Howard Goodalls Twentieth Century Greats 2of4 Bernard Herrmann

[@johannesbluemink4581]

I started collecting all movies with his music and I find so many layers of genius and invention. And he can be so romantic, as I love his 'The Ghost and Mrs. Muir' so dearly. I do hope that the 9 dislikes I see, somehow turn into Likes, because I can find no negative thing in his music. His personality, on the other hand, was very complex. He made enemies as easy as we have a normal conversation. Well, thanks to that brilliant Biography 'A Heart at Fire's Centre'!

[@cliffhughes6010]

Howard Goodall is the great musical communicator. He is like the David Attenborough of music. I've learned so much from his programmes, all of which I watch and re-watch regularly.

[@brendancronin4786]

I've rewatched the Beatles episode 5 or 6 times

[@luclheureux4480]

Herrmann was a goddamn genius

[@kirsteni.russell5903]

The discussion of Herrmann's influence on the way we hear music reminds me of my own experience. I became a Herrmann fan in my adolescence--mainly through Vertigo, North by Northwest, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Psycho, and Fahrenheit 451. As a young adult, I fell in love with Debussy's La Mer and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, and I believe having previously listened to Herrmann opened my mind to hear those 20th century works as emotional experiences.

[@Dicedude]

I had a very similar experience. I was about 14 or so when I was first introduced to Herrmann's work. Such a shame that he passed away so young. He was the epitome of the creative genius.

[@steveweinstein3222]

Goodalls' personal campaign to have film scorers taken seriously as comosers is admirable and long overdue. As usually happens in art, those grubbing about in the marketplace end up creating masterpieces, while those wallowing in comfortably enervating academia create ephemera that no one wants to listen to.

[@oscar646]

Viva the marketplace!

[@GOGOLH]

Morricone was another probable genius who struggled to be takes seriously.

[@saidtoshimaru1832]

The Score of Vertigo is a total masterpiece.

[@jslasher1]

Despite some obvious errors, this is a very good overview of Bernard Herrmann's motion picture music.

[@jimpickard3850]

What a fascinating film about a true great of cinema.

[@oscar646]

I so appreciate learning of this towering genius. We walk around most of the time unaware of essential things and especially essential people who have added so much to our life’s experience.

[@kirsteni.russell5903]

Bernard Herrmann's music kept haunting me as I was growing up--and was unable to find a single recording of his music before he started recording it (OSTs of VERTIGO and THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD existed before then, but I never saw them). Until I started meeting fellow fans, I thought I was the only one in the world! Now I know he's tremendously admired around the world, but it's still strange to me to see him included in an overview of 20th century music including the Beatles, Leonard Bernstein, and Cole Porter!

[@emdiar6588]

It's a good job Hitchcock gave credit to the importance of Herrmann's contribution to Psycho. It is the first thing you think of when you hear the title, much like the Jaws theme. Both the panic of the shower scene in the former and the brooding threat of an approaching danger in the latter are entirely due to the music.

[@EASYTIGER10]

14:52 What an amazing sound..

[@J0HNJ0RDAN]

Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams and even Jon Lord are a few 20th century greats I enjoy.

[@brendancronin4786]

Also ennio morricone

[@nathanscott5296]

Howard Goodall is correct about Bernard Herman for creating movie scores. Psycho has a classic soundtrack.....two great men in different genres but Hitchcock and Herman completed each other.

[@willb3698]

Hermann worked together with someone else who changed the landscape of films entirely - the animator Ray Harryhausen. What an amazing time.

[@ThomasTVP]

What Mr. Gooddall fails to acknowledge is that another Hollyood composer, Miklós Rózsa, had widely used the theremin years earlier, in his Oscar-winning score for SPELLBOUND, as well as the nominated (but actually stronger) score for THE LOST WEEKEND. Other Hollywood composers who employed the theremin before Herrmann were Franz Waxman (Bride of Frankenstein, 1935) and Roy Webb (The Spiral Staircase, 1945).

[@bingeltube]

Very recommendable!

