Herrmann: The Film Scores - Vertigo, Psycho, Etc / Salonen

$17.99
Label
Sony Masterworks
Release Date
July 19, 2007
Format
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    Featuring ⌄
    • COMPOSER
      HERRMANN, BERNARD
    • ORCHESTRA / ENSEMBLE
      Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra
    • PERFORMER
      Esa-Pekka, Salonen
    Product Details ⌄
    • RELEASE DATE
      July 19, 2007
    • UPC
      074646270028
    • CATALOG NUMBER
      SONY62700
    • LABEL
      Sony Masterworks
    • NUMBER OF DISCS
      1
    • GENRE
      Film And TV Music
    Works ⌄

    1. The Man Who Knew Too Much: Prelude

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    2. Prelude

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    3. The City

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    4. The Rainstorm

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    5. The Madhouse

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    6. The Murder

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    7. The Water

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    8. The Swamp

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    9. The Stairs

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    10. The Knife

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    11. The Cellar

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    12. Finale

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    13. Prelude

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    14. The Hunt

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    15. North by Northwest: Overture

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    16. Prelude

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    17. The Nightmare

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    18. Scene d'Amour

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    19. Prelude

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    20. Gromek

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    21. The Killing

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    22. Prelude

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    23. Fire Engine

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    24. The Bedroom

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    25. The Reading

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    26. The Garden

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    27. The Nightmare

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    28. Flowers of Fire

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    29. Flamethrower

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    30. Captain's Death

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    31. The Road

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    32. Finale

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    33. Prelude

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    34. Blues

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    35. Night Prowl

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    36. Bloodbath

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen

    37. Finale

      Composer: Bernard Herrmann

      Ensemble: Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

      Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen


This disc received the 1998 Cannes Classical Music Award for "Best 20th-Century Orchestral Recording." It was also nominated for the 1998 Grammy Award for "Best Engineered Album, Classical."

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There is much to savour here: the thrilling sense of spectacle engendered in the brazen Prelude to The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956); the sweep and lustre of the LAPO’s response in the two extended excerpts from Marnie (1964); the aural feast served up by the score rejected by Hitchcock for Torn Curtain (1966, whose characteristically unconventional instrumentation includes 16 horns, 12 flutes, nine trombones and two tubas). In the Suite from Psycho (1960) Salonen draws playing of terrific bite and menace from his Los Angeles string section. Most striking of all is the remarkable concentration this partnership brings to those pivotal slow numbers like “The Madhouse” and “The Swamp” (both of which convey such numbing dread through their indeterminate tonality). Salonen’s finely sculpted realization of the suite for strings, harp and percussion from Herrmann’s score to Francois Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 (1966) has a wistfulness (especially in the poignant bars of the concluding “The Road”) that rather scores over Joel McNeely’s recent Varese Sarabande version with the Seattle SO. How good, too, that room was found for Christopher Palmer’s effective synthesis of Herrmann’s very last composition, the magnificently sinister and moody score for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1975).

“Any grumbles at all?”, I hear you ask. Well, just a couple. In the overture to North by Northwest (1959) Salonen’s chosen tempo strikes me as just a little too hectic to give quite enough lift to those obsessive fandango rhythms, whereas Herrmann’s own soundtrack recording on EMI Premier conveys an altogether greater sense of menace. Salonen also tries to wring too much out of the gorgeous “Scene d’amour” from Vertigo (1958) – McNeely with the RSNO on Varese Sarabande is less self-consciously sticky and infinitely more moving as a result. Otherwise, I have nothing but praise.

A winner of a disc, in sum, resplendently played and engineered, and excellently annotated by Alex Ross. If this generous new Sony collection doesn’t succeed in alerting a whole new audience to the genius of Bernard Herrmann, then nothing will.

-- Gramophone [1/1997]