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??!!

Bill,

Yes very radical approach that works like gang busters. Makes you understand why Orson Welles was so impressed with Ms. Moorhead. Monster chops as an actress. That episode is one of the best ever in that series.

DC

mathis,

I can't add: 1 post + the same post = 0 intelligence.

But I do it all the time.

I listened to Monochrome today. How do you get such a great sound? I know I asked you before. Are the reverbs and everything the same as before on Drama #3?

Huge sound - the percussion sounded fantastic.

My big weakness is engineering, but I'm getting better. So give me all your tips. When I post some mp3's You and Bill and Paul can advise and help me get a better sound. I think you three have very good bright clean sounding pieces.

Dave

Which one is the Agnes Moorehead? What's it about?

Evan Evans

Hey Evan,

What are you doing still being awake? The one I remember is the one where a guy is moving so fast that nobody can see him, and another with Robert Culp, where at the end he realises he's a robot. I haven't seen these since the early to mid sixties and didn't realise that Bernard Herrmann had written any of the music. Fascinating!

Evan,

Agnes Moorhead is the old lady in a house that's invaded by tiny creatures in little metalic outfits. Of course they turn out to be astronauts from the U.S. and she a giant. A bit of trivia is the fact that the spacecraft says U.S. Airforce since NASA had not been formed yet.

Dave Connor

Paul,

What a shame those shows aren't running in the UK. Is there a DVD? I think maybe there's a DVD in the States but not sure.

Bill will know.

Out with now Bill.

DC

Yeah, there are several sets of DVDs comprising the entire series.

Knowledge from Bill is now at 4.7%

DC

Wow those sound like really cool episodes. I always watched the marathons and own several DVDs, but I have never seen those three. They sound great!

Evan Evans

I remember reading about a Twilight Zone episode which Hermann scored with two instruments...either harp and bass clarinet, or harp and bassoon...I can't remember which.

Sound familiar to anyone? I'd love to find it.

Fred Story

@dpcon said:

Evan,Agnes Moorhead is the old lady in a house that's invaded by tiny creatures in little metalic outfits. Of course they turn out to be astronauts from the U.S. and she a giant. A bit of trivia is the fact that the spacecraft says U.S. Airforce since NASA had not been formed yet.
Dave Connor

The Invaders (The Twilight Zone)
Writer: Richard Matheson
Director: Douglas Hayes

A lone woman battles two miniature spacemen whose craft crashes into her isolated farmhouse. The essentially dialogue-free, one-woman performance by the legendary Agnes Moorehead of Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons and, later, television's Bewitched, is a tour de force.

Hehe! Sometimes I get mixed up with The Outer Limits. Memory's going. No wonder Evan couldn't remember those episodes I mentioned. [:O]ops:

@Fred Story said:

I remember reading about a Twilight Zone episode which Hermann scored with two instruments...either harp and bass clarinet, or harp and bassoon...I can't remember which. Sound familiar to anyone? I'd love to find it.Fred Story

Fred it might be one of these episodes:-

Where is Everybody?
Walking Distance
The Lonely
Eye of the Beholder

@PaulR said:

Fred it might be one of these episodes:-

Where is Everybody?
Walking Distance
The Lonely
Eye of the Beholder

Which by the way, are the best ones.

Herrmann rules!

Evan Evans

I know it is not Walking Distance which had strings and harp. I will check on those other titles because that sounds interesting. The most unusual scoring for a television show that I've heard was a score Herrmann wrote for "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" that used only bassoons and contrabassoon and was perfect for the episode.

I heard excerpts from Hermann' score for "Sisters" the other day and it sounds so much like Cape Fear. Anyone knows the story on that?

I'm a huge fan of him and I had decided to write a piece in his style. After hearing Evans Hermannesque tracks ( which are excellent) it confirms my notes on what one could generally define his style and sound.

Here are some signatures traits of his music:

Use of short motive, transposed in a descending motion
Use of ostinato "groove" with theme/melody above
lots of parallel motion chords (ala Debussy)
stopped French horns
lots mi(ma7) chord
sweeping romantic themes

Marc B - those are good points about the style.

Some others I also notice:

The use of a repeated motif that is varied by means of orchestration - like open horns then stopped horns, or tubas then low clarinet ensemble.

Parametal effects such as the "Vertigo" chord or the dissonances in "Psycho."

Use of multiple harps.

Favoring of low clarinets.

"Hunting" triplet motifs on horns.

Appoggiaturas especially of the Wagner Liebestod type.

Parallel MINOR chords -- I think that the overuse of this technique that you can hear for example in Lord of the Rings and many other contemporary scores is all coming from Herrmann, who was the first to use it in film.

You're right about the sweeping romantic themes - I was just listening to "Marnie" and the main theme is about as passionate and sweeping a string line as you can get. Another beautiful example is the intense melody at the end of Fahrenheit 451 which is violins against harp arpeggios.

The new Cape Fear is a re-recording of the Herrmann score that was written for the original Cape Fear. It is similar in tone to Sisters which is one of my favorite of all Herrmann's scores. It is the most macabre and disturbing thing he ever wrote - even more that Psycho because it is more surreal and sick. It has some fascinating use of glockenspiel/chime solo parts and two analog synthesizers that are integrated into the orchestra, as well as a section for the murder scene in which the orchestra simply goes berserk like the killer. I've always felt that in this score, Herrmann decided he was going to do the exact opposite of Psycho - instead of a black and white sound of one homogenous string timbre, he created a luridly over-colored orchestra to match the hallucinatory color images almost like splashes of brilliant paint thrown onto a canvas by Jackson Pollack.

@William said:

Favoring of low clarinets..

Yes. Very good examples of that are throughout the score of Jason and the Argonauts.

Particularly The Children of the Hydras Teeth scenes. The actual score during the fight scene with the skeletons is good in the extreme.

Not to mention favoring low period.

The main title to Day The Earth Stood Still (which I had to re-record for a TV show - with VSL etc.) He's got everything that can play down there, including organ pedals.
I saw that in a theatre a couple of years back and the place just shook with the lows. It added immeasurably to the experience: the sense of awe, fear, and foreboding. Herrman (as all great composers) new his medium and the environment his music would be presented in. Talk about enhancing a film.

It reminds me of a story in a Beethoven biography of his inquiry into the acoustics of a theatre his music was to be played in (before he composed the work.) Got a big grin reading that because it's really identical with our preoccupation with reverbs etc.

Dave Connor

Paul beat me to the Jason and The Argonauts reference. I'm not happy about it and will have satisfaction concerning the issue.

That's interesting about Beethoven - I'm not surprised because any composer worth his salt is concerned about the totality of the sound, including reverb. I wonder if he would have used samples - probably, since he was a revolutionary, and of course he would have favored the VSL over EWQLSO. He would have been on this forum, in fact. Wait a minute... he is, isn't he? I remember seeing a post signed "Ludwig."