Gramophone (2015) - Music for Alfred Hitchcock
Details
- magazine article: Music for Alfred Hitchcock
- author(s): Guy Rickards
- journal: Gramophone (01/Feb/2015)
- issue: volume 93, issue 1119, page 46
- journal ISSN: 0017-310X
- publisher: Haymarket Media Group
- keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Arthur Benjamin, Bernard Herrmann, Dial M for Murder (1954), Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman, Hitchcock Chronology: 1951, James Stewart, Psycho (1960), Rear Window (1954), Rebecca (1940), Strangers on a Train (1951), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Vertigo (1958)
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Abstract
Article
Music for Alfred Hitchcock
Hitchcock understood the value of music and its impact on audiences. He omitted Bernard Herrmann’s searing score for Psycho (1960) when sending the print to the censor to ensure certification, realising its visceral power. In The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), the only film he remade (in 1956), a cantata plays a crucial part in the action. In the remake, Arthur Benjamin’s The Storm was expanded by Herrmann – the composer Hitchcock worked with most productively – to impressive effect (he replaced the rest of Benjamin’s score, however) and it is given a terrific performance here by Klaudia Kidon with the Danish National Concert Choir.
The main performing plaudits on this disc go to the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under John Mauceri, of course, not least in the conductor’s restoration of the gripping ‘Narrative for string orchestra’ Herrmann made in 1968 from Psycho. This catches all the suspense, drama and terror of what remains one of the greatest film scores ever penned. Herrmann made several concert extracts from his cinematic music, as in the beautiful Prelude and Love scene from Vertigo (1958).
Hitchcock worked with other composers, including Franz Waxman – Rebecca (1940) and the wonderfully diverse score of Rear Window (1950, the music built only from what James Stewart can hear through his window) – and, on the iconic Strangers on a Train (1951) and Dial M for Murder (1954), Dimitri Tiomkin. These four scores are represented by suites in Mauce...
