Music Webmaster Len Mullenger
	FILM MUSIC RECORDINGS REVIEWS

Bernard Herrmann - Psycho - Varèse Sarabande - VSD-5765

Elmer Bernstein - To Kill A Mocking Bird - Varèse Sarabande VSD-5754

David Raksin - Forever Amber - Varèse Sarabande/Fox Classics VSD-5857

Erich Wolfgang Korngold - The Snowman etc - Chandos CHAN 9631

You will notice that three of these are from the fine, dedicated film score recording company Varèse Sarabande which has built up an enviable reputation and an impressive list of recordings covering the classics of the genre as well as the best of current scores.

Bernard HERRMANN Psycho Joel McNeely conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra VARÈSE SARABANDE VSD-5765 [61:11]

This album follows on from the Gramophone award-winning recording by the same artists of Bernard Herrmann's acclaimed score for that other great Hitchcock thriller Vertigo (on Varèse Sarabande VSD-5600). This infamous thriller, was filmed after Vertigo which had been a financial disaster for Paramount and Hitchcock therefore had to produce an A-picture, filmed in black and white, on a B-picture budget (actually $807,000). Bernard Herrmann made virtue of necessity and produced what is probably the best known, and definitely the best score to utilise an all string orchestra. The composer said that he wanted to "complement the black-and -white photography of the film with a black-and-white score." This is the first complete recording of the score and it includes cues not used in the final film edit. Previous recordings have only used selected cues such as Bernard Herrmann's own recording, made in 1969 with The London Philharmonic Orchestra, using 14½ minutes of the music in a suite entitled Psycho (A narrative for orchestra). That recording (Decca London 443 895-2) also included music from Vertigo, Marnie, North by Northwest and The Trouble with Harry. We now have the chance to assess and admire Herrmann's achievement: his skill and resourcefulness in writing such chillingly descriptive music. The shower scene shock of the screeching, stabbing sound of violins playing glissando upwards in short staccato bursts is well known but our nerves are already at shredding point through the way Herrmann has manipulated our senses in the lead up scenes. For instance, from the palpable tension created as the music blends with the rain streaming down the windscreen and the frenzied rhythm of the wipers as Marion drives through the darkness to the motel, you are manipulated into a terrifying sense of foreboding. Then there is the horror of "The Water" cue (sounding like a demonic Sorcerer's Apprentice) in which Norman washes his bloodstained hands after the shower murder and tremolos swirl as the camera focuses on the drain in the sink. But rather than risk repetition I leave my colleague Rob Barnett to cover more detail of the score in his critique below. McNeely again gets the best from his Scottish players driving the music forward, maintaining the tension throughout. The Varèse Sarabande 20bit sound is first class revealing every detail on a wide sound stage with impressive dynamics; the double basses are particularly well captured..

From me top marks Ian Lace

And Rob Barnett's assessment:-

The score for Psycho is already a classic. Here it is presented with a muscular concert hall sound. The almost physical impact of this new recording and of the performance takes you by the lapels and shakes you. We are told that this recording includes every note of all 40 cues Herrmann composed for the film. With this knowledge and just over an hour of music by a string orchestra some may fear the onset of monotony. In fact that is avoided by a very long margin. The music is brilliantly and incisively served by McNeely and the Glaswegian musicians who demonstrate a sympathy and concentration beyond carping criticism. The cues are all quite short with only two just over three minutes and many less than 11/2 minutes. This is virtually Hermann's concerto for strings and it is a tribute to him and his interpreters that he gets so much mesmerising variety from what is usually regarded as a monochrome medium.

The Prelude bursts in, immediately establishing an explosive pulse. Unlike in the composer's 1975 recording there is no trace of lassitude. The music is propulsive and bad tempered; impatient and belligerent, parallelling the expression on Herrmann's face in the portrait on the back of the CD case. Flight, Patrol Car and tracks 11 and 25 return to the driven and driving motoric beat and urgent jagged turbulence of the prelude.

Tracks 24, 89 and 1113 are all of a piece in mood: dreamy, disengaged, disquieting sounding a little like Sibelius in his Pelleas music coolly sensual and dreamy. The Temptation cue uses a nagging little figure counterpointed by a treacly flowing string theme. 3135 inhabit the same chilly Sibelian universe, this time reaching out to Sibelius's Fourth Symphony. Another symphonist (the Britain, Rubbra) also championed by Herrmann at CBS is recalled in tracks 3738.

