# Herrmann



## JohnG (Sep 28, 2010)

'I count myself an individual. I hate all cults, fads and circles. I believe that only music that springs out of genuine personal emotion and inspiration is alive and important.'

Bernard Herrmann


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## dcoscina (Sep 28, 2010)

Here Here. An interesting side note- I was discussing Gabriel Yared's Talented Mr. Ripley and we were saying how "Crazy Tom" from that score is a wonderful ode to Herrmann not necessarily in its sound but how those harried string figures with the constant shift in dynamics underlined Ripley's descent into madness. 

As for Herrmann, I think the last two cues from Fahrenheit 451 are on par with anything Mahler wrote in terms of emotional impact.


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## David Story (Sep 28, 2010)

Thank you, that quote is perfect.

Herrmann often carries the entire film for long intervals- he told stories more powerfully than anyone before, in cinema. He did it with bold orchestration and melody. Yes, there are great scores by Prokofiev, Walton, Korngold. BH is a primal force in film.

He also sounds great in concert. Here's a bio:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX46Z8VAF7E


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## bryla (Sep 29, 2010)

Who's Tobias J?


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## JohnG (Sep 29, 2010)

Not sure about a gnome; given the Scandinavian extraction, possibly the rare Benign Troll?


----

but on the quotation, I am very keen on examining Herrmann's attitude. It is a difficult standard to live up to but I don't think it "just happens" that one's music becomes original through magic. Certainly, for some number of years, development naturally takes place through emulation and imitation. 

But I find it discouraging to read / hear the work of such a large number of composers who seem to view composing as a bag of tools or something, akin to the job of a house decorator or other tradesman. If all we do is follow the colour-wheel of the client and do his or her bidding, isn't our role debased, at least for ourselves?


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## poseur (Sep 29, 2010)

kdm @ Wed Sep 29 said:


> I would also go a step further and say it is oversimplifying the art and industry itself, as evidenced by expectations and trends in style of score today vs. 50-60 years ago.
> 
> The more an art form becomes a profitable, paint-by-numbers wall decoration, the more that becomes the expectation and the norm. I do hope the trend reverses at some point though.



of course, i agree with --- and applaud --- bh's quotation. 

in that light, in response to the above,
it seems to me that there's a very simple solution that may be exceedingly complex
to actually (&, personally) implement:
do NOT take an active part in such a trend, where- and when- ever possible,
in whichever ways you see fit.

it may, indeed, prove valuable to nearly ignore such trends?,
not to truly remain blind to them,
but to treat them as one might treat intense and/or conflicting & polarised thoughts & emotions.....
..... just watching them, as one might watch clouds pass through the open sky.

even given the many constraints that such a job might require,
film-composers do not need to approach films with a feeling-of-enslavement 
to what is only _presumed_ to be consensually "correct":
we make choices to do so, consciously, or not: these are choices we make.

there's still an open sky of possibility,
though it may be difficult to see,
and more difficult to remember.

for me?
i do not believe,
by any stretch of the imagination,
that i can do a great (and, creatively so, as the role of composer might to seem to imply) job
on every film presented.

if it's paint-by-numbers-time,
i'll mix my own paints, and will naturally find ways to blur
some of the outlines-on-the-page.
and, yet:
i won't succeed, all the time;
but, those are the chances that i love......
since this is my "real" life, and it's a g-ddamned short one, imo.

"better to have have loved and lost, than never to have loved, at all", eh?

screw "the industry", somehow
--- not really, but sorta / kinda ---
i'll do whatever i can do to continue commiting my love
to what i may be capable of doing, here.

d


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## JohnG (Sep 29, 2010)

maybe Herrmann's fantastic irascibility and irritability came from fighting this fight? 

It might be interesting, in trying to figure out whether it was harder then than now to be an individual, to compare the power of the norms of the industry in those days versus today. In other words, to ask whether it was harder then or now to be something of an individual. 

On the one hand, you had all the auteur directors and fewer bet-the-farm budgets, but on the other, there were social rules and studio bosses who had their own ideas.

Now we have movies made in many cases by giant corporations, on the one hand, who spend enough to buy a 747 on each film; and on the other hand, the independents' budgets have been crushed so much that they are less than craft services on a new film. Both extremes can lead (incorrectly, in my view) toward an excess of caution.


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## David Story (Sep 30, 2010)

Bernard Herrmann led a charmed life.

His parents encouraged music, he went to Julliard, he became Chief Conductor at NBC.
His first film was Citizen Kane. His second film won the Oscar for best music. Stravinsky, Copland and Ives liked his work.

He had a tough Brooklyn attitude, Beethovenian brooding, and was fiercely independent: "I have the final say, or I don’t do the music." 

