This week, we mark the 112th birthday of Bernard Herrmann.

"Bernard Herrmann (born Maximillian Herman; June 29, 1911 – December 24, 1975) was an American composer and conductor best known for his work in composing for films. As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest film composers. Alex Ross writes that "Over four decades, he revolutionized movie scoring by abandoning the illustrative musical techniques that dominated Hollywood in the 1930's and imposing his own peculiar harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary."

An Academy Award-winner for The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), Herrmann is known for his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, notably The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) (where he makes a cameo as the conductor at Royal Albert Hall), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960), The Birds (1963) (as "sound consultant") and Marnie (1964). He worked in radio drama, composing for Orson Welles's The Mercury Theater on the Air, and his first film score was for Welles's film debut, Citizen Kane (1941). His other credits include Jane Eyre (1943), Anna and the King of Siam (1946), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Cape Fear (1962), Fahrenheit 451 (1966) and Twisted Nerve (1968). Herrmann scored films that were inspired by Hitchcock, like François Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black (1968) and Brian De Palma's Sisters (1972) and Obsession (1976). He composed the scores for several fantasy films by Ray Harryhausen, and composed for television, including Have Gun – Will Travel and Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone. His last score, recorded shortly before his death, was for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976)." - Wikipedia

We have just 2 releases featuring music written or performed by Herrmann, and for this week there's 10% off each of these recordings. See also a review of one of these discs further down in this newsletter.

The discount is now active and automatic - you'll see a reduction at the checkout on all qualifying CDs and downloads.

Carl Schuricht’s late-fifties Paris Conservatoire Beethoven symphony cycle is perhaps one of the more unusual recordings both of its era and, more generally, of Beethoven cycles. To begin with there is the question of the recordings themselves.

Made in the Salle Wagram in Paris between 1957 and 1959 at a time when just about everyone was embracing the idea of stereo in classical music recordings, the Schuricht series was made and released in defiant mono. Or was it? For many years this appeared to be the case – certainly the vinyl releases at the time were all mono, and often very competitively priced – in the UK at least.

When EMI reissued the complete cycle in the late 1980s, once again the nine symphonies were released in mono. It was not until the 21st century that a stereo recording from this set emerged, in the shape of the Ninth ‘Choral’ Symphony – why this had been overlooked for so many years is hard to understand. Nevertheless the rest of the series remains mono or – in the case of these Pristine XR remasters – with a very pleasing Ambient Stereo ambience.

What was also unusual was the French orchestra, which to some contemporary ears outside of the country sounded all wrong: for some it was the playing style, for others the sound of some rather unique instruments in the brass and woodwind were off-putting. But in the fullness of time opinions have been revised and some have come around to the view that this is a very special Beethoven cycle indeed:

“My immediate impression was that I had never heard Beethoven conducted in quite this way. That is not the same as saying I had never heard Beethoven played this way. By certain string quartets, for example. I was reminded of Serkin playing the piano sonatas, even more, perhaps, of late Backhaus. The first symphony immediately created an impression of gut conviction and great vitality. As with late Backhaus, technical perfection is not an essential, phrasing can be a bit rough and breathless, but you get a sense of contact with the music that you more often get from hands-on performers than from conductors whose vision has to be realised by others: namely the orchestra. This generally translates into brisk, spinning tempi that are not driven, or goaded onward, by a conductor with a whip, but have a vitality that seems to arise from the music. In the second movement of this same symphony there is a warm songfulness rather than an attempt to wrest a prayer for humanity from every phrase. It is here, too, that the French woodwind are at their most piquant.

I must record a curious sensation over this. While it is true that the Historically Informed brigade would run a mile from such vibrato, modern performances on period-style instruments have rediscovered a factor which was still available in Paris in the 1950s. Each instrument has its own personality, makes its own contribution to the argument, instead of being blended so that the wind band might as well be a harmonium. With the wind forwardly balanced into the bargain, these performances contain elements that were scarcely heard again until the HIP movement got going two decades later.

This sense of vital contact with the music crescendos through the first three symphonies. The “Eroica” slow movement is an interesting case. Schuricht starts out at a fairly flowing, but expressive tempo. Most conductors start slower, but have to move forward later. Schuricht holds his tempo, but not in the sense of dogmatically ploughing on regardless. He simply doesn’t seem to find it necessary to make any adjustment, for his tempo fits every part of the movement beautifully. The proof of this is heard as the initial march theme returns after the climax and sails in without the conductor having to put on the brakes. The final disintegration has rarely been so moving – it emerges so inevitably from what came before. In spite of a not very slow initial tempo this is one of the longer versions on record: at 15:40 it is exceeded by Toscanini’s 16:06 in 1939 but is expansive compared with Klemperer’s 14:43 in 1956 – and no, I haven’t got these the wrong way round…

…The time has now come to take it seriously. Heaven forbid that any critic should recommend a “best version” of such multifarious works, or even a “best version” of each single symphony. We can try to distinguish between the ones that count and those that don’t. This cycle counts. It explores avenues of Beethoven interpretation, areas of Beethovenian truth, not touched upon elsewhere.”