The Madhouse meanders in music of questionable tonality which reminds me a little of Benjamin Frankel's symphonies. The strings cascade but not in a sweet syrupy way, rather in some poisonously dripping venom. Track 15 (voyeur scene peephole) is much the same but dissolves into an ostinato similar to something Bax might have written (e.g. in Symphony No. 5)

The icy flowering music of The Bathroom drifts neatly into the famous birdcall shrieks of the shower scene (tracks 17/18) and these return for the 'knife in the head' murder of Argobast in track 30. This is staggering stuff; I caught myself glancing over my shoulder while I listened to it. The next two tracks contrast grim work deep in the strings with very high passages for the violins.

Tracks 2123 sound as if they are about to pitch in to a Walkyre ride but decay into creepy scurrying violins, hyperRimskyian buzzing bees and hints of the more mysterious moments in de Falla's Nights in Gardens of Spain. Darting high strings also recall 'Morning' from Britten's Peter Grimes. The swamp (24) music twists and revolves in a befogged dream. Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (for 52 stringed instruments) dates from 1960. I would be very interested to know whether Herrmann knew or had conducted the Polish score. Presumably Herrmann had not encountered Pettersson although the Swedish composer's string writing would have spoken directly to Herrmann's soul: try the coldly glistening music of tracks 2628.

The stairs (29) uses new textures outlined by many quietly strummed instruments. The cellar music (38/39) sounds like the miniature clattering of hideous insects running everywhere. The finale is quietly grim.

This score is a masterpiece ... and all written in one month! I would be intrigued to know what music Herrmann was involved in conducting at that time. I certainly hear Shostakovichlike sounds in some of these cues. Symphonies 1012 are not all that far away from the sounds and moods Herrmann so compellingly and magically establishes. The booklet notes are exemplary the thoughtful and apparently wellresearched handiwork of Kevin Mulhall.

Recommended without reservation as a musical experience.

Rob Barnett

Jerry GOLDSMITH The Mephisto Waltz; The Other OST VARÈSE SARABANDE VSD-5851 [56:25]

Jerry Goldsmith also proved he was very adept at writing a chilly, creepy score for the horror genre (e.g. The Omen and Poltergeist). In the 1971, 20th Century-Fox horror film, The Mephisto Waltz, Goldsmith followed closely in the footsteps of Bernard Herrmann and, as in Psycho, used mainly strings to get his effects but with added piano and percussion plus an occasional jagged violin solo to evoke Mephistopheles just as Herrmann had done 30 years earlier in The Devil and Daniel Webster.

The film tells of a brilliant concert pianist and devil-worshipper (Curt Jurgens) who knows he is dying but wants to preserve his talent. He induces his daughter (and/or lover?) Barbara Parkins to seduce a failed young concert pianist (Alan Alda) so that he can be murdered to allow Jurgens's spirit and talent to occupy his body and, more to the point, his fingers. But they reckon without Alda's wife (Jacqueline Bisset) who summons up the devil to turn the tables on the diabolical pair. Goldsmith's devilishly ingenious score which is really very scary (so do not play it near young children) uses the strings in every screechy, creepy mode including random uncoordinated pizzicati over flesh-creeping double bass growlings and sudden, piercing percussion strokes. The music is based on the Liszt work that is the film's title and the Dies Irae, the ancient plainsong chant associated with the dead. There is, however, one grave miscalculation as far as this compilation is concerned and that is the absence of a performance of the solo piano version of the Liszt piece which played a vital role in the early scenes when Alda first meets Jurgens and sees and hears the latter playing it - there is a palpable feeling of fire and brimstone in the air as you watch a snarling-faced Jurgens pounding the music out. (Was there a licensing problem that dictated its omission, I wonder?)

