Toccata Classics has done the film music community a great service by bringing back John Mauceri to classic film music recordings.  Mauceri led the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra through many great film works during his 16 years as music director there with some 300 performances.  Some of his recordings with that orchestra were filled with a great variety of classical and film selections, as well as Broadway tunes, that often were unique and faithful to their originals.  The present release, with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, was recorded in concert in November 2013.  Many of the pieces on the program are the first recordings Mauceri has made of this repertoire.

There are a great many familiar selections on this release paying homage to the great Alfred Hitchcock and his films from the 1950s.  Many of them are in new editions by Mauceri and are making debut appearances here.  One of them, the concert overture from Herrmann’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) kicks the album off with great excitement.  This is a modified version of the oft-performed “Prelude”.  Stunning though is what can best be said of the exquisitely performed music from Waxman’s Rebecca (1940) in a suite of music from that classic score.  The orchestra is simply superb with perfect articulation and well-balanced as it enters into some of the great climactic music and subsequent mad waltz.  This is probably one of the best performances of this suite on record.  Of course, we are only ten minutes into this program.
The music changes style and course for a suite from Waxman’s brief score for Rear Window (1954) this Bernstein-esque music simply bubbles along here with great brass playing and delightfully-realized solo wind lines.  The suite is separated out into four tracks (Prelude; Lisa-Intermezzo; Ballet; Lisa-Finale).  The saxophone work here is certainly spot on noir recreation with perfect balance of romanticism and mystery.  Two new premiere suites of music by Tiomkin follow from Strangers on a Train (1951) and Dial M for Murder (1954).  The former features some of Tiomkin’s delightfully comic writing with a bit of jazz and engaging thematic material that make this one of the composer’s memorable works.  A beautiful waltz opens the latter score with great Romantic gestures and additional fine playing makes a great case for this wonderful score as well.  That waltz helps provide unity in this often gorgeous dramatic music that is superbly unique from the other styles on the disc.

A great more Herrmann follows, the composer having been Hitchcock’s most frequent collaborator until the falling out over Torn Curtain caused the two to part ways.  It would not be a Hitchcock disc with the inclusion of some music from Vertigo (1958) and Mauceri includes the “Prelude” and mesmerizing “Scene d’Amour” here.  The latter features some great dynamic shading as it shimmers before its Wagnerian swells.  Of additional interest is a newly restored concert work from Herrmann’s Psycho score, expanded into a work just under 16 minutes and given the subtitle: A Narrative for String Orchestra.  The composer recorded this himself.  Mauceri uses his own newly-edited version, and one of the first digital recordings of the piece.  The visceral attacks are quite effective in this performance.  Some might find the piece itself overlong, but it is an excellent example of Herrmann bringing together a more interesting musical narrative for concert use.  The “Main Titles” from North By Northwest (1959) precede the work.  It is followed by Herrmann’s arrangement of the Storm Clouds Cantata music by Arthur Benjamin that played an important role in The Man Who Knew Too Much in Hitchcock’s original version, and reedited for the 1956 remake.  This is simply wonderful music that is often quite striking with its Wagnerian references, but sumptuously recorded and played here makes it sound like a masterpiece all the same.  Klaudia Kidon’s performance is equally excellent, well balanced with the choir and orchestra.  Finally, the album closes off with “End Credits” music from Danny Elfman’s Hitchcock score—the film being set during the making of Psycho helps give the music some context.  It is also a mark of Mauceri’s continued support of new film music in the concert hall.  The result is a rather nice bonus for an already generous album.

Over the years there have been a number of Hitchcock-based compilations.  Some, like this one, tend to cover the basics, others delve into rarer territory.  None of them are as amazingly recorded as this new Mauceri disc.  The Psycho and Benjamin sections may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but you will not find better performances currently on disc.  Toccata Classics makes one wish for the days when a release like this was not such a rare occurrence, and perhaps we can hear more from Mauceri’s concert performances in the future.  The Danish orchestra really seems to relish this music and its many styles made possible by Mauceri’s own appreciation of the selections on this program.  The cover is a bit typical, the Hitchcock portrait silhouette, and a list of works, not unlike other label’s Hitchcock releases.  Sometimes releases like this can feel too pops like with a light feel, but here things are taken quite seriously with attention to detail, individual composer style, and dramatic flair.  The booklet notes are equally superb and intelligently written.  There are very few releases that have this much great synergy going for them and even fewer that can boast an 81 minute playing time!

Perhaps one of the more polarizing members of the second Bush administration was Donald Rumsfeld.  Rumsfeld began his public career as a congressman and ended it as Secretary of Defense being one of the key people behind the 2003 invasion of Iraq.  But he was also the face of some of the darker moments in modern US history that came to light at Abu Ghraib.  In Errol Morris’ (The Fog of War) new documentary, The Unknown Known (2013), he tries to get at what makes and made Rumsfeld tick.  The film takes its title from one of the more bizarre conundrums ever uttered:  “There are known knowns. There are known unknowns. There are unknown unknowns. But there are also unknown knowns—that is to say, things that you think you know that it turns out you did not.”  The film was shown at Telluride and several other festivals with a limited release in April.  The score is by Danny Elfman.

Elfmans’s theme is cast in a 10-note idea where the first four notes are repeated.  These notes move up and back on themselves and the end of this phrase allows the thematic idea to then go in a number of directions.  Sometimes reaching upward, though often accompanied with minor harmonic backdrops.  Flashes of major harmonies are often more striking as this unfolds in the opening track of the release.  Boy soprano lines are also part of the texture (“Two Sides”) though here they have a decidedly lyrical quality.  The use of the children’s chorus lends a sort of innocence to the musical material.  A bit more experimental is the minimalist –like “Marimba Foghorn” with repeated pulses in mallet percussion and thematic material in low brass.  This is one of the most uniquely interesting tracks and feels more like a standalone concert work with interesting shape and laying out of ideas.  Also interesting is that in “Rummy’s Theme” Elfman manages to suggest some of the power, and a sense of purpose and motivation where nervous energy may suddenly explode against an often constant sense of motion.  The lyrical lines provide additional ways to perhaps get at the character of the film’s subject.  There are plenty of moments for Elfman to explore the darker side and this is often done with low strings.  The use of an organ, often against the children’s choir, lends an often eerie religious feel.  When these various elements come together, as in “Geneva”, one gets a snapshot of the film’s subject.  The disc closes with a piano solo version of the main theme.

Elfman’s music for The Unknown Known is quite mesmerizing.  The orchestral writing is often very fascinating with moments of great beauty set against a nervous almost Hermann-esque energy.  It is certainly easily recommendable for the composer’s fans, but must be one of the better documentary scores of the year.  la-La Land's production here is more typical of a new score release with little or no booklet information.  Yet, one must still be grateful for them helping bring this less commercial score to light.