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  4. Herrmann's "Vertigo"

  • Herrmann's "Vertigo"

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    I was just listening to Salonen's 1994 recording of B Herrmann's Vertigo....(LA Philharmonic)

    It is just awe-inspiring....jaw-dropping (makes you wanna quit) great...

    following the augmented celeste / harp ostinato, when the strings take over for that glorious release / crescendo is the greatest bit of scoring EVER.....

    wow........I guess these guys only come around every 100 years or so...


    Go ....no run to the itunes music store and download Salonen's "The Film Scores"


    SvK
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    It is indeed great. And to think I only first got to listen to Herrmanns music for the first time 3-4 months ago. Brilliant indeed.
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    I have that recording and you're right it is great. Also try the complete (or almost complete) recording by Joel McNeely and the Scottish National Orchestra. That is even better. I wish they had used it on the restored version of the film.

    That may seem like heresy, but the original soundtrack recording was farmed out to an English orchestra nowhere near as good as current filmscore-recording orchestras like the London Symphony, and conducted rather mechanically by Muir Matheson, instead of the regular studio orchestra conducted by Herrmann, due to a union strike. As a result that rather shaky performance seems permanently married to the film. It is not a terrible performance, but nowhere near as good as Herrmann's own conducting, or these new recordings. Though you can hear it in several versions and it is worth listening to - I have four versions of the Matheson, including two LP releases (one a pirated Japanese version), the older CD re-issue featuring only about 34 minutes, and the re-release on CD reissued at the time of the film restoration, which actually includes the largest amount of running time of any available recording from the original score.

    BTW you can also hear Herrmann's own conducting of the "Vertigo Suite" on several recordings, including the great old LP comprised of selections from all his Hitchcock thriller scores. When doing those recordings, Herrmann always slackend up on tempos, often to the consternation of the musicians, but he was obsessive in his attention to detail and as a result they are extremely vivid performances.
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    William

    I also own the McNeely....but I must say that the Prelude to me sounds better on the Salonen

    however the rest of the cues I prefer the Mcneely....


    Dont you just love the "FahrenHeit 451 suite" ?

    SvK
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    Hey

    William,
    that is quite a collection you have...WOW

    McCneely tempo is more deliberate (slower) than Salonen....(probably truer to what Herrmann had in mind)....but I prefer it a bit faster....

    SvK
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    It's weird, Strawinsky's version of his "Rite" takes many of the sections slower, than, say, Bernstein's adrenaline-charged interpretation. I prefer the Bernstein.
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    @strawinsky said:

    It's weird, Strawinsky's version of his "Rite" takes many of the sections slower, than, say, Bernstein's adrenaline-charged interpretation. I prefer the Bernstein.


    This is very common that one would prefer a certain conductor over the composer conducting one of his works. Fritz Zweig the legendary conductor and teacher who was a close friend and neighbor of Stravinsky told me never to listen to recordings of Stravinsky conducting his own works. I happen to love Stavinsky's performance of his Rake's Progress and even other works so I guess it depends on one's preference.

    This principle works in reverse as well as in Copeland. His 3rd Symphony performance is perfect and inspiring and Bernstein's missing it completely.

    Went a little OT. I will say that Salonen is a huge film music lover and major talent so I'm not surprised his recordings reflect both.
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    William,

    How do you like Herrmann's 1st symphony? I don't recall it though I may have heard it once. I ask because the score used to be available and perhaps still is.
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    I agree totally about Stravinski's conducting. I heard numerous performances of The Rite, and the weakest, most limpwristed and uninteresting was conducted by him. Composers (except usually film composers who HAVE to be good conductors - or at least did in the past) are the worst conductors of their music because they are thinking about all the clever little doohickeys and filagrees they lovingly put into their music ("just listen to this! isn't that great! Wow!" ) instead of the overall thrust of the music.

    Yeah, Fahrenheit 451 is another great score by Herrmann. The recent McNeely recording is excellent, but on that particular score Herrmann's own conducting of the suite is the best. It was on a London records release from the 70s. I have the old LP, but it is probably on CD now. The finale of that with harps and strings is so beautiful, like Ravel but not stolen, and the lyrical quality is brought out by Herrmann more than any other conductor, completely contradicting the people who say he never wrote melodies.

