Free Republic

In many ways, it’s remarkable that the composer Bernard Herrmann, who died at age 64 in 1975, is as well known as he is. His scores to Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” (1958) and “Psycho” (1960) remain inseparable from those seminal pictures. Yet a significant number of Herrmann aficionados feel such recognition is insufficient, that much of this composer’s music is not just neglected but sorely underappreciated. And a good many of them gathered here recently, at Georgetown University and the National Gallery of Art, to make their case in a series of programs that examined not just Herrmann’s well-established achievements (like...

Bernard Herrmann may be best known for his memorable contributions to classic films, including his rousing overture to "North by Northwest," the shower scene in "Psycho," the romantic themes of "Vertigo," the eerie electronic music in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and the desolate blues of "Taxi Driver." He might have preferred to be celebrated for his opera "Wuthering Heights," symphonies and cantatas such as "Moby Dick," and other concert works. According to the film composer John Williams, Herrmann's greatest ambition was to be recognized as a conductor. Nonetheless, Herrmann's lasting legacy remains his work in the entertainment industry:...

Sunday, January 3rd at 2 PM Pacific / 3 PM Mountain / 4 PM Central / 5 PM Eastern, Classical KUSC presents a rebroadcast of “On Dangerous Ground: A Tribute to Bernard Herrmann.” This two-hour sound portrait of one of cinema’s greatest composers will be hosted by Jon Burlingame, author, USC professor, and a writer on film music for Variety. The program includes rarely heard interviews with Herrmann himself, and excerpts from his concert music as well as dozens of his great film scores, from Citizen Kane to Taxi Driver. Herrmann’s legendary partnership with Alfred Hitchcock will be showcased with...

"OK, so Jimmy Stewart is sitting in his DeSoto right where that white minivan is parked — right there!" says author Aaron Leventhal, as knowledgeable an Alfred Hitchcock fanatic as you are bound to find. "And he's looking between those two pillars — right over here — at Kim Novak, who's coming out of her apartment building to get into her green Jaguar and go wandering through the city." We're standing at the corner of Mason and Sacramento streets atop Nob Hill in San Francisco, and we're about to follow, 50 years later, in the footsteps of Stewart, Novak —...

They are among the most familiar, and terrifying, sounds ever to hit the silver screen: Shriek, shriek, shriek, screech, screech, screech, squeal, squeal, squeal. The high-pitched, overlapping violins that accompany Janet Leigh's chilling shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" were the inspiration of Bernard Herrmann, the director's composer of choice and one of moviedom's most imaginative creative artists. But Herrmann was much more than a Hollywood figure who evoked sonic fear. Aside from his Hitchcock projects, the New York-born composer wrote the scores for numerous other beloved films, including "Citizen Kane," "Jane Eyre," "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir," "The Man...

Some time ago, in my eternal quest to set the record straight, I suggested that the true hero of the motion picture industry wasn’t Thomas Edison or D.W. Griffith, not Chaplin or Keaton, not Jack Warner or Louis B. Mayer, but the anonymous fellow who first came up with the notion of putting salt on popcorn, thus turning packing material into a concession stand bonanza that costs more per-pound than lox and caviar put together. But there are others who, more often than not, get overlooked while far too much praise is lavished on actors and directors. I refer to...