The other work on this CD is the score for another 20th Century-Fox horror film, The Other (1972) which was about eleven-year-old twin boys, one seemingly good the other bad. The film is relentlessly grim; yet Goldsmith, like Elmer Bernstein in To Kill A Mocking Bird (see below), plays against the scenario with one of his most lyrical themes so that the prevalent surface mood is of the cosy, high-spirited world of children - but it is a brittle world only too frequently punctuated by the howlings of the beast. Relief of sorts presents itself briefly in a central comic parody of oriental music but in the end Goldsmith lets loose the full forces of the devil. This album is surely the stuff that nightmares are made of.

 Ian Lace

---

	Elmer BERNSTEIN To Kill A Mocking Bird Elmer Bernstein conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra VARÈSE SARABANDE VSD-5754 [41:59]

The 1962 film, To Kill A Mocking Bird was one of the most memorable and distinguished films to have emerged from Hollywood. Indeed it was critically acclaimed and highly praised for its enlightened social conscience and evocative atmosphere. It won three Oscars - for Best Screenplay, Best Actor (Gregory Peck) and Best Art Direction - Set Direction. It also scooped five Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director (Robert Mulligan), Best Cinematography, Best Supporting Actress (juvenile actress, Mary Badham) and Best Music Score (Bernstein).

Elmer Bernstein's score was itself a milestone. It went against the usual practice of using a large orchestra and employed instead, for the most part, a chamber orchestra with much accent on solo instrumental work; piano, flute and clarinet being amongst the featured instruments. The film is set in1930s Alabama and tells the story of a widowed lawyer, Peck, and his admirable attempt to defend a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman. More tellingly, it is the story of the lawyer's two motherless children and the struggles they encounter while growing up in a racially segregated, economically impoverished town. The film is an accurate mirror of the period and a critique of an offensive status quo. Bernstein found the assignment difficult. Quoting the fine CD booklet notes by Kevin Mulhall, Bernstein commented, "'It took me six weeks to even get off the ground with that score...I really scared myself until I finally realized the whole point of the score... that its real function was to deal in the magic of a child's world. That was the whole key of that score and it accounts for the use of the high registers of the piano and bells and harps, things I associated with child magic in a definitely American ambience.' The music for To Kill A Mockingbird is warm, lyrical curious, buoyant, impressionistic and occasionally nightmarish - all characteristics of a child's life...Looking back on his lengthy and distinguished career, Bernstein confesses that time has failed to erode his love of the film. 'I continue to have tremendous feeling for the movie,' he admits, 'and the score is one of my personal favourites.'"

This tremendous feeling of warmth and affection for his music comes over in an inspired performance; Bernstein drawing the very best from the Scottish players. Rarely has the lovely haunting theme sounded so magical, swelling out on the strings after stealing in gently following the evocative, homely opening passage on piano, harp and flute. Every one of the 14 cues are memorable. The music cleverly evokes the thoughts, emotions, reactions even the movements of the children. Much is impressionistic, sometimes the music is gentle, kindly, comfortable, noble; sometimes it is playful and high-spirited for the children at play, at other times as in "Ewell's Hatred" and "Assault in the Shadows", it is creepy and sinister, marked by swirling and hard-driven strings, snarling brass and hard percussive punctuations. "The Guilty Verdict" is remarkable for its restraint yet, at the same time, it is deeply affecting in its simple nobility. It is associated with the scene in the courthouse. Despite Peck's strong defence, the accused is found guilty but as Peck leaves the blacks in the room all rise in respect for his dedication, a memorable moment beautifully distilled in the music. In all, this is a monumental score for a perfect film - and splendidly realised.

 Ian Lace

---

	David RAKSIN Forever Amber Conducted by Alfred Newman VARÈSE SARABANDE/FOX CLASSICS VSD-5857 [64:34]

For myself, one of the highlights of the marvellous RCA Classic Film Score Series recorded back in the 1970s (and subsequently reissued in CD format) was GD81490 - David Raksin conducts his Great Film Scores: Laura; The Bad and the Beautiful and Forever Amber. That album was beautifully recorded and the playing of the New Philharmonia was first class. If you can find a copy of this CD grab it; it is crammed with memorable music - the haunting "Nocturne" from The Bad and the Beautiful, with its lovely clarinet solo, is worth the price of the CD alone - and Raksin's notes about his own music are revelatory particularly the poignant story about how he came to write his famous Laura theme. The Suite from Forever Amber, on the RCA disc is of 25 minutes duration and includes the very best from Raksin's score. Now, this new CD has nearly 65 minutes of music and every one of them is worth listening to - of how many (or rather how few) scores could you say that? I cannot pay this music a greater tribute.

