CINEMA SPECTACULAR - BERNARD HERRMANN (2 CDS)

Bernard Herrmann made some significant recordings for Decca in the late-1960s/early-1970s, many of these using the company’s then new audio technology, Phase 4, which brought the music into brilliant light. This collection brings together a selection of British Film Music as well as music by Herrmann himself for a series of Alfred Hitchcock films, including Psycho, Marnie and Vertigo (originally released under the title ‘Hitchcock Movie Thrillers’). It also includes a selection from Shostakovich’s dark score for Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

it is the Hitchcock items which are the most enjoyable here: those arresting string which play through the credits of Psycho give way to some wonderfully creepy and atmospheric writing...The bright, exhilarating music Herrmann provided for North by Northwest is brilliantly presented. - PENGUIN GUIDE

Spellbinding … a firm favourite … performed with breathtaking precision by the LPO, and both they and the music come across with a thrilling and vivid immediacy. --GRAMOPHONE

CD 1
WILLIAM WALTON: Richard III
CONSTANT LAMBERT: Anna Karenina: Suite
ARNOLD BAX: Oliver Twist: 2 Lyrical Pieces
GEORGE BENJAMIN: An Ideal Husband
WILIAM WALTON: Escape Me Never
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: 49th Parallel (from The Invaders)
ARTHUR BLISS: Things to Come: Suite

CD 2
BERNARD HERRMANN
Psycho (A narrative for Orchestra)
Marnie
North by Northwest
Vertigo
A Portrait of ‘Hitch’ (from The Trouble with Harry)

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH: Hamlet (selection)

National Philharmonic Orchestra (CD1, CD2: Hamlet)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Bernard Herrmann