- Christopher Howell, MusicWeb International, 2013

A new release by Pristine Audio (PA) offers three outstanding renditions of Haydn and Mozart symphonies, conducted by Jascha Horenstein. All of the source material is provided by the conductor’s cousin, Misha Horenstein, who also authors the liner notes for the PA issue. The performance of Haydn’s “Military” Symphony is from a November 22, 1956 broadcast by the Orchestre Radio National de France. Music & Arts (M& A) previously included this performance on two separate Horenstein retrospectives. Alex Ross reviewed M & A’s first release of the Haydn, part of Jascha Horenstein: The Complete Paris Concert of November 22, 1956 (Fanfare 17:4, Mar/Apr 1994). Subsequently, M & A released a nine-disc set, Jascha Horenstein: Broadcast Performances From Paris, that also featured the Haydn 100th. Both Henry Fogel (28:3, Jan/Feb 2005) and William Zagorski (28:5, May/June 2005) reviewed the latter set. The Mozart “Haffner” was part of a November 30, 1960 concert by Horenstein and the Orchestra de la Suisse Romande. The “Prague” is a 1956 commercial recording, made by Horenstein and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra for Vox. I have not come across this “Haffner” before. The “Prague” was reissued by Vox on CD, but as best I can tell has not been reviewed previously in Fanfare.

All of the performances embody the many strengths that made Jascha Horenstein a conductor of distinction. Horenstein, via keen observance of the scores’ dictates, embraces the many contrasts found within the works. He also achieves a marvelous sense of flow and momentum, both within each movement, and across the work as a whole. And his affection for this music is evident in performances brimming with energy and fervor. This is “big band” Haydn and Mozart to be sure, but played with conviction, proportion, and the absence of any mannerisms (typical of the era, Horenstein is selective about observance of score repeats). The Haydn “Military” satisfies on all levels. Horenstein paces the Symphony’s opening as a true Adagio, lyrical, poised, and noble in bearing (a shame, then, that the audience’s frequent coughing attacks intrude). The ensuing Allegro, teeming with energy and sparkle, serves as an ideal foil. The opening of the second movement abounds with grace and elegance, again the perfect setup for the arrival of the “military” instruments, which make all the fuss one could hope for. In the ensuing Minuet, Horenstein observes the Moderato tempo marking, in the context of a robust performance that spotlights the music’s country dance origins. The Finale proceeds at something less than Presto, but still moves at a lively clip. As in the first movement, Horenstein times to perfection Haydn’s moments of silence, the composer’s delicious evocations of musicians searching for what to play next. Once again, the military instruments make a big ruckus to bring the performance to a rousing close, capped by audience applause. The recorded sound suffers a bit from congestion in the big tuttis, but is still more than adequate to enjoy this excellent rendition.

In the July/Aug 2021 Fanfare (44:6), I reviewed a PA release of a January 25, 1968 concert by Horenstein and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. The program included the Mozart “Haffner” Symphony, a work Horenstein never recorded commercially. As I wrote about the Gothenburg rendition, “The ‘Haffner’ receives a full-bodied performance, brimming with energy and high spirits…. [It] benefits from flexible and sensitive phrasing, and a fine delineation of the various musical lines. If the Gothenburg strings don’t embody the final word in tonal opulence or precision of execution, their performance is fine enough to make this a document of importance for Horenstein collectors.” At the time of my review, the Gothenburg “Haffner” seemed to be the only available Horenstein recording of the work. But now comes the November 30, 1960 Suisse Romande Mozart 35th. While movement timings vary between the two performances, they proceed along similar, admirable lines. The Suisse Romande performance is executed with greater precision, but unlike the Gothenburg, the recorded sound is compromised in the higher frequencies. If limited to but one, I’d probably opt for the Suisse Romande performance. But both are worthy and valuable documents of Horenstein’s way with this score.