Kathleen Winsor's racy book about an ambitious farm girl (Amber) who slept her way to the throne in 17th-century England was filmed by 20th Century-Fox in 1947 with (for then) an astronomical $6.5 million budget. It starred Linda Darnell, Cornel Wilde and George Sanders as Charles II. (Halliwell comment: Much bowdlerised version of a sensational novel of the forties; pretty but rather thin, with a colourless cast [except for Sanders], saved by lively action sequences.)

The 140 minute film has 110 minutes of music and about two thirds of this is derived from a single musical device, a ground bass around which Raksin builds various melodies and harmonies. He was inspired, in part, by Purcell. Raksin himself commented, "I knew that to the prospective audience the music that says "England" is not that which was being composed during the reign of Charles II, but rather the music written half a century later by a German, George Frederick Handel. Film scores are to an exceptional degree the wrong places to be misunderstood; therefore I decided I would try to evoke the required atmosphere by playing upon certain musical mannerisms generally thought of as 'English'". Despite this deceptively simple approach the Forever Amber score contains a wealth of diverse material and intricate writing. Again quoting Raksin :" ..'Amber was rich and self-indulgent in a way that calls for the composer to go all out. As befits the occasion, the music is opulent, not only in style and colour but also in melodic and contrapuntal invention." Indeed, the score reflects all the facets of the screenplay: heroism, saucy lust, romance, humour and tragedy set against dramatic historical events of the Restoration period: The Great Plague and The Great Fire of London.

The music is crammed with memorable tunes and there are so many highlights that it would be invidious to attempt to select some so I will mention only the inspired, powerfully dramatic, yet often eerily atmospheric music associated with Newgate Prison and the Great Plague.

The music for this CD has been very skilfully remixed from the original optical film elements so that the sound quality is very good. The score is conducted by the head of 20th Century-Fox's music department, Alfred Newman, who was a very fine conductor and arranger. In fact it is not widely appreciated that his many Oscars were won often, not for his own original scores (which explains why there are so few albums devoted to his scores), but for arranging and directing other people's music. The album starts, by the way, with Newman's original 1933 20th Century-Fox Fanfare (i.e. without the CinemaScope extension which he added later).

Absolutely fabulous

 Ian Lace

---

This is an important and fascinating addition to the Korngold discography. All the pieces here are early compositions dating back to when the composer was a child prodigy. No wonder his talent astonished such luminaries as Mahler, Reger and Richard Strauss and his works performed by giants such as Nikisch, Schnabel and Weingartner.

The earliest composition included is (the Prelude and Act I of) Korngold's ballet-pantomime The Snowman composed when the wunderkind was just eleven! It was orchestrated by his teacher, Zemlinsky. It caused a sensation, made Korngold an international celebrity and it conquered forty European stages. Quoting Brendan Carroll's excellent notes, "What makes this delightful music so remarkable even now is its completely 'Korngoldian' style; its personality, melodic ideas and harmony are all exactly like the mature Korngold. It is this extraordinary characteristic which sets Korngold apart from other prodigies." The story of the Snowman is another commedia del arte variation with Columbine being kept away from Pierrot by her fat uncle Pantalon (who fancies her himself). Pierrot disguises himself as a snowman to be able to stand outside her house and win her. The music is charming, very tuneful and so balletic - dancers would have every reason to be grateful for such graceful music. Much is waltz-inspired appropriate to the time and place (Vienna) of its composition. There are also comic and romantic touches - Pierrot's romantic serenade (a lovely melody) is given to a solo violin and a little oriental pastiche adds an interesting splash of colour.

The Seven Fairy Tale Pictures, originally composed for piano in 1910 were orchestrated by Korngold himself shortly afterwards when he was 13 years old. This orchestral version was performed only once in a rehearsal in Karlsbad in 1911 and never published or indeed performed until the BBC Philharmonic gave the world premiere performance in 1997 so this is its premiere recording. It is delightful and it clearly shows the way forward, the Korngoldian "fingerprints" are clearly discernible. Listening to "The Enchanted Princess", for example one is immediately reminded of the Sherwood scenes from The Adventures of Robin Hood. In "The Gnomes" Korngold shows his masterly sense of characterisation and the "Fairy Tale's Epilogue" has one of his most meltingly beautiful melodies.