[@nathanfleischman9856]

What is a classical composer that would come before the four composers of this series? The answer is Charles Ives. His pieces were influenced by a plethora of different styles of American folk music. At the same time, he anticipated many elements of 20th-century classical music that made Stravinsky and Schoenberg famous.

[@MsSusanmary]

Nathan Fleischman its never all about USA only

[@nathanfleischman9856]

Even I know that.

[@steveweinstein3222]

When Bette Davis saw the scored ending of Dark Victory, in which she goes to room knowing she is to die, she told director William Whyler, "Either Mr. Korngold goes up that staircase or I do, but we are not going up there together."

[@brendancronin4786]

I've never seen that film can you give me some context to her saying that

[@georgependill3541]

What does that have to do with Herman?

[@Theaterklaspromo]

This quote isn't quite correct, as Korngold did not score Dark Victory.

[@jslasher1]

@@Theaterklaspromo Steiner scored 'Dark Victory'. Miss Davis never made that comment.

[@alicethedestroyer1287]

So, I love Herrmann. Probably my favorite composer. But Goodall’s reaching in so much of this. I could go point for point on so much of this. He makes it sound like Herrmann was the first “electronic” composer... but Rozsa did the same thing in the 1940’s. He says it was all startlingly new... but only after saying the theremin was over 50 years old.

[@boneeatingsilicate580]

However, Herrmann was experimenting with telephone wires years earlier in Daniel Webster

[@alicethedestroyer1287]

Jason Henry Herrmann was a great composer, and probably the greatest film composer who ever lived. It just feels like Goodall is touching on hyperbole in a lot of this.

[@boneeatingsilicate580]

Yep, Franz Waxman as early as '35 with Brides and, even Steiners Kong 2 years before that showed inventive musical approaches.

[@alicethedestroyer1287]

Overdubbing unheard of in film? Please tell me how they managed to mix music, vocals, and sound effects in all earlier pictures then... lol

[@flaggerify]

Wasn't the theremin used in Spellbound (1945)?

[@samsun216]

Either way, it is seriously overblown to say he was the first composer of electronic music before Stockhausen and Varese. As well as saying the score for Psycho made the idea of minimalism possible.

[@everett403]

The Day The Earth Stood Still brought electronic music to the general public early on, to a world wide audience and thus greater exposure. That much is true. But others did also do electronic music at the time. And Psycho brought minimalism to film music when that was not the norm at the time..

[@steveweinstein3222]

One could argue (I have) that the first EDM music came from Steve Reich & Phillip Glass. These kinds of judgments are always subjective. It's certainly true that exponentially more people were exposed to Herrmann's compositions than ever will be to Stockhausen & Varese.

[@willb3698]

Deniz Güngören - in fairness he (Goodall) doesn't actually state either of those 2 points you mention. I don't assume that English is your 1st language - so it could be lost in translation.

[@HMV101]

flaggerify Yes it was; by composer Miklos Rosa.

[@Muskoz]

Interesting piece. Unfortunately, the music he uses to illustrate Schoenberg's serialism is not by Schoenberg (it's from one of Webern's Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 10), nor is it a serial piece; he ought to know better. Still his point about the end of Psycho is well taken.

[@kaspafischer]

Charles Smith Howard is always snide about Schoenberg throughout his programs. LOL

[@josephmarcello7481]

Has to Bernard herrman 's being slighted in the groves dictionary, this is nothing else but the epitome of British snobbery as it has always been and seems compelled to continue to be. While I haven't done the research, I would imagine that they're coverage, say, of Samuel Barber, arguably America's preeminent composer in terms of sheer creative gifts, receives a far more humble mention than the often boring and frequently. Uninteresting Benjamin Britten, not to mention a dozen other British sub impressionists, such as Delius or GeraldFimzy When the English aristocrats shed their highbrow pretensions and come down to mix with the rest of the rebel of planet Earth, they will see that they have been living in a tiny teacup of cultural pedigree, to be inside, of which of course, is quintessentially British, however stilted and tedious that maybe, but outside of which is a world, a veritable universe of rich, dynamic creation. Bernard had two counts against him... He was an American as well as a film composer, although, you should know, he did compose exquisitely beautiful concert and chamber works as well. So, leave groves to the worms and will take Bernard.