The 1956 Vox studio recording of the Mozart “Prague” Symphony, beautifully remastered by Andrew Rose, offers by far the best sound on this release. As such, it represents the best opportunity to appreciate Horenstein’s masterful balancing of instrumental voices, and his observance of dynamic gradations. And the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, a fine ensemble, plays beautifully for Horenstein. The conductor mines all the drama of the work’s Adagio introduction. Emphatic attacks, thundering timpani, and menacing woodwind sonorities all forge a connection between the “Prague” Symphony and another Mozart composition from that period, Don Giovanni. If the pacing of the ensuing Allegro is slightly on the measured side, there is more than ample vigor and drive. The Andante never dawdles, but still allows Mozart’s lyricism to shine its brightest. The finale teems with energy and momentum, even if the pacing falls short of a true Presto.

Misha Horenstein’s excellent liner notes offer valuable perspective on the significance of the featured recordings in Jascha Horenstein’s discography. I also admire the willingness of the writer to include some negative critical appraisals of Horenstein’s art, even if I don’t agree with them! Jascha Horenstein was a marvelous conductor who achieved exemplary, heartfelt interpretations, especially in Austrian and German repertoire. The Haydn and Mozart recordings on this disc are representative of Horenstein’s artistry, and deserve a heartfelt recommendation.

IVES Symphony No. 2

ROBERT RUSSELL BENNETT Violin Concerto

HERRMANN Welles Raises Kane

Louis Kaufman, violin

conducted by Bernard Herrmann

In 1909, Ives had a full ink copy of his Second Symphony made; in 1911, he loaned it to conductor Walter Damrosch (1862–1950). Ives twice asked Damrosch for it back, in 1915 and 1935, with no success. Footnote 54 on p. 471 of Jan Swafford’s Charles Ives: A Life with Music: “Ives’s own pre-final drafts of the Second and Third Symphonies survive, which are the versions currently used. Bernard Herrmann told Vivian Perlis he had found the final score of the Second in Damrosch’s papers, but if so he lost it again.”

Herrmann (1911–75) had been a major Ives supporter since 1932, conducting his own arrangement of the fugue from Ives’s Fourth Symphony in 1933 and several times thereafter. It seems improbable, incredible, that he could have “lost” so important, so triumphant a find. By the time of Herrmann’s death, Ives was the center of attention of a raft of American musicologists, and such a score could not have gone unnoticed. In the end, one is forced to question Herrmann’s claim of finding the score—as does Swafford, judging from the sarcastic tone of his footnote. Did Herrmann still have that score in 1956, and did he use it for this BBC radio recording? Oddly enough, I have not seen that question addressed in the Ives literature; perhaps no one believed Herrmann’s story. Although we cannot know what differences existed in the 1909 score, this performance suggests not: It sounds too familiar; yet the wildly dissonant, 11-tone final chord—added by Ives many decades later—is suspiciously consonant here.

Herrmann certainly understood Ives; this performance, although orchestrally a bit vague and occasionally sloppy, fully captures the composer’s nostalgia for the Danbury of his youth. Some of the phrasing is a bit square—the excellent London Symphony was dealing with an unfamiliar score—but a surprising amount of it is right on. What it lacks is the vitality and sparkle of Bernstein’s 1951 radio premiere and of his excellent 1958 stereo recording (Columbia, now Sony) with the New York Philharmonic, which by then had played the symphony 13 times and so knew it well. Herrmann does attack the finale with gusto, but orchestral struggles and a blowsy monaural recording deny us much detail. Still, this CD is a big improvement on the original LP, as Andrew Rose has done his usual superb transfer and production.

For four decades, Robert Russell Bennett (1894–1981) was the leading orchestrator of Broadway musicals—300 of them, from Rose Marie and Show Boat to My Fair Lady and Camelot. His own compositions, in most of the classical forms, are far less known. His 1941 Violin Concerto is bright, happy, extroverted music reminiscent of Broadway, superbly orchestrated. It was written for Louis Kaufman, who, although never a big-name virtuoso, played beautifully and always found the essence of the music at hand. He and this concerto fit each other to a T. The orchestral backing is equally fine and the 1956 mono BBC radio recording is bright and clear, far better than the Ives of four weeks earlier.

Herrmann is best remembered for his scores to Alfred Hitchcock films (Vertigo, Psycho), but he wrote many others, too. The suite Welles Raises Cain is drawn from his music for two Orson Welles films, Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. Herrmann’s music always worked well on the screen, and many enjoy it for its own sake. I am part of a small minority that never cottoned to either Welles movie, nor do I find that Herrmann’s music stands up well on its own. He was a heavyweight whose music fit serious dramas and mysteries better than these two merely narrative tales. This suite is too fragmentary to gel into a whole, each piece needing the context of its place in a story. The playing is charming, the 1949 mono recording excellent for its time.

Although Herrmann’s arrogant, demanding personality grated on musicians who played for him, he was an excellent conductor and a true Ivesian; this disc should not be missed by anyone who values the Second Symphony—which should mean all of us.