Here is another facet of Bernard Herrmann - his negative, obnoxious attitude, an example of how the greatest film composer caused himself complete misery:
"Already high-strung, he became more and more abrasive - a development which struck at the heart of his most intimate champion, his wife Lucille Anderson. After 15 years of marriage Anderson found it an unendurable irony that she should awake to the halcyon sunlit morning that made California famous - only to see it shattered as she poured the coffee and Herrmann began his harangue about everything that was wrong with musicians and filmmakers... as his self-absorption deepened and darknened with the decline of his career, he lashed out at Anderson without pause."
-Christopher Husted, liner notes for "Marnie" Varese Sarabande recording
When she finally left him all he could say was "Who's gonna take care of me?" This combined with what he did to the musicians he worked with - berating them constantly to the point of making every orchestra he previously conducted refuse to work with him because they literally hated him, betraying friends, savagely criticizing his colleagues many of whom were his former admirers - it is pathetic. And it has nothing whatever to do with the beauty of his music, which came from somewhere else - from doing something positive, from NOT being negative. In fact it harmed him greatly in his later career, when he actually could not get a job for long periods of time. When you are arrogant, negative and obnoxious sooner or later it will catch up with you.