Bernard Hermann: Trivia for A Century Old Music Master

Bernard Hermann with Alfred Hitchcock

          Today launches the Bernard Herrmann centennial at Film Forum in New York City, a retrospective of the famed composer. Herrmann’s influence on film score is undoubtedly obvious. Before him, the idea of music was to never be more memorable than the film itself. Now just listening to his music conjures up the images of the films he composed for. And the list of auteurs he worked with: Orson Welles, Nicholas Ray, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Robert Wise, Brian De Palma, is like looking at a timeline of American cinema. 

            Of course, none was greater than his collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock. Instead of going on and on about the greatness of this collaboration, which has been written by others with a lot of zest and enthusiasm, I’m instead going to share a really cool bit of trivia I learned. All credit for this connection goes to David Sterritt, Chairman for the National Society of Film Critics, author of numerous publications on cinema, and my former thesis advisor.

            This relates to one of Hermann’s most famous scores, Psycho. Now when we think of Psycho and the music, we of course think about the shrieking violins that accompany the shower sequence, or the opening titles score that creates fear through such an innocent set of instruments that are known for their beauty (this is where the film academic points to the obvious connection).