When Vera Miles (Lila Crane) goes into the cellar in search of Mrs. Bates I remember wanting to hide under m y seat! However, I had a date that was out of the question. Fear was created not just by Hitchcock’s marvelous technique(s), but by those screeching strings. The man who wrote the music, and made the decision to eliminate brass and percussion was Bernard Herrmann. That decision served Psycho well and made the film score unique.
Bernard Herrmann was born in New York City and studied at Julliard; at twenty he founded a chamber orchestra. He wrote a symphony before his Hollywood career took off. That symphony was premiered by the New York Philharmonic. Bernard Herrmann was unique in that his Hollywood career spanned some four decades. He composed the music for Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. For Hitchcock he composed the music for The Trouble-With Hany; The Man Who Knew Too Much; The Wrong Man; Vertigo and North By Northwest, all before he even tackled Psycho. If you wan to see him, he is conducting the orchestra in the remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much. However, in that film he is conducting a cantata “Storm Clouds” by Arthur Benjamin.
I was watching a rerun of Psycho when I turned my head and just listened to the music, Suddenly, I had to have that disc. The complete score is available on Unicorn-Kanchana with the composer conducting the National Philharmonic Orchestra. Admittedly, it just isn’t as scary without the movie, but it stands as a fine
piece of music. Bernard Herrmann’s film music can be heard on London’s Cinema Gala. Extended portions of Citizen Kane, Jane Eyre, The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Jason and the Argonauts are all conducted by the composer showcased. Bernard Herrmann’s IP.st two scores were Taxi Driver for Martin Scorcese, and Obsession for Brian DePalma. The more serious music is represented on disc by the symphony, coupled with William Schuman’s New England Triptych – The Phoenix Symphony.is conducted by James Sedares on KochInternational Classics. This is probably the most accessible of his serious (classical) music.
There is a Moby Dick cantata on Unicorn-Kanchana. I personally have some problems with that disc, not the least of which is that the chorus is distorted at one point. The music just isn’t strong enough. for it’s subject. However, there are some fine sailor songs, and some powerful declamation, especially by Atlas. Donald Spoto writing in “The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock” said that Hitchcock and Herrmann shared a dark, tragic sense of life, a brooding view of human relationships, and a compulsion to explore aesthetically the private world of the romantic fantasy. If so, you have to go to the opera. Bernard Herrmann composed Wuthering Heights to a libretto by Lucille Fletcher. What can be more romantic and tragic than Kathy and Heathcliff? Once again conducted by the composer and available on Unicorn-Kanchana, the opera has some beautiful passages as well as its own version of horror. Though not from a woman searching a cellar. Oh! you want to know if the score for Psycho won an Oscar. It wasn’t even nominated! Not to worry, Hitchcock doubled Bernard Herrmann’s fee from $17,500 to $35,000.