Bernard Herrmann

Portrait of Hitch

Herrmann wanted to write a musical portrait of his friend and colleague Alfred Hitchcok, so choose motifs from the movie The Trouble With Harry, one of Hitchcock's more personal and humorous films. This single-movement work for Orchestra employs some of the more familiar elements of Herrmann's compositional style: short musical phrases repeated and then repeated again in other positions, sharp use of dynamics among them. From the first note, the creepiness begins. Bernard Herrmann was among the very greatest of all composers of music for cinema and there are many who avow that he was the greatest of all. A very short list of the films for which this award-winning composercreated soundtracks includes Citizen Kane, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, Jason and Argonauts, Fahrenheit 451, Obsession and Taxi Driver. He had a long and fertile association with Alfred Hitchcock during the most productive period of Hitchcock's career and with Orson Welles from the time of the Mercury Theatre on the Air. In addition to his conducting and composing work for the entertainment world, Herrmann wrote concert pieces, including a symphony, opera and cantata.