nedhepburn:

Bernard Herrmann
I Can’t Sleep / They Cannot Touch Her

The Taxi Driver score is one of the best marriages of sound and vision available. Totally worth listening to while walking around New York on a grey day.

(via bbook)

oldhollywood:

Bernard Herrmann - The .44 Magnum Is a Monster (Taxi Driver: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

“It wasn’t easy getting Bernard Herrmann to compose the music for Taxi Driver. He was a marvelous, but crotchety old man. I remember the first time I called him to do the picture. He said it was impossible, he was very busy, and then asked what it was called. I told him and he said, ‘Oh, no, that’s not my kind of picture title. No, no, no.’

I said, ‘Well, maybe we can meet and talk about it.’ He said, ‘No, I can’t. What’s it about?’ So I described it and he said, ‘No, no, no. I can’t. Who’s in it?’ So I told him and he said, ‘No, no, no. Well, I guess we can have a quick talk.’

Working with him was so satisfying that when he died, the night he had finished the score, on Christmas Eve in Los Angeles, I said there was no one who could come near him. You get to know what you like if you see enough films, and I thought his music would create the perfect atmosphere for Taxi Driver.”

-Martin Scorsese, Scorsese on Scorsese (1989)

3rdplanet:

“I feel that music on the screen can seek out and intensify the inner thoughts of the characters… It can propel narrative forward or slow it down. It often lifts mere dialogue into the realm of poetry… I feel that music is the communicating link between the screen and the audience, reaching out and enveloping all into one single experience.” — Bernard Herrmann

(via bonaventures)

yzsaakc:

Bernard Herrmann - Salaambo’s Aria

Citizen Kane

Joel McNeely with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Janice Watson, soprano

bittercinema:

Happy 100th Birthday, Bernard Herrmann!

oldhollywood:

Alfred Hitchcock & Bernard Herrmann on the set of Psycho (1960)

“The Hitchcocks often played host to the Herrmanns, especially in the late 1950s. Recalled the third Mrs. Herrmann, Norma Shepard, “Benny used to wash dishes with Hitch, and they’d talk about what they’d do if they weren’t in the film business. Benny wanted to run an English pub, until somebody told him you actually had to open and close at certain hours. Benny asked Hitch what he would be. There was a silence. Hitchcock then turned to Benny, his apron folded on his head, and said solemnly: ‘A hanging judge‘”.

-excerpted from A Heart at Fire’s Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann

oldhollywood:

Bernard Herrmann - The Nightmare (via Vertigo: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

escapefromnoiseblog:

Bernard Herrmann - Diary Of A Taxi Driver

Robert De Niro, Taxi Driver OST

lina-lamont:

“Overture” - Bernard Herrmann

Favorite Film Scores (in chronological order) | North by Northwest (1959)

Bernad Herrmann, film composer

summerfilm:

Psycho Suite by Bernard Herrmann

This is seriously my jam. I dance to this in my seat every time. There are even hand motions. It’s embarrassing.

(via silentpickford)

mizenscen:oldhollywood:

Vertigo:Suite/I. Prelude - Bernard Herrmann. Vertigo, 1958. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock.

(From Bernard Herrmann:The Film Scores, Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen, Orchestra: Los Angeles Philharmonic)

Herrmann is most closely associated with Hitchcock’s films, although he also worked with many other directors, including Orson Welles & Martin Scorcese. Of Vertigo, he said: “The story was so original, so haunting, that I knew pretty much what was called for, and I dredged it from my subconscious. As I scored it throughout, I found myself entirely in sympathy with what was going on the screen, and it is good to know that what I did musically with it is admired by so many.”