# Bernard Herrmann



## Guest

Bernard Herrmann is one of my favorite TV and movie score composers. He also composed themes for radio--Orson Welles's Mercury Radio Theater (including the infamous "War of the Worlds" broadcast), for example, and went onto write the score for "Citizen Kane" (which Welles never liked much). Herrmann scored several Hitchcock movies ("The Trouble With Harry," "The Man Who Knew Too Much," "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit," "The Wrong Man," "Vertigo", "North By Northwest," "Psycho," "The Birds" etc.) as well as "Anna and the King", "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir", "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "Journey to the Center of the Earth," "Cape Fear," "Fahrenheit 451," "It's Alive" and "Taxi Driver" to name a few. Herrman died Christmas Eve 1975.

The above clips were used in the pilot Twilight Zone episode "Where Is Everybody" from 1959 and starring Earl Holliman as a man with amnesia who finds himself in a deserted town where everything appears to be perfectly functioning--as though everybody had left just 5 minutes before. Someone told me this is the same score used in "Journey to the Center of the Earth" which I haven't seen since I was like 7 years old or something. Herrmann also composed the Twilight opening and closing themes.






He composed original scores other TZ episodes as "Walking Distance," "The Lonely," "Eye of the Beholder," "Little Girl Lost," "Living Doll" (the Talky Tina episode) and "Ninety Years Without Slumbering."

I have the Herrmann TZ scores in a CD box set. The "Where Is Everybody" clips are from that CD set. These are not the original recorded scores used in the series as those have been long lost. Instead Jay McNeely obtained Herrmann's sheet music and notes, brought in a new orchestra and re-recorded the scores from scratch. He does such a perfect job that you really can't tell except the recordings are very clean and clear as only digital recording can produce.

So enjoy some music from one of the greatest composers of the 20th century--Mr. Bernard Herrmann.


----------



## Pugg

I do have an old LP from Decca with films-scores, must replace it for CD sometime .


----------



## geralmar

There is a decent website devoted to Hermann:

http://www.bernardherrmann.org

My favorite film composer from age 10 when I was captivated in the movie theater watching The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Hermann is probably best known for his "brooding" scores, but for some stunning action music, I suggest "Attack on the Mountain Stronghold" from King of the Khyber Rifles, conducted by Charles Gerhardt on the RCA CD "Spectacular World of the Classic Film Scores." The percussion section seems to go insane.


----------



## Antiquarian

I like him too. He used the Theremin in the _Outer Space_ theme for _The Day the Earth Stood Still_ to very great effect.


----------

