Bernard Dadié

Vertigo represents the summit of the seven-picture, nine-year association between Alfred Hitchcock and legendary composer Bernard Herrmann. Using instrumental and harmonic colour as the main paints in his repertoire, Herrmann deploys brief melodic cells and minimalist techniques to explore the obsessed world of Scotty Ferguson (James Stewart), a retired detective who has fallen in love with a woman from the past. In doing so, Herrmann broke from the post-romantic aesthetic personified by Golden Age masters such as Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Alfred Newman. Highlights include the hypnotic, dream-like "Prelude", the churning allegro con brio of "Rooftop", the haunting love music in "Madeleine's First Appearance", a memorable habanera ("Carlotta's Portrait"), and the cathartic "Scene d'Amour", which has been compared with Wagner's "Liebestod" from Tristan und Isolde. Page Cook, long-time critic for Films In Review, once wrote that Muir Mathieson's performance "remains one of the greatest pieces of film music conducting ever recorded . . . every tempo, every rhythmic nuance, every dynamic inhabits the film." In other words, this is a classic film/music amalgamation that should be in every cinema lover's collection.

The London Symphony Orchestra's cycle of Brahms symphonies was Bernard Haitink's first set of recordings on the LSO Live label, originally released individually throughout 2004-05, and then as a boxed set in 2005. This collection of remastered recordings is now available on SACD, and digitally in spatial audio. Bernard Haitink's revelatory Brahms recordings with the LSO have demonstrated why fresh new interpretations of his major works are so important, and why the composer's music is still so relevant today. After struggling for years to come to terms with his fear of comparison to Beethoven, Brahms finally completed his First Symphony at the age of 43. It was hailed as a triumph and the remaining three symphonies followed relatively easily. His Symphony No.2 overflows with a relaxed, pastoral beauty, while the Third Symphony contains some of the most dramatic music Brahms was to compose. Finally, loaded with German Romanticism and including variations on a Bach cantata, Brahms' final symphony is a remarkable example of his mastery of symphonic composition. A rich, warm work that builds on a sense of movement and intensity right up to the final bars. Along with the symphonies, this release also includes Brahms' Double Concerto, Tragic Overture and Serenade No.2.

Guitarist Will Bernard, a Berkeley, CA native and Brooklyn NY transplant, studied guitar and piano from an early age with Dave Creamer, Art Lande and Julian White, later developing an interest in classical music composition. He received a degree in music from UC Berkeley where he studied with Andrew Imbrie and others. He began playing and recording on an international level as a member of Peter Apfelbaum's Hieroglyphics Ensemble, who made their recorded debut with Don Cherry on “Multikulti” (A&M 1989). Since then, Bernard has participated in a host of boundary stretching groups, ranging from jazz, hip-hop and world music to experimental music, with many stops in between.

When Martin Scorsese decided to remake "Cape Fear", he paid tribute to the original by featuring original stars Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, and Martin Balsam in cameos. Scorsese also recognized the contribution of the first film's composer Bernard Herrmann. Thus, Elmer Bernstein, himself a legendary musician (and recent Oscar nominee for "Far from Heaven"), adapted, arranged, and conducted Herrmann's original score for the newer film. This is a marriage of two giants in the business. A score that is as haunting and chilling as the more recognizable works "Psycho" and "Marnie", "Cape Fear" is true Herrmann with its ominous cues and screeching strings. Fans of Herrmann, Bernstein, or Scorsese must have this one!

Haitink will be 85 on 4 March 2014, and this set presents his six complete symphonic cycles by cornerstone classical composers: Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, Schumann and Tchaikovsky. Originally recorded for Philips, the CDs are now smartly re-packaged in a collectible cube. Every single symphonic cycle is played by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, recently voted by Gramophone Magazine as The Greatest Orchestra in the World .