Hitchcock and Herrmann: Alliance of Giants

02.10.12 |
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Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann: Alliance of Giants

Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann were established professionals when they began to work together … Hitchcock a great director, and Herrmann a great composer.  They did not need each other to be remembered for their work, but together they created a unique partnership in movie history.  Both were strong-willed men, both clung to their own ideas, and their relationship was stormy.  But what matter to us?  Their eight-film alliance, from The Trouble with Harry in 1955 to 1964′s Marnie, produced some of the best movies ever made, because of Hitchcock’s incredible film visions and Herrmann’s musical genius.

I have always considered Vertigo to be Hitchcock’s masterpiece, and believe it was so in large part because of the perfection of Herrmann’s musical score.  To celebrate both, I decided to listen to the Main Theme from Vertigo as interpreted by the fabulous Los Angeles Philharmonic and conductor Esa-Pekka-Salonen.  To those who have seen Vertigo, no more needs to be said.  For those who have not, no more needs to be explained as the strongest recommendation to do so.

Alfred Hitchcock (8/13/99 – 4/29/80).
Bernard Herrmann (6/29/11 – 12/24/75).
Equals in greatness.

Who is your favorite film composer? Let us know in the comments!

Please see our articles:

Alfred Hitchcock: Ten Things To Know About The Master of Suspense

Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho

ClassicBecky is an Indiana Hoosier born and bred.  She describes herself as a strange personality mix — half Bohemian, half conservative.  Classic movies, classic literature and classical music are her passions.  Thus her nom de plume was her first choice. For more information, visit http://classicbeckybrainfood.blogspot.com.

 

 

  • Martin Stumacher

    Absolutely beautiful music score! I still include Herrmann’s scoring for “Psycho”. Oh those screaming violins!

  • tony

    A good score is so vitally important in movies and Bernard was a wonderful composer, right up there with the greats. I have just revisited the original (and in my opinion the best version) of Cape Fear with Grgory Peck and a brooding Bob Mitchum. Lee Thompson the director was a student of Hitchcock and was greatly influenced by his technique. He was over the moon when Bernard signed to score the film. It was brilliant. I honestly cannot separate the genius of Williams, Horner, Zinneman, Steiner or Bernstein as to who I prefer, they’re all modern day Motzarts in my book.

  • Toby Martin II

    Among the best ever… “Vertigo,” “Dances With Wolves,” “Ben-Hur,” “The Ten Commandments,” and “The Big Country.”

  • Allen Hefner

    What surprises me is that Herrmann only won a single Oscar and no Emmys. His range of work goes from the classic movies mentioned here, to television including “Have Gun, Will Travel” and “Lost in Space.” He needs a Lifetime Achievement Award.

  • thom bennett

    Thanks for the blog, ClassicBecky. “Vertigo” is my all-time favourite movie,Herrmann’s music is my all-time favourite score: heartbreakingly beautiful.

  • Glenn Davis

    Also we cannot forget his last Movie Score “Taxi Driver”.The haunting sax of the main theme will forever live in my memory!.It perfectly complimented the New York landscape and the rainy surrounds!

  • Marsha

    Wonderful post, Becky. The music from “Vertigo” is such a huge part of the movie – and I was so excited when I heard the theme used in “the Artist” – I felt so smart!

  • Blair Kramer.

    Too bad Herrmann and Hitch had a falling out over the score to “Torn Curtain.” Hitch wanted a somewhat more contemporary sound than the music Herrman delivered. As I understand it, they never worked together again after that. But in the case of “Torn Curtain,” Hitch was wrong. That’s right! I said it! I have a CD of Herrmann’s unfinished/unused score for “Torn Curtain.” Frankly, in my humble opinion, it’s as good as his music for “Vertigo!” And “Vertigo,” as we all know, is a total Herrmann masterpiece!

    • DIRK

      hey Blair, where can we find this unused score — I would sure like to have it! Torn Curtain is one of my favorites! Thanks!