    That Herrmann symphony is very strange. I have not even been able to listen to all of it and so I should reserve judgement, but it seemed uninspired and vague. Though maybe that's wrong. It is nothing like his film music, which might be a recommendation for other film composers, but not for Herrmann. For example, the later works like Souvenirs de voyage are very much in keeping with his film style but perfect chamber works in their own right.
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    Past Film composers, I supposed were revered for their trite and emotional suspense composing mirrored to the screen. Because there were no machines. Smpte was the composers themselves. And thats why they were so valuable. Taking melody music from Revel, debussy... ect... was nothing and anybody could do it, and they did without question or arbitration.
    Its the non melodic that made money for the greats in the past. Now its all machines, i suppose.. Of-course with VSL now there is a complete new standard also of creative orchestration by instruments of an enormous magnitude. ( crypton) Totaly new and forseable in the future.
    I tend to agree with you william about Herman's revel sounding copy in ferenheit. but are you absolutly shure he did not copy ? Because everybody did it back then, And it does sound awfully similar. And the only melody in that CD, besides the blues in Taxi driver. Which is questionable. But I'm just speculating and respect your opinions from experience obviously. Thanks for the info.

    Also, do all composers conduct on the beat ? How much difference does it encounters ? Thats very interesting what's been said about the little doohickeys and filagrees and so on.
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    @R.K. said:

    I tend to agree with you william about Herman's revel sounding copy in ferenheit. but are you absolutly shure he did not copy ? Because everybody did it back then, And it does sound awfully similar.


    Hehehehe.









    heheheheeh hehee. Oh deary me.
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    oh oh
    I'm in trouble again. Paul please restrain yourself. We're all adults here, can we talk about this ? What did I say ? I'm trying to stir up provocative constructive criticism.

    Oh my. I've got to go to the bathrom. Bye. Dummy me.
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    @R.K. said:

    oh oh
    I'm in trouble again. Paul please restrain yourself. We're all adults here, can we talk about this ? What did I say ? I'm trying to stir up provocative constructive criticism.

    Oh my. I've got to go to the bathrom. Bye. Dummy me.


    Nah - just kidding. No worries. I read that and immediately thought about my very good friend over in the great state of Nevada reaching for the firewater bottle. Herrmann used to copy himself from time to time - but that's OK. Fahrenheit is a crappy film anyway - just didn't work. The music is the only thing left from that film - although the film genre has been copied all over the place - and anyway - the story was taken from all sorts - like say, 1984.
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    Thank you sir. I hang on by a thread of knowlege, Often supported by william himself. He just might decide to let go. I've got enough fire water in me to last another 10 years myself.
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    No, actually Herrmann had nothing to worry about copying from Ravel. He didn't need to. He was easily as great a composer as Ravel. If people don't yet fully admit that, it is simply because he wrote for a different medium than classical concert music. As Evan Evans has pointed out (in one of his insightful observations when he isn't pissing someone off) film music is a different medium from even music. And that is why classical musicians - such as the arrogant Stravinski who dismissed it totally as "wallpaper" - don't understand it. They expect it to be doing the same thing as what they are used to and it does not.

    What you hear in the greatest scores, such as this topic, is melody that consists not only of notes the composer is writing but also film shots the director created. The two become inseparable and the counterpoint is created by them both, not simply within the music. That is also why music that is composed by a classical composer who does not understand film music is always redundant-sounding. It does not partake of the counterpoint of image/sound. Herrmann did that perhaps more than anyone else, and that is why he never used highly developed melodies or the leitmotif - because they are essentially musical forms of organization that are redundant in cinema. Though they can work in a basic organizational way in large, epic films like LOTR or something by the original leitmotif composers, Korngold and Steiner.
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    Bill,

    It's the beautiful and elegant strings in Vertigo that i enjoy the most. Full of wistful melancholy, and menace at the same time. Wonderful writing to image. Simplicity personified.

    Regards,

    Alex.
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    Yes, extreme "Appassionata strings" especially in the tortured love theme. Of course, what would a love theme be if it WASN'T tortured? After all, love = torture. In fact, simply stating both words is redundant.
  • PaulP Paul moved this topic from Orchestration & Composition on