By the mid-'90s, 20 years after
Bernard Herrmann
's death, there were many collections of his film music in print, whether original soundtrack recordings, albums of re-recorded music conducted by the composer himself, or discs made by other musicians.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic
, conducted by
Esa-Pekka Salonen
, added another well-performed, if redundant, entry with its 1996 album
Bernard Herrmann: The Film Scores
. Others may have begun to focus on some of
Herrmann
's lesser-known scores already, but
Salonen
and
the Los Angeles Philharmonic
went for a version of his "greatest hits" here, re-creating suites arranged from the
Alfred Hitchcock
films
Psycho
,
Marnie
, and
Vertigo
, as well as the overture to
North by Northwest
, plus some excerpts from the unused score
prepared for
Hitchcock
's
Torn Curtain
, a suite from
Francois Truffaut
Fahrenheit 451
, and selections from
Taxi Driver
's final score. The music represented the composer's style well, including not only the famously terrifying strings-only accompaniments from
, but also more lush efforts in the
excerpts and, of course, the much more jazz-oriented
. The intention here was not to plumb the hidden corners of the repertoire of a composer whose reputation had shot straight up since his death, but rather to skim the cream of his most identifiable work.
aficionados might have found the result welcome but unnecessary, while more general classical music fans wanting a single
recording played by a first-class orchestra and conductor could be satisfied. ~ William Ruhlmann