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Sounds behind psycho played
PREVIEW - NIGHTMARE ROMANCE – Bernard Herrmann and Alfred
Hitchcock
Barbican
THE brooding, intense jazz music that accompanies
the lit fuse that was Travis Bickle in Martin Scorsese’s
1976 film Taxi Driver was scored by the great Bernard Herrmann.
And tomorrow (Friday) the BBC Symphony Orchestra are to perform
some of his greatest pieces at the Barbican.
Herrmann is a huge figure in the world of film music, triggering
its transformation from the days when luscious strings were
played throughout to music that reflected the film, carrying
character motifs and adding to the plot.
He came from practically nowhere to score Orson Welles’s
Citizen Kane and worked with the director on numerous productions,
including the notorious radio version of War of the Worlds.
He was picked up by Alfred Hitchcock, with whom he worked with
on many films. It is his excoriating music that accompanies
Norman Bates as he brutally stabs Janet Leigh in the shower
in Psycho. Who can think of that scene without the violent violin
bursts echoing the thrusting knife?
He worked with Scorsese only once, and it was the last work
he completed – he died the day after finishing the score.
There are few, if any, film composers who have had such influence
on the genre and this concert should reveal why.
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