Bernard Herrmann - The Fantasy Film World of Bernard Herrmann

UK collection. Film is the twentieth century's own art form and music played a vital part in its development. Bernard Herrmann's music, again and again, underscored the emotional impact of key moments in a series of classics. The mid-century was the era of the film fantasy in Hollywood. The genre called for a composer with the musical literacy to match the films' wildly imaginative concepts. The impish Bernard Herrmann stepped forward to create the bold scores featured in this anthology, which would push the boundaries of what film music might be. For The Day the Earth Stood Still, Herrmann essayed a brilliantly unconventional score which anticipated the explorations into the world of electronic sound by Stockhausen and Varese, and even the Beatles; a panorama of sound; a melange of harps and vibraphones, theramins, electronic violins, bass guitars and backwards tapes, offsetting a huge brass section, while for the deeply exotic Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Herrmann characterized the various creatures with unusual instrument combinations; notably the xylophones in the skeleton duel. On Journey to the Centre of the Earth, the composer sought to evoke the mood and feeling of inner earth by using only instruments played in low registers including, with great bravura, five organs, one large cathedral and four electronic. The music romantic fantasies The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Beneath the 12 Mile Reef and Jennie's Song from Portrait of Jennie are no less impressive; Muir was Herrmann's personal favorite score, one of the loveliest in all cinema, while Beneath the 12 Mile Reef would capture the swell of the ocean with an expansive nine harps.