National PO Bernard Herrmann Symphony

Bernard Herrmann, born in New York in 1911 to Russian immigrants, is best known today as a composer of film music. Most notably he worked with Alfred Hitchcock on classic productions such as North by Northwest, Vertigo, and Psycho, as well as on Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. But despite his strong ties to Hollywood, Herrmann always thought of himself as a composer who worked in film, and never as a ‘mere’ film composer.

Citizen Kane: The Classic Film Scores of Bernard Herrmann is probably the best of the entire series by conductor Charles Gerhardt and the National Philharmonic Orchestra. Every track is worthwhile and memorably played, especially Beneath the 12-Mile Reef and the suite from Citizen Kane, the latter highlighted by Kiri Te Kanawa's performance of the Strauss-like aria from Salammbo.

‘I feel that music on the screen can seek out and intensify the inner thoughts of the characters. It can invest a scene with terror, grandeur, gaiety or misery. It can propel narrative swiftly forward, or slow it down. It often lifts mere dialogue into the realm of poetry. Finally, it is the communicating link between the screen and the audience, reaching out and enveloping all into one single experience.’ (Bernard Herrmann)

They say that good things come in small packages, and this CD would seem to be the musical proof of that statement – certainly there are few more unassuming releases in Bernard Herrmann's output. Joy in the Morning is one of the more obscure movies ever scored by Herrmann and, as is pointed out in the notes by Christopher Husted, it was also the composer's last successfully completed major studio project, coming just ahead of the calamity that attended his work for Alfred Hitchcock on Torn Curtain. It has fallen between the cracks across the years, principally because the movie itself was a good deal less stellar than most of the Hitchcock projects (or, for that matter, the Ray Harryhausen projects) with which Herrmann distinguished himself in the early/mid-'60s. This CD is astonishingly good, however, being not only a close cousin to Herrmann's music for Hitchcock's Marnie (1964) but also containing thematic material in common with his clarinet quintet Souvenirs du Voyage, and string writing that also recalls his work for Vertigo and even Psycho, as well as writing for the reeds and winds that have echoes as far back as Beneath the 12-Mile Reef and The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Varese's original soundtrack to Psycho finds Joel McNeely conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra through Bernard Herrmann's classic original score. This album is the first time the entire score has been recorded for an album and its remarkable how eerie and evocative the music is, even when its separated from the film. Psycho stands as one of Herrmann's finest moments, and even if many collectors and film buffs would prefer the original soundtrack recording, this version is essential for fans of the composer, since it is the clearest, cleanest edition of score yet produced.