Knowra Bernard Herrmann Bernard Herrmann Bernard Herrmann (1911–1975) was an American composer and conductor known for film scores that used distinctive orchestration and sharply shaped musical motifs.
Psycho : Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 psychological horror film about Marion Crane, Norman Bates, and the Bates Motel. Herrmann’s all-string score, especially its shrieking shower sequence, became central to the film’s terror.
Leitmotif : A recurring musical idea associated with a character, place, object, or theme. Herrmann often used short, recurring ideas to give characters and psychological states musical identities.
Alfred Hitchcock : English film director known for suspense films including Vertigo, Psycho, and North by Northwest. Hitchcock’s long collaboration with Herrmann produced several of the composer’s best-known scores.
Juilliard School : A performing-arts conservatory in New York City, founded in 1905 as the Institute of Musical Art. Herrmann studied music at Juilliard before establishing himself as a composer and conductor.
Film score : Music composed or selected to accompany and shape the experience of a film. Herrmann’s work expanded the dramatic possibilities of the film score through distinctive motifs and instrumental color.
Vertigo : Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 thriller about a detective whose acrophobia and obsession shape his pursuit of a mysterious woman. Herrmann’s looping motifs and orchestration intensify the film’s themes of obsession and disorientation.
Orchestration : The arrangement of musical parts for the instruments and voices that perform them. His distinctive instrumental combinations shaped the color and dramatic force of his film scores.
Orson Welles : American actor, director, and writer whose films include Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. Welles gave Herrmann his first major film-scoring opportunity with Citizen Kane.
CBS Symphony Orchestra : A radio orchestra formed by the Columbia Broadcasting System in 1937 and led by Bernard Herrmann. Herrmann’s work with the orchestra connected his conducting career to radio and broadcast composition.
Psycho shower scene : A sequence in Psycho in which Marion Crane is attacked in the Bates Motel shower. Herrmann’s piercing string figures made the scene’s violence audible without showing most of it directly.
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