Search - Bernard Herrmann :: Marnie: Original Motion Picture Score

Dark and Evocative - A Perfect Interpretation

Interplanetary Funksmanship | Vanilla Suburbs, USA | 11/28/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In just four short years, Alfred Hitchcock went from being a cutting-edge genius of cinema to an old-fasioned has-been who lost touch with his audience. Or, so it would seem: The director of the brutal and gothic "Psycho" forged a shocker that immediately grabbed viewers by the jugular and never let go; "Marnie," though, was a more elusive movie. It was the "last of an era" Hitchcock movie, a Cinderella fable gone tragically awry.



Bernard Herrmann's scores for these two movies likewise receive credit and blame: His avant-garde polytonal string score for "Psycho" seemed terribly modern, even though it was mostly reworked from an earlier Herrmann composition, Sinfionetta for Strings (1936). His score for "Marnie," though heavily reliant upon a rich string ensemble, was less brutal and more lush. Most of the score is built around three themes, the opening theme predominates. First announced on strings, the themes echo fleetingly on woodwinds and French horns in a tapestry of orchestral color.



As Hitchcock's linear narrative, use of painted backdrops and upper-crust social settings seemed faintly British (the novel "Marnie" was penned by English author Winston Graham, and Hitch transplanted the story to Philadelphia, Baltimore and the Virginia Hunt Country), Herrmann (who was himself a lifelong Anglophile) provided an aural companion to the onscreen action: There are hints of Elgar, Arthur Benjamin and Vaughan Williams in the score, and although the score to "Marnie" is often compared to the score Herrmann wrote for "Vertigo," the movie as a whole has a feel more akin to "Rebecca" or "Suspicion," particularly through Herrmann's robust music during the hunt scene.



Because "Marnie" flopped at the box office, many blamed Herrmann's old-fashioned score. In just four years, he too went from being avant-garde to regarded as horribly un-hip. Soundtracks by 1964 relied less and less on orchestral scoring and more and more on inserting pop as background music to the action onscreen.



Time does have a funny way, though, of changing people's perspective, and ironically "Marnie" is regarded as ahead of its time, and Herrmann's score to it as one of his greatest.



May the Saints bless conductor Joel McNeely for taking on the yeoman's task of recording Herrmann's major scores and bestowing his scholarly knowledge of Herrmann's music and TLC in orchestral phrasing in his performances. While I did not warm up to his recording of "Vertigo" (Muir Mathieson's soundtrack sits too powerfully in my mind's ear) as readily, I believe McNeely really hit the mark with "Marnie." His reading is darkly dramatic and nuanced, but he never loses sight of the overall line and tone of the music. It is as Herrmannesque as any of Elmer Bernstein's superb recordings."

The music of passion

Interplanetary Funksmanship | 10/18/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The music of Marnie is easily one of the best of Bernard Herrmann, it enhances the power of the movie which is a masterpiece. The music is alternatively romantic, dramatic and sad. My favourite track is the "the hunt", the music begins like the music of a hunt, then when Marnie realises the horror of the hunt, it turns to dramatic tune, and finally becomes powerfully dramatic and suspensful when her horse is hurt. Marnie's music is the music of the heart and passion. Through this marvellous work of Bernard Herrmann, one can feels the same sentiments of Marnie, resent her emotions and understand the complex personality of the character."