@William said:
Hitchcock was most frightened of being locked up in a cell.
Thats almost right, but no cigar just yet Bill. Has to be excact, beacause Evans' pissed me off with going OT. [:)]
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lol.
Maybe being in a straight jacket?
I remember hearing about this fear of his once, but I don't know what it is.
And BTW PaulR, Hitchcock fears are technically OT too! [:)]
Evan Evans
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And BTW PaulR, Hitchcock fears are technically OT too! [:)]Evan Evans
Not quite the same Evan. There is a link between Hitchcock and Herrmann, Not even a tenuous one with Lalo Schifrin, although I accept him as a marvellous writer. Plus, I can't get my internet connection to work properly (3 hours on a technical support line, [:'(] technical- thats a joke), so I have to take it out on someone.
I don't think I'm ready to give the answer yet.
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- I can't write music without a film.
Evan, what does that mean? Does it mean you´re not able to write music without a film? Don´t you compose concert music? (Even if it might not gonna be performed?)
Just wanting to clarify an obvious question. Even if you´d confirm these questions it wouldn´t mean a judgement for me.
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Oh Mathis, I am not worried about answering that question or ANY question. It was a generality, but mainly it means that I get a lot of "cues" from the film when I write music. For concert music it is usually either visual in nature or at least conceptual so that I have a driving force behind my music. So that every note has a meaning derived from "the source". I believe this is the purest way of writing music, so that no note becomes irrelevant.
Evan Evans
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@William said:
Paul, more exactly, he was terrified of police, because his father had them lock him up in a cell for five minutes as a child, with the admonition "this is what we do to bad boys."
Very close. I remember an interview on TV with Hitchcock years ago, and this just stuck in my mind for some reason.
He was petrified of being arrested and locked-up, specifically for a crime he did NOT commit. Strange old fellow from Leyton, London. Dad was a greengrocer.
He had some wonderful quotes and was a very funny, sardonic man. I liked his quote regarding Tallulah Bankhead when making the film Lifeboat.
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Famous composer quote from LIFEBOAT. I'll paraphrase.
The director relieved the composer saying that the audience wouldn't believe in any music because they'd be wondering, "How did the orchestra get there?", to which the composer retorted, "Well how did the cameras get there?"
Evan Evans
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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.
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@William said:
When she finally left him all he could say was "Who's gonna take care of me?"
That would be the exact and typical response from someone with Bernard Hermmanns psychological makeup. I don't say this from arrogance myself, I'm sure you understand that, but a few musicians (and undoubtably most professions) have said that to me after the usual mayhem, unbelievably.
'Who's gonna take care of me?'
Nightmare
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On top of his negative and self-destructive attitude, Herrmann created the greatest television music as well as film music ever done.
The best score ever written for a television show:
"Walking Distance" - Herrmann's score for the Rod Serling teleplay which is probably the best "Twilight Zone" episode and the single best television production ever done.
This is a story not only of perfect production quality, but also of folklore-like significance with its tale of "Only one summer per customer." Herrmann, who was born to write music for this sad, wistful story, created a theme and motifs that compliment it perfectly. He was capable of entering into the emotion of a film perhaps more than any other composer, and he does that here in his music for the nostalgic poem Serling created in the halcyon days of television, when someone could slip a work of art by the Suits who now are in total control and have stamped out all real creativity.
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William,
What is the story line on that Twilight Zone episode?
I agree that Herrman's work on that show is as good as TV has ever seen.
He did the end credit music on that show for several seasons but I don't think it was every season. Do you know more facts about that? How many episodes did he do total?
Dave
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Dave,
The story is about Gig Young who has a bad leg and hates his hectic modern life and stops at a gas station where he goes through a mirror back in time to an old-fashioned town where he causes his former child self to break his leg (and meets his parents, etc.)
I'm not sure how many episodes Herrmann did, though he did the first season main title theme, which was not the well-known (and slightly trite) theme, but a quiet, mysterious piece for horns and strings. And he did a number of complete episodes. They are listed in the book by Marc Scott Zicree - I have it but unfortunately they are not listed by composer! Can you believe it? Shocking!
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William,
Yes, ridiculous that the great composers on that show are not listed somewhere. Goldsmith's score for the Agnes Moorehead episode is certainly a classic.
Herrman's score are pretty easy to recognize as you know. What an amazing writer that guy. So unique is his sound that within seconds you know it's him.
DC
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Thanks for those compliments.
I agree on the Jerry Goldsmith TZ with Agnes Moorehead. That solo violin playing those scratchy tritones! I can still hear it and shudder. That episode is, if you look at it without any preconceptions, a radical experimental film. No dialogue, one actor, one set and a major collaboration between a brilliant composer and a director creating pure cinema.
And this was on network television??!!