Bernard Herrmann的艺人档案
小简介
伯纳德.赫尔曼（Bernard Herrmann）1911年6月29日生于美国纽约市，他毕业于世界知名的朱利亚德学院（The Juilliard School）。毕业后他的主要工作是为当时还不出名的演员奥逊.威尔斯的广播节目配乐，因此他和奥逊.威尔斯也成为好朋友。1941年，奥逊.威尔斯的自编、自导、自演的经典巨著《公民凯恩》也请来赫尔曼配乐，立刻使他跻身于一流作曲家的行列。后来奥逊.威尔斯和琼.方登主演的《简爱》也是由伯纳德.赫尔曼配乐。
Herrmann is most closely associated with the director Alfred Hitchcock. He wrote the scores for every Hitchcock film from The Trouble with Harry (1955) to Marnie (1964), a period which included Vertigo, Psycho, and North by Northwest. He oversaw the sound design in The Birds (1963), although there was no actual music in the film as such, just electronically created bird sounds.
The music for the remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) was only partly by Herrmann. The two most significant pieces of music in the film—the song, "Que Sera, Sera", and the Storm Cloud Cantata played in the Royal Albert Hall—are not by Herrmann at all (although he did re-orchestrate the cantata by Australian-born composer Arthur Benjamin written for the earlier Hitchcock film of The Man Who Knew Too Much from 1934). However, this film did give Herrmann an acting role: he is the orchestral conductor in the Albert Hall scene.
Herrmann's most recognizable music is from another Hitchcock film, Psycho, Unusual for a thriller, the score uses only the string section of the orchestra. The screeching violin music heard during the famous shower scene (which Hitchcock originally suggested have no music at all) is one of the most famous moments from all film scores.
His score for Vertigo is seen as just as masterful. In many of the key scenes Hitchcock let Herrmann's score take center stage, a score whose melodies, echoing Richard Wagner's "Liebestod" from Tristan und Isolde, dramatically convey the main character's obsessive love for the woman he tries to shape into a long-dead, past love.
A notable feature of the Vertigo score is the ominous two-note falling motif that opens the suite — it is a direct musical imitation of the two notes sounded by the fog horns located at either side of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco (as heard from the San Francisco side of the bridge). This motif has direct relevance to the film, since the horns can be clearly heard sounding in just this manner at Fort Point, the spot where the character played by Kim Novak jumps into the bay.
Bernard Herrmann said, in a question-and-answer session at the George Eastman Museum in October 1973, that unlike most film composers who did not have any creative input into the style and tone of the score, Herrmann insisted on creative control or he would not score the film at all:
I have the final say, or I don’t do the music. The reason for insisting on this is simply, compared to Orson Welles, a man of great musical culture, most other directors are just babes in the woods. If you were to follow their taste, the music would be awful. There are exceptions. I once did a film The Devil and Daniel Webster with a wonderful director William Dieterle. He was also a man of great musical culture. And Hitchcock, you know, is very sensitive; he leaves me alone. It depends on the person. But if I have to take what a director says, I’d rather not do the film. I find it’s impossible to work that way.[2]
Herrmann stated that Hitchcock would invite him on to the production of a film and depending on his decision of the length of the music, would either expand or contract the scene. It was Hitchcock who asked Herrmann for the "recognition scene" near the end of Vertigo (the scene where Jimmy Stewart's character suddenly realizes Kim Novak's identity) to be played with music.
Herrmann's relationship with Hitchcock came to an abrupt end when they disagreed over the score for Torn Curtain. Reportedly pressured by Universal's front office, Hitchcock wanted a score that was more jazz- and pop-influenced. Hitchcock's biographer, Patrick McGilligan, stated that Hitchcock was worried about becoming old fashioned and felt that Herrrmann's music had to change with the times as well; Herrmann initially agreed, but then went ahead and scored the film according to his own ideas in any case.[2]
Hitchcock listened to only the prelude of the score before turning off a recording of the music and angrily confronting Herrmann about the pop score he had promised. Herrmann, equally incensed, bellowed, "Look, Hitch, you can't outjump your own shadow. And you don't make pop pictures. What do you want with me? I don't write pop music." Hitchcock unrelentingly insisted that Herrmann change the score, violating Herrmann's general claim for creative control that he had always been maintained in their previous films. Herrmann then said, "Hitch, what's the use of my doing more with you? I had a career before you, and I will afterwards."[3]
According to McGilligan, Herrmann later tried to patch up and repair the damage with Hitchcock, but Hitchcock refused to see him. Herrmann's unused score was later commercially recorded, initially by Elmer Bernstein for his Film Music Collection subscription record label (reissued by Warner Bros. Records), and later, in a concert suite adapted by Christopher Palmer, by Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra for Sony. Some of Herrmann's cues for Torn Curtain were later post-synched to the final cut, where they showed how remarkably attuned the composer was to the action, and how, arguably, more effective his score could have been.
Ironically, Herrmann had composed some jazz for the "picnic" scene in Citizen Kane and he later used some jazz elements (much in the vein of Maurice Ravel's two piano concertos) for The Wrong Man when he scored the nightclub scenes showing Henry Fonda as a double bass player in a jazz band, and for Taxi Driver.
Herrmann subsequently moved to England, where he was hired by François Truffaut to write the score for Fahrenheit 451 and, later, for The Bride Wore Black. His final work, the score for Taxi Driver, received high acclaim.
Some music and film critics note that Hitchcock's later films are less effective for lack of Herrmann's contribution.