This served him well, until he started losing films to hip Mancini and experimental Goldsmith. Composers that I love, BTW.

The final straw was a falling out with Hitch. So he moved to England, and did Fahrenheit 451.

Yes, BH was irascible, demanding, hard to to live with. Ask his 3 wives. He was like a matador. Without phenomenal good fortune, his personality would have overshadowed his art.

BH is a great composer. So is John Williams, and his courtly charm opens doors.

My impression is that composers today have much less say in films tv or games than ever before. You have to play them the score before you even get hired. But some individuals do get through, by charm and luck. A union might help us maintain integrity in the face of corporate pressure.
BH would be doing indie films today, after he confronted a big director.


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## dcoscina (Sep 30, 2010)

My sense is that the industry hired more on skill level than personality in the hey-day of Hollywood. I could be wrong but that would partly explain why the Golden Age had guys like Rosza, Korngold, Tiomkin, North, Herrmann, Steiner, Newman, and the list goes on while today we have Tyler, Bates, Ottman, and their ilk. Sorry but the expanse that divides these composers is wider than the grand canyon. So today, thanks to technology, you have to refine your social skills and read more Tony Robbins than Adler, Piston, and those guys. My theory anyhow.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 30, 2010)

> Here Here



Here hare here.


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## JohnG (Sep 30, 2010)

dcoscina @ 30th September 2010 said:


> So today, thanks to technology, you have to refine your social skills and read more Tony Robbins than Adler, Piston, and those guys.



Great laugh from that one, David!

I agree up to a point. There are some good guys out there today too. And of course not everyone in the olden days wrote good stuff either; even some of the guys you cited wrote some pretty pedestrian, derivative stuff. And outside of those top dogs of yesteryear, plenty of scores were rubbish, though to some extent their rubbishy nature was cloaked by having been performed by good players.


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## dcoscina (Dec 3, 2010)

I was listening to Herrmann some more this morning and I think, aside from his irascible personality, he would be able to score films in today's climate. His music at times called attention to itself but it always worked really well in context. Some Golden Age scores sound wildly overwritten by today's standards and I doubt someone like Korngold would have gotten much work today because his music, as amazing as it is, is operatic in its tone.


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## José Herring (Dec 3, 2010)

JohnG @ Wed Sep 29 said:


> Not sure about a gnome; given the Scandinavian extraction, possibly the rare Benign Troll?
> 
> 
> ----
> ...



Difficult standard to live up to yes. But, one I think we should live by. It has to do with integrity. On the other hand I think that we need to be big enough as artist not to limit ourselves to any particular kind of music. I think for orchestral composers far too many times do I run across the attitude that if it has an electric guitar or some synths in it that some how we're debasing the art of pure orchestration.


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## dcoscina (Dec 3, 2010)

I think Jonny Greenwood's score to There Will be Blood is a perfect fusion between old and new. He uses ebow guitar to double the string orchestra on a couple tracks and it's terrific. I also love the minimalist piano piece that interplays string quaret and processed guitar. He's an example of someone adept at many genres and styles.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Dec 3, 2010)

You know, a few - actually quite a few - years ago I took a couple of beginning art classes just for fun.

What struck me at the time was how everyone in the class had his or her own style. Everyone's approach to drawing the same thing (a model, or objects, fruits and vegetables, whatever) was unique.

Why does it take musicians so long to get to that point?

I guess part of the answer is that you need a lot more technique to create music, but still...


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## Christian Marcussen (Dec 3, 2010)

dcoscina @ Fri Dec 03 said:


> I was listening to Herrmann some more this morning and I think, aside from his irascible personality, he would be able to score films in today's climate. His music at times called attention to itself but it always worked really well in context. Some Golden Age scores sound wildly overwritten by today's standards and I doubt someone like Korngold would have gotten much work today because his music, as amazing as it is, is operatic in its tone.



I'm not quite sure about that. He wouldn't be scoring The Dark Knight but I think he most certainly would be scoring more character-driven films. I find that many composers still write music that calls attention to itself (although few, if any, as interesting as BH).


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## snowleopard (Dec 3, 2010)

Herrmann changed music. Certainly for the cinema. Probably my favorite composer. Just this Halloween I was able to see the Oregon Symphony perform his famous score to Psycho live on stage, with the film. 

I've studied, loved and been mesmerized by Herrmann's work for decades. It's complexity, the layers it evokes emotion, his often near minimalist approach. His incidental music through much of the Hitchcock scores is brilliantly tense, yet meditative. 

For those interested. The Bernard Herrmann Society; 

http://www.bernardherrmann.org/

And The Bernard Herrmann Estate (you can register and get updated info here). 

http://www.thebernardherrmannestate.com/

Excellent 8-part doc on the master himself on YouTube: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX46Z8VAF7E


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