Let’s begin at the very end, so to speak. On the evening of December 23rd, 1975, a weary Bernard Herrmann left Burbank Studios to return to his hotel having set down his unforgettably brooding score for Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece, Taxi Driver; that same night, the 64-year-old composer died in his sleep. Arista’s superb new original soundtrack album easily scores over its Varese Sarabande successor in giving us every single cue recorded by Herrmann that fateful December day. The resulting 11-track sequence lasts nearly 40 minutes and makes riveting listening. Stand-out items not used in Scorsese’s final print include the extended, vividly dramatic “The 44 Magnum is a monster” (has a series of simple harp swirls ever sounded more menacing?) and equally eventful “Sport and Iris” (tracks 6 and 8 respectively), as well as a number of smaller cues such as “Phone call” (at the beginning of track 5) with its insistent (and typically unexpected) combination of snare-drum, bass-drum and harp. For what it’s worth, I still don’t feel Dave Blume’s five incongruously super-slick arrangements add one iota to our appreciation of Herrmann’s extraordinarily intense inspiration (one shudders to think what the great man himself would have made of them). No matter: superb remastering and artwork grace this outstanding Arista release which is, quite simply, an essential acquisition.
Nearly ten years earlier, Herrmann’s legendary association with Alfred Hitchcock had come to an abrupt conclusion when the two men fell out once and for all over the music for Torn Curtain (1966). Kevin Mulhall’s fascinating booklet-essay explains how, following the spectacular box-office failure of Marnie (1964), Hitchcock eventually bowed to the studio’s demands for a catchier, more pop-orientated score and briefed Herrmann accordingly (more “beat and rhythm” was his request). Imagine, then, the veteran director’s dismay shortly after arriving at the Goldwyn Studios and hearing the chuntering, mesmerizingly fraught main title allotted to an astonishingly daring line-up consisting of – wait for it! – 16 horns, 12 flutes (all doubling on piccolo, alto and bass flute), nine trombones, two tubas, two sets of timpani, eight cellos and eight double-basses. Hitchcock hit the roof, and Herrmann’s involvement ended there and then (he was eventually replaced by John Addison). Herrmann’s rejected (and unfinished) score for Torn Curtain is an astonishingly bold vision, virtually athematic and oppressive in the extreme, with just an occasional shaft of light breaking through its 48-minute cloud-hung landscape – the winsome “Valse lente” (track 8), for example, with (if I’m not mistaken) its slyly ironic allusions to the great “Scene d’amour” from Vertigo (1958). As I’ve already intimated, the main title is utterly gripping, its snarling fury echoed in subsequent set-pieces like “The killing” and “The corridor” (tracks 17 and 29). Elsewhere, Joel McNeely and the National PO audibly revel in some amazingly inventive sonorities, and the Watford Town Hall recording is splendidly realistic to boot. Another Herrmann winner from Varese Sarabande, then – and next up, I believe, is a complete Citizen Kane from McNeely and the RSNO.
Both Prince of Players and Garden of Evil were very early (and, by all accounts, none-too-classy) CinemaScope productions from 20th Century-Fox released in 1954. The former is represented by an amiable 11-minute suite put together by John W. Morgan, the highlight of which perhaps comprises the festive “Prelude” (track 1). However, Morgan’s 52-minute resuscitation of the complete Garden of Evil is of far greater significance for film-music fans everywhere. Like all of Herrmann’s best work, Garden of Evil displays an almost Sibelian thematic scope (he extracts miracles of mileage from the defiant opening gesture) as well as a variety of incident and nagging cumulative power that effortlessly hold the listener’s interest. In Marco Polo’s excellent booklet, Christopher Husted draws our attention to those remarkable brass harmonics in both “The circle” (track 18) and “The smoke signals” (track 28), quoting Herrmann’s own instructions in the manuscript: “The note should be prepared and blown without producing a definite sound – a windy sound should result.” Husted continues: “This ‘wind harmonic’ achieves a novel and ethereal timbre which complements perfectly the sense of unseen menace which periodically touches the awareness of the travellers.” Happily, the intended effect is very well captured by the microphones.
Just a couple more observations. Is the tame theme for “Hooker” (at 0'35'' in track 16) a rare lapse into weary ‘On the trail’ cliche or merely a tongue-in-cheek gesture on the composer’s part? (I suspect the latter.) What’s more, bizarre as it may seem, the wistfully evocative string writing in “Night scene” (track 40) instantly reminded me of the opening bars of George Butterworth’s 1912 orchestral rhapsody, A Shropshire Lad (who knows, Herrmann might have been rather tickled by this unexpected association, devoted Anglophile that he was). Anyway, the Moscow SO play very well throughout for William T. Stromberg, and here too is an exceedingly welcome issue. AA