[edit] Other works
小简介
伯纳德.赫尔曼（Bernard Herrmann）1911年6月29日生于美国纽约市，他毕业于世界知名的朱利亚德学院（The Juilliard School）。毕业后他的主要工作是为当时还不出名的演员奥逊.威尔斯的广播节目配乐，因此他和奥逊.威尔斯也成为好朋友。1941年，奥逊.威尔斯的自编、自导、自演的经典巨著《公民凯恩》也请来赫尔曼配乐，立刻使他跻身于一流作曲家的行列。后来奥逊.威尔斯和琼.方登主演的《简爱》也是由伯纳德.赫尔曼配乐。
Herrmann is most closely associated with the director Alfred Hitchcock. He wrote the scores for every Hitchcock film from The Trouble with Harry (1955) to Marnie (1964), a period which included Vertigo, Psycho, and North by Northwest. He oversaw the sound design in The Birds (1963), although there was no actual music in the film as such, just electronically created bird sounds.
The music for the remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) was only partly by Herrmann. The two most significant pieces of music in the film—the song, "Que Sera, Sera", and the Storm Cloud Cantata played in the Royal Albert Hall—are not by Herrmann at all (although he did re-orchestrate the cantata by Australian-born composer Arthur Benjamin written for the earlier Hitchcock film of The Man Who Knew Too Much from 1934). However, this film did give Herrmann an acting role: he is the orchestral conductor in the Albert Hall scene.
Herrmann's most recognizable music is from another Hitchcock film, Psycho, Unusual for a thriller, the score uses only the string section of the orchestra. The screeching violin music heard during the famous shower scene (which Hitchcock originally suggested have no music at all) is one of the most famous moments from all film scores.
His score for Vertigo is seen as just as masterful. In many of the key scenes Hitchcock let Herrmann's score take center stage, a score whose melodies, echoing Richard Wagner's "Liebestod" from Tristan und Isolde, dramatically convey the main character's obsessive love for the woman he tries to shape into a long-dead, past love.
A notable feature of the Vertigo score is the ominous two-note falling motif that opens the suite — it is a direct musical imitation of the two notes sounded by the fog horns located at either side of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco (as heard from the San Francisco side of the bridge). This motif has direct relevance to the film, since the horns can be clearly heard sounding in just this manner at Fort Point, the spot where the character played by Kim Novak jumps into the bay.
Bernard Herrmann said, in a question-and-answer session at the George Eastman Museum in October 1973, that unlike most film composers who did not have any creative input into the style and tone of the score, Herrmann insisted on creative control or he would not score the film at all:
I have the final say, or I don’t do the music. The reason for insisting on this is simply, compared to Orson Welles, a man of great musical culture, most other directors are just babes in the woods. If you were to follow their taste, the music would be awful. There are exceptions. I once did a film The Devil and Daniel Webster with a wonderful director William Dieterle. He was also a man of great musical culture. And Hitchcock, you know, is very sensitive; he leaves me alone. It depends on the person. But if I have to take what a director says, I’d rather not do the film. I find it’s impossible to work that way.[2]
Herrmann stated that Hitchcock would invite him on to the production of a film and depending on his decision of the length of the music, would either expand or contract the scene. It was Hitchcock who asked Herrmann for the "recognition scene" near the end of Vertigo (the scene where Jimmy Stewart's character suddenly realizes Kim Novak's identity) to be played with music.
Herrmann's relationship with Hitchcock came to an abrupt end when they disagreed over the score for Torn Curtain. Reportedly pressured by Universal's front office, Hitchcock wanted a score that was more jazz- and pop-influenced. Hitchcock's biographer, Patrick McGilligan, stated that Hitchcock was worried about becoming old fashioned and felt that Herrrmann's music had to change with the times as well; Herrmann initially agreed, but then went ahead and scored the film according to his own ideas in any case.[2]
Hitchcock listened to only the prelude of the score before turning off a recording of the music and angrily confronting Herrmann about the pop score he had promised. Herrmann, equally incensed, bellowed, "Look, Hitch, you can't outjump your own shadow. And you don't make pop pictures. What do you want with me? I don't write pop music." Hitchcock unrelentingly insisted that Herrmann change the score, violating Herrmann's general claim for creative control that he had always been maintained in their previous films. Herrmann then said, "Hitch, what's the use of my doing more with you? I had a career before you, and I will afterwards."[3]
According to McGilligan, Herrmann later tried to patch up and repair the damage with Hitchcock, but Hitchcock refused to see him. Herrmann's unused score was later commercially recorded, initially by Elmer Bernstein for his Film Music Collection subscription record label (reissued by Warner Bros. Records), and later, in a concert suite adapted by Christopher Palmer, by Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra for Sony. Some of Herrmann's cues for Torn Curtain were later post-synched to the final cut, where they showed how remarkably attuned the composer was to the action, and how, arguably, more effective his score could have been.
Ironically, Herrmann had composed some jazz for the "picnic" scene in Citizen Kane and he later used some jazz elements (much in the vein of Maurice Ravel's two piano concertos) for The Wrong Man when he scored the nightclub scenes showing Henry Fonda as a double bass player in a jazz band, and for Taxi Driver.
Herrmann subsequently moved to England, where he was hired by François Truffaut to write the score for Fahrenheit 451 and, later, for The Bride Wore Black. His final work, the score for Taxi Driver, received high acclaim.
Some music and film critics note that Hitchcock's later films are less effective for lack of Herrmann's contribution.
[edit] Other works
