Just finished listening today to the limited edition release of Bernard Herrmann's North by Northwest.  This time Joel McNeely moves to record with the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra.  Now there are a couple of things here to wonder about, either there is some other re-recording of this on the way from another label, or Bob Townson really thinks this is a keeper.  The whole production was done in 2 days and rushed to be one of the special club releases.  I'm not sure what that means.  Maybe releasing this as a small set of recordings insured it selling out.  But that seems rather odd reasoning.  The tantalizing news though is that Varese is evidently embarking on their re-recording series again and there must be more Herrmann in the works from the notes written for this recording.

It is still rather irksome that due to the high cost of recording American orchestras, some of our finest music is being recorded overseas.  Naxos has discovered the right blend for this sort of thing.  The Slovak orchestra is a real good one, it likely sounds better on disc than in concert, but that is a small quibble perhaps.  Here the orchestra does pretty well navigating Herrmann's rhythmic complexities.  McNeely takes a maddeningly quick tempo for the opening "Overture."  The sense of nervous unsettling energy does come across here, even a couple of late brass entries get glossed over in the overall fine performance.

The recording tries to recreate the drier sound of the original, but still manages to maintain the richness of a full orchestral performance.  It actually grows on you as it plays and one soon forgets that this is a new recording.  So well have the forces worked together to recreate the sound and energy of the original that it works.  Tempos seem to be fairly close to the original.  But do we really need to create live copies of an existing recording, or interpretations of this music?  It's probably closer to the both and approach, but rather than fluctuate like that in this recording, McNeely wisely chooses to stick to the exact recreation of Herrmann's recording.  The orchestra still performs with verve and falls in well to performing this music with technical precision that catches one off guard. 

For those who completely missed Rhino's release of the original soundtrack, or for those Herrmann completists who want the 1 minute extra "bonus" piece that rounds off the disc, this can be recommended.

Today marks the birthday of the legendary film composer, Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975).  Herrmann's iconoclastic personality coupled with an amazingly experimental approach to instrumental combinations is remarkable.  Each of his scores delivers fascinating orchestral colors whether it is low brass for his Sinbad scores, unusual sounds for The Day the Earth Stood Still, the multiple harps of Beneath the 12 Mile Reef, or screeching strings for the indelible Psycho.  Other than a select few cues one is hard pressed to hum a Herrmann tune, but you always know when his music is playing.  Perhaps the closest one come to recognizable thematic moments are the love scene music from Vertigo and maybe the music from his last film Taxi Driver.  But by the time Herrmann headed to Hollywood his style was firmly in place and he continued to develop as a composer using the opportunities for unusual combinations to create some of the most amazing film scores of the 20th Century.

After 1941 and his Oscar for The Devil and Daniel Webster, Herrman would only receive a nomination for his music for 1946's Anna and the King of Siam (and his dual 1941 nomination for Citizen Kane).  He died after recording his final score Taxi Driver (1976) which along with Obsession was nominated for an Oscar.  He lost out to Goldsmith's superbly chilling The Omen.  Talk about a time of "overlap".  Herrmann's music, while firmly coming out of the Golden Age of music is so uniquely different from that music, even when it took on romances or historical dramas, that it is hard to remember that he was a contemporary of Newman, Waxman, Friedhofer, and Rozsa.

Much of Herrmann's music circulates off and on in recordings.  Salonen put together a fabulous compilation disc for Sony with the LA Philharmonic several years ago that appears to be in a re-issued version now.  For the casual collector or music lover it will be "enough." 

But perhaps one can revisit some of Herrmann's music through the films he wrote for in the end.

Some personal favorites:

Citizen Kane (1941)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
The Trouble with Harry (1955)
The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
Vertigo (1958)
Twilight Zone scores (1958ff--incidentally a young John Williams served as a pianist in these recordings)
North By Northwest (1959)
Psycho (1960)
Jason and the Argonauts (1962)
Fahrenheit 451 (1967)
Taxi Driver (1976)