The Schauspiel Overture (Overture to a Drama) was first performed in 1911 and was later in the repertoire of Fürtwängler, Mengelberg and Steinbach etc; it was played at the 1912 London Promenade Concerts making Korngold the youngest composer ever to be performed at this world-famous festival - a record he holds to this day. Again it is extraordinary. Listen to the eerie, mysterious opening - a sound world that could only be created by Korngold. Although this is absolute music - no specific drama was envisaged - there is romance and heroism aplenty and one could visualise the music scoring another Errol Flynn swashbuckler.

Finally to Violanta, Korngold's second opera - a Renaissance tragedy of lust, revenge and murder - written when Korngold was 17 and as such the most mature composition on this CD. The opera is richly orchestrated and atmospheric. Again, quoting Carroll writing about the Prelude and Carnival: "A strange and mysterious mood is created from the very first sounds we hear..." Korngold adroitly creates a heavy, doom-laden, sexually-charged atmosphere - the music for Alfonso cleverly ambiguous in accordance with his perceived promiscuity. The carnival scene is appropriately very colourful. The best of the later opera and film scoring is clearly foreshadowed here.

This recording is an absolute must for all Korngold lovers showing the film composer in the making.

Ian Lace

Clearly, there is a strong link between the Korngold recording and the Zemlinsky album below. Brendan Carroll in his notes to the former quotes from an essay written by Zemlinsky in 1921 about his famous pupil. Zemlinsky wrote:-

I was able to communicate with him as with a musician who had already learnt...form, harmony, counterpoint...but in fact much better, since an intuitive grasp is something quite different than a theoretical knowledge. He was eleven years old, child-like, warm hearted and enthusiastic... I also taught him orchestration by letting him watch me orchestrate his ballet Die Schneemann after first thoroughly discussing the piece with him. Then, also under my direction, he orchestrated his fairy tales for piano which he had composed about that time. He showed a very unusual gift for this also..."

This album will come as a revelation to many. As I pointed out in my review of the Korngold music, above, Zemlinsky was important in the development of Korngold's genius when he was a child prodigy for it was to Zemlinsky that he went for lessons in orchestration. These works are written in the late great Romantic tradition. They are richly textured, complex works full of sweeping melodies and lush orchestrations; written for a large orchestra. As such, they form a clear link through Korngold (and Max Steiner) to the pioneers of the symphonic film scores of the Golden Age of Hollywood. In fact you can hear this heady influence percolating down to, and influencing, today's composers of the genre - including John Williams and James Horner both of whom have readily admitted the influence of Korngold.

The major work lasting over 40 minutes is Zemlinsky's Die Seejungfrau (The Mermaid) his Fanatasy after Hans Christian Andersen. This large-scale, three-movement piece follows the story of a mermaid who is obsessed with the notion of achieving immortality by winning the love of a mortal. She falls in love with a Prince she has saved from a shipwreck; but he loves a Princess. In anger and frustration, the mermaid plans to kill the unresponsive object of her desire but she cannot bring herself to stab him and thereby accepts the inevitability of her own death. Through this act of renunciation, she achieves the immortality she had longed for. The music vividly depicts the heroism, romance and drama of the story and evokes the sea in its many moods and the terror and turmoil of the shipwreck. This work and the early, heavily-Wagner-influenced six-minute overture to Zemlinsky's first opera Sarema would work very well as film music. The latter could have been tailor-made for a production of The Prisoner of Zenda.

The other work on this CD is Zemlinsky's late Sinfonietta composed in 1934. It is distinctly more modern but still tonal and therefore quite accessible for the ordinary listener. The opening movement is confident and assertive in tone yet occupies a strange sound world. Influences of Hindemith and Weill are discernible in the work, together with dark, lyrical Mahlerian undertones. Korngold is there too, a case of the pupil influencing the teacher. The second movement lingers in the memory; it occupies an arcane world - perhaps some mythological or fairy landscape?

A fascinating recording and one to investigate alongside the Korngold album reviewed above.