      • Blair Kramer.

        Hello Dirk,

        I purchased Herrmann’s unfinished/unused score for “Torn Curtain” some years ago at Tower Records, which, of course, no longer exists. However, it IS available on the ‘net at Amazon U. S. A good, used copy is listed at just under $20. Now… Since it’s an unfinished score, the CD is just a bit spare. But trust me, it’s an undiscovered gem that is a must for every Herrmann fan.

  • Ron

    Great musical scoring makes great movies.

  • bonnerace

    I have never heard a Herrmann score that I thought was anything less than excellent. From CITIZEN KANE (unbelivably, his FIRST) to his Hitchcock scores to TAXI DRIVER, all great. Along with Max Steiner, Erich Korngold, Alfred Newman and John Williams the top of their field.

  • Charles Bogle

    The greatest director of all time and the greatest film composer of all time. What a team! Actually I think Bernard Herrmann is also the greatest American composer of any kind and will someday be recognized as such. He would probably scoff and name Charles Ives over himself. Vertigo is certainly a high point for both artists. There are whole stretches of it that are nothing but streams of images held together by the music. I listen to all of Herrmann’s soundtracks constantly. The score for Psycho is right up there with Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste, in my opinion, and his work in The Trouble with Harry is like a New England pastoral symphony. In addition to his collaborations with Hitchcock I am especially fond of his music for The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Jane Eyre, Fahrenheit 451, Hangover Square, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and Taxi Driver. I enjoy Waxman, Bernstein, Goldsmith, North and all the rest of them, but for me Herrmann stands head and shoulders above everyone else.

  • Neil Sinyard

    I’m doing a Day School on the Herrmann/Hitchcock collaboration at City Screen York on March 10th. Contact City Screen if interested. The greatest composer/director partnership in the history of movies.

  • Gord Jackson

    I am currently hosting a film music program, “Soundtrack” out of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, cfmu.ca., 8:00-10:00 a.m., est. On Saturday’s show we will be reviewing this year’s best original score Oscar nominees, doing part three of a John Williams retrospective (celebrating his 80th birthday which was on February 8) and concluding with some Oscar winning, nominated and maybe should-have-been nominated songs from the past.

    On one program we played the doc “Bernard Herrmann: Alfred Hitchcock, An Essential Collection” during which the composer occasionally speaks but which also includes suites of music from “Psycho”, “Vertigo”, “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and one of my personal favourites, “The Wrong Man” prelude. It’s something I might very well repeat it later on in the spring if anyone is interested in hearing it.

    I would also be interested in hearing from anyone interested in making some requests. (gordjackson@ymail.com) I can’t guarantee anything but I will do what I can, bearing in mind that we also feature current scores and new releases, which often include classic scores from the past as well.

    Finally, my own favourite composer is Franz Waxman. I played “The Spirit of St. Louis” in its entirety late last May in commemoration of Lindbergh’s seminal transatlantic flight (and Billy Wilder’s brilliant depiction of same) and plan on future docs that will either revist some (like Alex North) or checkout for the first time people like James Horner, John Newton Howard and Canadian success story Howard Shore among others.

    • Tim

      Oh yeah, Franz Waxman, definitely! Also no stranger to Hitchcock films. I think my fav is Sunset Boulevard (not a hitchcock) though. Sad he died so young.

  • TinyTim

    I try to avoid superlatives, and there are definitely a number of outstanding composers for cinema, but if Hermann is not THE best ever he is certainly one of them.

  • Gary Vidmar

    Max Steiner, Erich Korngold, Alfred Newman, Bernard Herrmann, Miklos Rozsa, Franz Waxman, Hugo Friedhofer, David Raksin, Alex North, Elmer Bernstein, Dimitri Tiomkin, Jerome Moross, George Duning, Jerry Goldsmith, Henry Mancini, Maurice Jarre, Michel Legrand, Neal Hefti, Quincy Jones and John Williams.

