Search - Bernard Herrmann :: On Dangerous Ground [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

Gut-gripping Music from Bernard Herrmann

Ronald F. Payne | Alexandria, VA United States | 08/08/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"From the 1st hammer blow on steel plate, "On Dangerous Ground" is gut-gripping music. If the movie it accompanies is an interesting, but very flawed film noir, the score is completely superlative. Some ideas have a familiar ring to Herrmann afficionados--the beginning of "Pastoral" uses a sinuous winding theme in the bass instruments that is developed by the composer in the later movie "North By Northwest", and there's a spinning figure in the strings in "Snowstorm" that makes an appearance in Hitchcock's "Vertigo". "Death Hunt" is the virtuosic highlight of this CD, with the manic braying of horns in an adreneline pumping frenzy. The softer music has the melancoly yearning quality of "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir", but in spite of the echos and pre-echos of other Herrmann film scores, this one is treasurable in itself. This CD was taken from acetate discs and there is some surface noice--some of it intrusive, but its so good to have this film score complete, that I'm not complaining. I find the ear adjusts after a while, and the score is so consistently rich in ideas that it's the music you hear, not the noise."