Ian Lace

---

	Aaron COPLAND A Copland Profile: The Red Pony; Symphony for Orchestra and Organ; Music for the Theatre Wayne Marshall (organ); Andrew Litton conducting the Dallas Symphony DELOS DE 3221 [69:32]

Aaron Copland was aptly described as "The Dean of American Music" for it was his style more than any other that set the pattern for portraying, in music, the American heartland, its vivid colours and vitality - and the warm, comfortable nostalgia of a country proud to have carved the most successful, vibrant modern state out of a vast wilderness tamed by heroism and resourcefulness. This style has since dominated musical portrayals of Americana.

It is interesting before we look at this album to consider Copland's limited corpus of works in films: Of Mice and Men (1939); The City (1939); Our Town (1940); North Star (1943); Fiesta (1947); The Red Pony and The Heiress (both 1949) and Something Wild (1961) - the number may be small but the influence was substantial.

He was attracted to The Red Pony project because it meant collaborating with Lewis Milestone with whom he had worked on Of Mice and Men. The Red Pony is about life on a California ranch seen through the eyes of a young boy. It was made by the minor studio Republic (not exactly known for its erudition) but with an unusually impressive cast: Myrna Loy, Robert Mitchum and Louis Calhern. Litton's impressive, glowing reading has vitality and delicacy with illuminating detail revealed by Delos's sumptuous sound. Copland's colourful score captures all the activity on the ranch and the dream-world of the boy - first in a bombastic "Dream March" and then in "Circus Music" - a glittering tour de force using only woodwinds and percussion.

Music for Theatre, written in 1924, incorporates jazz ideas and techniques such as polyrhythms into Copland's music. The size of the orchestra is modest but there is no lacking of colour or vibrancy. Copland had no literary idea in mind and the five movements encompass Copland's pastoral/nostalgic mood and in "Dance" and "Burlesque" (which has a blowzy, slinky middle section), there is a real feeling for the comic and the ridiculous; in fact this music could well have underscored a silent film comedy.

The Symphony for Organ and Orchestra (actually Copland's First Symphony) was composed

in 1924 after he had concluded his studies in Paris with Nadia Boulanger (who congratulated him on this score). It caused a sensation. After its first performance by Walter Damrosch, Damrosch said to the audience, "Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure you will agree that if a gifted young man can write a symphony like this at 23" - then he hesitated dramatically, leaving people to think that he would proclaim a new genius. However, he continued: "within five years he will commit murder." It was a joke of course designed to mollify the Sunday afternoon concert audience, ladies unaccostomed to Copland's "modern" sounds but the message sank in and later acid-tongued Claudia Cassidy commented: "It begins with a reverie, breaks into a squalling scherzo and ends, screaming like a bewildered banshee which by some twist of locale has found itself at the wailing wall." Again Litton gives a persuasive well-delineated performance of this complex often unsettling work which opens in idyllic mood with soft organ meditations beneath harp and strings. Rhythm and cross-rhythm inform the central scherzo which uses jazz-based material. It is interesting that a recurring phrase in this movement's quieter section, puts one in mind of a figure from Gershwin's song "The Man I Love", from Lady Be Good (again, 1924) this is distinctly odd particularly when one considers that Copland's attitude to Gershwin's music was to say the least ambivalent.

A most interesting and unusual compilation. A recording that should be in the collection of every Copland admirer.

 Ian Lace

As a pendant to the above review it is worth mentioning another Copland recording made by Delos's UK distributor, Nimbus Records. It is by the English Symphony Orchestra conducted by William Boughton and comprises: Rodeo, Quiet City, Nonet for Strings, Fanfare for the Common Man and Appalachian Spring. The sound is first class. While I would hesitate to say the performances were equally appealing - they do not quite capture that special Copland idiom - and they cannot compare with Copland's own readings or those of conductors like Slatkin, Schwarz or Bernstein, there is much to commend, especially some brilliant trumpet solo work from John Wallace NIMBUS NI 5246 (1990).

There are More>>>>>>>

June-July Film Music Reviews Part 2

Return to

1998 reviews

Film Music Main page

 COMPETITION WIN a CD of your Choice

  Search the Crotchet database from here

Return to Film Music on the Web

e-mail  Len Mullenger len@musicweb.force9.co.uk