  • Gord Jackson

    I don’t know where the happy face came from but Williams birthday was February 8, which is what should have been posted. Something about technological illiteracy, what can I say?

  • SFer

    Bernard Herrmann has always been tops on my list of movie composers. While his Hitchcock collaborations were great, I also like his scores for JANE EYRE, THE GHOST and MRS MUIR and THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. His use of theramins was revolutionary.

    In addition, some other favorites include Alfred Newman for THE SONG OF BERNADETTE and Franz Waxman for REBECCA and A PLACE IN THE SUN.

  • William Sommerwerck

    What you mean is… Who is your favorite film composer /other than/ Bernard Herrmann?

    For me, it would be Jerry Goldsmith. The sustained quality and imagination of his scores, throughout a long career, are remarkable.

  • George Gaspar, MD

    Simply put, Alfred Hitchcock is my favorite director and Bernard Herrmann is my favorite movie composer; and Vertigo is my most cherished movie of all time. Thank you ClassicBecky for your blog.

  • William Sommerwerck

    The reason Bernard Herrmann won only one Oscar was that he was an irascible crank, whom no one liked. David Raksin told the story that when he called Herrmann to thank him for a recommendation to score “Laura”, Herrmann responded “Well, I wouldn’t have recommended you if you weren’t any good!”

    On the other hand, Herrmann’s sharp tongue was sometimes justified. When William Friedkin asked Herrman to score “The Exorcist”, and said he wanted a score “as good as Psycho’s”, Herrmann shot back “Give me a /film/ as good as Psycho.”

  • Lorraine

    “Vertigo” is my favorite as well of the Hitchcock-Herrmann collaborations, with “Marnie” a close second. That both those films were so maligned at the time of their release never ceases to amaze me, and it says something deeply reassuring about cinema that ignored or misunderstood films can be rediscovered and cherished by later generations of film lovers and critics.

    A thousand thanks Becky for including the deliriously beautiful “Scene d’Amour,” the musical interlude that made “Vertigo” an essential from the first moment I saw it.

  • Mark

    Hermann was great and great for Hitchcock’s films but he comes in just behind Elmer Bernstein.

  • Joseph Imhoff

    Herrmann, like Korngold, came out of a strong operatic tradition that goes back to Wagner’s ‘singing speech’ (Wagner would probably taken to the film medium had he lived long enough). Korngold had “Die Tote Stadt”, Herrmann, “Wuthering Heights”, it is quite good. The spoken word and the action become entwined so that it is impossible to separate them, music often providing the punctuation or underlying currents that move a static sceen along without being obtrusive or even noticed. This in no way dininshes what others have done, their approach was different.

  • Bill

    I truly love the soundtracks of Bernard Herman. One of my favorites is his music for Brian DePalma’s Sisters. Just watch and listen to the title sequence from this film. I guarantee you will be totally unnerved.

  • Edward

    While the alliance of both Herrmann and Hitchcock,
    have created some of the greatest film scores in the genre of mystery and suspence ever produced, we should not under estimate the collaboration of Herrmann, Charles Schneer and Ray Harryhausen, with hitchcock’s films Herrmann could draw from contemporary and Familiar which we could easly identify with, however to create worlds and creatures that don’t exist Herrmann had to delve deep into his own creative Imagination, the results were some of the greatest film scores that never will be equaled. Listen to the 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Mysterious Island, Jason and the Argonauts, 3 Worlds of Gulliver. You will truly be amazed and awed. Herrmann considered these some of his best works, many excerps of these films were on his last recording called the “Concert Suites”. He died soon after this was made. Though not Schneer and Harryhusen films, Day the Earth Stood Still, and Journey to the center of the earth, are scores that should be in ones collection if you are a Bernard Herrmann Fan.

  • Charly Hulswitt

    Hermann is super but John Williams is tops with me.

