Bernard Herrmann

 

[1911 - 1975] Specially mentioned for his partnership with Alfred Hitchcock films, Bernard Herrmann was one of the biggest names in film music. Composers today admit and assume his influence in writing for thrillers. With a unique approach in follow closelly the projects where was involved, to know its developments and contents, it´s common to say that Herrmann´s work is insuperable. He was an essential figure in the 40s and 50s, expanding and refining the sound commentary for a movie.

 

Developed an interest in art in childhood by paternal encouragement. Graduate on the famous Julliard School, Herrmann began his career as a conductor in student days. In 1933 he was hired by CBS as a conductor and arranger. It was on CBS that he met in 1936, the young Orson Welles with whom began collaborating as musical director of the Mercury Theater program. Whem producing his first film, Orson Welles, naturally invited him to compose the soundtrack and Herrmann started a proficuous film career in 1940 composing the music for Citizen Kane. Unfortunately the following Welles project, Magnificent Ambersons (1942), had a troubled production due to interferences. Producers insistence on changing the film´s length (and its soundtrack), caused the end of the partnership between Herrmann and Welles.

The aasotiation with Alfred Hitchcock began with The Trouble With Harry (1955), and followed with The Wrong Man (1957), Vertigo (1958), North By Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960) and Marnie (1964). Herrmann did also a great work for the for the fantasies of animation master Ray Harryhausen as The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Jason and the Argonauts (1966) and Mysterious Island (1967). New studio musical demands forced the substitution of Torn Courtain´s score (1966) and Hitchcock replaced Herrmann for a new score by Rob Goodwin. The composer then decided to leave Hollywood, in a time when symphonic soundtracks went into decline.

After composing for European films like Farhenheit 451 (1966) and The Bride Wore Black (1967), both by François Truffaut, his orchestral idiom came to be valued by a new generation of American directors, among them Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese and Larry Cohen. And Herrmann came back recycling his easily recognizable music writing for thrillers, creating remarkable works such as Sisters (1973), It's Alive (1974), Obsession (1976) and Taxi Driver (1975), work completed one day before his death, on Christmas 1975.