Edward Johnson writes… Today it’s the birthday of Bernard Herrmann – born June 29, 1911 in New York City (died December 24, 1975) – who is now generally recognised as one of Hollywood’s very finest movie composers. He scored the music for about fifty films, starting with Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane and ending with Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver in 1975, his death occurring shortly after its soundtrack had been recorded. There’s a wealth of Herrmann on YouTube, so here is a selection.
John Wilson’s “Hollywood Rhapsody” Prom in 2013 featured two splendid performances of Herrmann’s film music, starting with probably his most famous score. Here’s a selection from Psycho and listen out for the audience’s reaction when the screaming violins come in with the ‘Shower Scene’ cue …
Herrmann won his only Oscar for the music he wrote for The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) also known as All That Money Can Buy. Here is the ‘Sleigh Ride’ from a 1970 Decca Phase 4 recording of his own music in which Herrmann conducted the LPO …
During his years as the Chief Conductor of the CBS Symphony Orchestra, starting in 1940, Herrmann championed many composers, especially those from England, where he eventually settled. In 1945 he conducted a concert of music by Handel, Elgar and Vaughan Williams which included the first US broadcast of the latter’s Oboe Concerto. The soloist was Mitch Miller and here’s the brief ‘Minuet and Musette’ movement …
Herrmann’s music was taken up by several of the great maestros of the day, including Barbirolli, Beecham, Ormandy and Stokowski. The latter had performed the Suite from The Devil and Daniel Webster with the New York Philharmonic in 1949 and in 1970 he revived Herrmann’s wartime For the Fallen in an American Symphony Orchestra concert given in Carnegie Hall…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C799VwgW84M …
Finally, back to John Wilson and his terrific “Hollywood Rhapsody” Prom of 2013. Here is ‘Salammbo’s Aria’ from Citizen Kane, given a wonderful performance by the Russian soprano Venera Gimadieva, her final top note duly bringing the Albert Hall roof down! …
Happy listening!
Anderson additions
John and I both met Bernard Herrmann, quite independently, as we were not together at that time. In John’s case it would have been in the later 1960s, when both he, and Benny, as he was known, were both recording for Pye (under the auspices of John Snashall and Bob Auger). John made several piano recordings then, and his First Symphony was recorded with John Snashall conducting. This is still available as it happens, as are some of the piano recordings, which included works by Rawsthorne, Webern, Nielsen, Britten, Copland, Schoenberg and McCabe. John also recorded Gerard Schurmann’s song cycle Chuench’i, with Marni Nixon, together with Goehr, and Ives’s 13 Songs. These were sung by Marni Nixon, who was the singing voice for Natalie Wood in West Side Story, and I think Deborah Kerr in The King and I. In fact the voice which can be heard hollering ‘Ha-lle-lujah!’ in the song General William Booth enters Heaven, is John’s, for he was a brilliant vocal mimic. I am not sure how John first met Benny, but Carolyn Schurmann, in a quite recent email to me, believes it might have been via them, through Gerard’s film connections (they later moved to California, where Carolyn still lives). She believes that Benny actually attended one of the recording sessions for John’s First Symphony. At some point, Benny invited John to a dinner party at his grand London house in Regent’s Park and the other guests were Hollywood greats. John, only c. 28 or 29, was so overawed that he hardly spoke a word.
I independently met Benny, when he was recording, or rather editing a recording, at Bob Auger’s studio – Bob had left Pye by now, and was working independently, and I was working for him. My memory tells me that it was the recording of his opera, Wuthering Heights, which would have been around that time, but I may be wrong in this. I remember Benny as very gruff, abrasive and demanding, in aggressive Hollywood style, but he was always very polite to me – it was just the manner of those people. I of course treated him with great deference. I seem to recall that he was walking with a cane at that time. He was a bit overweight, and I imagine not very fit.