  • alex

    It is one of his 3 greatest scores, but I, personally, feel that his greatest will always be “OBSESSION”!!!…

  • Publius

    Bernard Herrmann was the greatest American composer since Charles Ives. In all of his compostions one gets a feeling of passion not unlike Wagner. I consider Hermmann’s masterpiece was PSYCHO because he used strings along in order to create a “black and white sound.” Long before I knew anything about this talented composer, when I first saw PSYCHO I made a remark to my friends that “the music made the picture.” When I hear VERTIGO I get the sneaking suspicion that I am hearing Wagner’s TRISTAN AND ISOLDE from a new perspective; sex and psychology combined. His 1941 Symphony is a pletheuria of fantastic sounds moving within and out of different themes that are so new, so relevatory to orchestra sound that I often wondered why this work was never played in the concert hall more often. Another gen that I like is the music he composed for AFRICAN WITCH DOCTOR. Here Herrmann uses 10 different congo drums, Including a brake drum from a volkswagon beetle. For people who love piano concertos, should check out his score for HANGOVER SQUARE in which the demented musican is still playing the music on piano as the opera house burns down. I wanted to write a book on him but could never find enough research until FIRE AT LIFE’S CENTER came out in the ’90′s. There is an excellent documentary of Herrmann’s music and life and is part of the Hollywood Film Music series. Nearly everything that the man composed could stand on its own as an independent composition. Hitchcock should be faulted fro bringing this wonderful collaboration to an ignoble end. I am also suprised that Sir Georg Solti never conducted his works in the concert hall, when Solti would’ve brought the music to life as no other conductor.

  • Publius

    I also forgot to mention: Another favorite is his score for THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER. Here in “A Sleigh-ride With The Devil” Herrmann uses an Americna folk tune “The Irish Washerwoman” and plays it upside down and backwards. The score is filled with folk dance tunes and square dance tunes that are wholly American. The “Barn Dance,” is a fantastic example of what a composer can do with Americna folk tunes and make them exciting and original.

  • Frederick Rogers

    Do you notice how many current critics both professional and online bemoan the use of music in films? I loved the John Williams score for War Horse. It transported me back to a time of grand entertainment and heartfelt emotion.

  • CheriLynn

    This discussion brings me back to a comment I made about using pop songs in another post, (a cop out in my opinion) to let the viewer know what the person is feeling instead of acting. You know, using facial expressions, body language, nuanced looks. What great composers like Herrmann did was make songs for the individual emotions. John Williams did profiles or songs for the individual in Star Wars, and his music is quite brilliant, but the old composers for films came from an operatic background: The music of the people. Herrmann was definitely the king when it came to transporting the viewer into the psyche of the actor, and the actor actually acted giving Herrmann food for his compositions.

    Korngold is also one of my favorites. When I was younger I was in love with Maurice Jarre (owned the soundtrack to Dr. Zhivago in LP) until I realized all his compositions sounded similar. All I had to do was close my eyes and listen to the music and I could nail his compositions. The thing about true genius in a composer like Herrmann is you are so caught up emotionally in the movie you finally realize the movie can’t exist emotionally without it. Then you watch the credits to see who the bloody genius was that made you suspend your disbelief so profoundly that you were transported to another world. So today, older and wiser, I still like Jarre because his music is so beautiful, but Herrmann is a masterpiece.

    Wonderful comments. I always learn something.

  • Susan Johnston

    Herrman and Hitchcock were definitely an unbeatable team. My list of favorite composers would have to include John Williams (Star Wars, E.T., etc.); Maurice Jarre (Lawrence of Arabia); Ennio Morricone (“the spaghetti westerns”); Henry Mancini for everything he did (esp. Moon River, the Pink Panther,etc.); Dimitri Tiomkin (High Noon,the Alamo, etc);Elmer Berstein (esp. Magnificent Seven);Miles Davis (not noted for film scores) for the incredible jazz score for Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Scaffold; Jerry Goldsmith for such as the Omen which I think compares very favorably with Herrmann’s music for Psycho; and last, but certainly not least, would be another great team of Akira Kurasawa and Fumio Hayasawa for soundtracks for the Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and Roshomon to name a few. This was a great blog with some great responses. Thanks for letting me chime in!

