Bernard Herrmann and Musical Topography

With the waning of modernism, and of the high value once placed on conspicuous complexity and originality, the topography of twentieth century music is rapidly changing. One of the chief American beneficiaries is certain to be Bernard Herrmann. Everyone appreciates Herrmann for his singular achievements as a film composer. Without him, there would be no Psycho, North by Northwest, or Vertigo, and Citizen Kane would be a lesser film. But Herrmann also produced a substantial catalogue of concert works in the same style. Though he clung to tonality, he created a palette of mood and sonority that is instantly recognizable and wholly his own. I would unhesitatingly rank his accomplishments above those of, say, Roy Harris, Howard Hanson, or William Schuman — all of whom once far eclipsed him in reputation because they did not bear the taint of Hollywood. (Of Herrmann’s scores for Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, Vertigo, and Psycho, Alex Ross writes in The Rest is Noise that they “contain some of the century’s most piercingly effective dramatic music.”) Herrmann’s concert music has figured in the last two installments of Pacific Symphony’s American Composers Festival — itself a singular enterprise. We have had occasion to offer three West Coast Herrmann premieres: of his “experimental” radio melodrama City of Brass; of his World War II elegy For the Fallen; and of Souvenirs de Voyage, a 30-minute quintet for clarinet and strings. Herrmann’s concert output also includes a symphony, an oratorio, a string quartet, and an opera. That this music went unheard and unknown was a source of bitterness and frustration for the composer. A notoriously irascible and impatient man, he knew the dimensions of his talent. He once said: “Musically I count myself an individualist. I believe that only music which spring out of genuine personal emotion is alive and important. I hate all cults, fads, and circles.” And also: “My feelings and yearnings of are those of a composer of the nineteenth century. I am completely out of step with the present.” And (in 1948): “I will never do a movie again. . . . I now understand that it was the movies that exhausted me and sapped my strength. I sincerely hope that I will never see Hollywood as long as I live.” His favorite composers — an unfashionable twentieth century list — included Debussy, Ravel, Elgar, Delius, Holst, and Ives. His distinctive compositional style was a direct suffusion of his morbid Romantic self. Among his musical signatures are nervous ostinatos, irresolute motivic scraps, and lurid colors. The 1967 clarinet quintet we presented at Pacific Symphony’s 2009 festival is a stubbornly inward work, suffused with nostalgia and melancholy. The memorably disturbing love music from Vertigo is a pertinent frame of reference. Herrmann here eschews sonata form and all other generic molds. He also largely eschews contrast. Ever the film composer, he suggests pictures and narratives. (Steven Smith, in his indispensable Herrmann biography, cites an A.E. Housman poem and one of Turner’s Venetian paintings as key influences.) The intoxication of this score, and of its clarinet part, are not in question. Its possible weaknesses are two: is there variety enough to sustain a half-hour span? Is there structure enough to establish trajectory and shape? In California, we prefaced our performance with a Vertigo clip: the restaurant scene in which James Stewart first glimpses Kim Novak. The quintet followed seamlessly, without pause. For the musicians (and this is an orchestra whose principal string players are the equal of any), the Herrmann quintet was a revelation. The audience was hypnotized. I cannot think of a more seductive, more finished chamber work by an American. George Gershwin is another twentieth century American whose taint (Hollywood plus Broadway) will fade, whose stock will rise. Some reviewers of my Classical Music in America (2005) treated my moderate enthusiasm for Aaron Copland as an obvious lapse in judgment. But what seems obvious to me is that Copland’s reputation will ebb as Gershwin’s greater genius is absorbed in classical music circles that once patronized him as a dilettante. It’s already happening – witness the belated redesignation of An American in Paris and Concerto in F as mainstream subscription fare, rather than pops fodder, by such orchestras as Boston and Chicago. And then there’s George Chadwick and his divine Jubilee (1895). We’re all loosening up.