPTIAN (1954), ON DANGEROUS GROUND (1952), and more recently THE WRONG MAN (1956).

Several years ago Varese Sarabande released a two volume set entitled BERNARD HERRMANN AT FOX which featured cuts from some more obscure titles like TENDER IS THE NIGHT (1962), A HATFUL OF RAIN (1957), GARDEN OF EVIL (1954), and KING OF THE KHYBER RIFLES (1953) to name a few. Herrmann is such a beloved composer that I doubt it will be much longer before all of his music will be made (or at one point been made) available to the public. There aren't many titles left but there are certainly tons of film cues left unreleased.

Not to mention over three-hundred radio dramas. Now that's what I want to buy!!

I hope you enjoy this week's program and discover a few gems from the great Bernard Herrmann.