  • http://www.facebook.com/michael.levin3 Michael Levin

    The so-called Classicists never want to recognize movie music and its composers as actual great classical music. If you take notice you’ll notice most movie music is placed in the Pops concerts, rarely in classical music concerts. When will they finally recognize that Elmer Bernstein’s The Magnificent Seven score is in the same league as Bernstein mentor Aaron Copland’s Billy The Kid? And for modern 20th century scores, how about Alex NOrth and Jerry Goldsmith? Their movie music ranks as the best of the modern 20th century music.

  • Stephen

    In VERTIGO, Hermmann pays ‘homage’ to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. In so doing, he takes rapture to heretofore unscaled levels. Speaking of rapture, let us not forget Dimitri Tiomkin’s score for LOST HORIZON, Franz Waxman’s PEYTON PLACE, Ernest Gold’s ON THE BEACH.
    Speaking of homage, there is the STAR WARS main title saluting Korngold’s KINGS ROW, Williams’ JSAWS taking a bite out of Stranvinsky’s RITE OF SPRING, and Steiner’s GONE WITH THE WIND saluting ALL the expositional passsages from Puccini’s TOSCA. Alfred Newman simply used the Act I TOSCA music for THE RAZORS EDGE and pefromed musical grand theft auto in THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK.
    So what? We are all richer for such scores.
    Giants standing on the shoulders of giants.

  • Jim Sepeda

    Henry Mancini and John Williams are great and greatly honored with Oscar nominations and wins. But my favorite is Elmer Bernstein. Listen to these titles and the diversity of his work: Magnificent Seven, Walk on the Wild Side, The Ten Commandments, Halelujah Trail, the Great Escape, and of course a bunch of John Wayne movies.

  • Tito Pannaggi

    Why did Hitchcock ruin their partnership? I’ll never forgive Hitchcock for that!!!

  • Scott Gordon

    Herrmann’s brilliant work on VERTIGO does recall Wagner’s TRISTAN UND ISOLDE in that both are evocations of passionate, romantic yearning. Because two works induce similar emotional responses from the listener, however, does not mean that the later work was lifted, stolen, borrowed, or even necessarily inspired by the earlier – although a case for inspiration could be made regarding the first music created by homo sapiens and it’s possible similarity to birdsong, and the next to that first and so on through time, as most music of any tradition owes some debt to what came before. The comment from Stephen alleging that Alfred Newman “simply used the Act 1 TOSCA music for THE RAZOR’S EDGE,” and resorted to similar plagiarism for THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK is simply mistaken. Legally, a charge of plagiarism – unintentional or otherwise – is supportable if the first seven notes of a melody are identical. Nothing in Newman’s scores comes anywhere near that requirement of similarity.vis a vis Puccini. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Newman admired the opera master since both were gifted melodists and musical dramatists. Newman did borrow from himself: the tremulous theme of unfulfilled love in THE RAZOR’S EDGE was first used by him in his score for THESE THREE, the initial movie based (loosely) on Lillian Hellman’s THE CHILDRENS HOUR. And, at director George Stevens’ insistence, he used a cue from his score for THE ROBE to accompany the raising of Lazarus in THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD. But steal from Giacomo, no. He didn’t need to. Now, If genuine compositional similarity is needed to illustrate my contention, give Sibelius’ FINLANDIA a listen, and follow it up with Korngold’s KINGS ROW. There’s an andante theme from the latter that’s enough like it’s equivalent in the Finnish composer’s piece to be a quote or interpolation, though even it isn’t identical.

    And just in case the notoriously temperamental Bernard Herrmann glances at this from beyond, I’ll return to the subject of his work by observing what few fans would dispute. He could evoke tension, turmoil, and terror more distinctively and disturbingly than anyone.

    P.S. Alfred Newman is my favorite of favorites – like that wasn’t obvious.