Happy Birthday to the late, great film music composer....son of NYC, DeWitt Clinton High School......Bernard Herrmann, the son of a Jewish middle-class family of Russian origin, was born in New York City as Max Herman. He attended high school at DeWitt Clinton High School, at that time on 10th Avenue and 59th Street in New York City. His father encouraged music activity, taking him to the opera, and encouraging him to learn the violin. After winning a composition prize at the age of thirteen, he decided to concentrate on music, and went to New York University where he studied with Percy Grainger and Philip James. He also studied at the Juilliard School and, at the age of twenty, formed his own orchestra, the New Chamber Orchestra of New York. In 1934, he joined the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) as a staff conductor. Within two years he was appointed music director of the Columbia Workshop, an experimental radio drama series for which Herrmann composed or arranged music (one notable program was The Fall of the City). Within nine years, he had become Chief Conductor to the CBS Symphony Orchestra. He was responsible for introducing more new works to US audience than any other conductor — he was a particular champion of Charles Ives music, which was virtually unknown at that time. Herrmanns radio programs of concert music, which were broadcast under such titles as Invitation to Music and Exploring Music, were planned in an unconventional way and featured rarely-heard music, old and new, which was not heard in public concert halls. Examples include broadcasts devoted to music of famous amateurs or of notable royal personages, such as the music of Frederick the Great of Prussia, Henry VIII, Charles I, Louis XIII and so on. In the mid-1960s he composed the highly regarded music score for François Truffauts Fahrenheit 451. Scored for strings, two harps, vibraphone, xylophone and glockenspiel, Herrmanns score created a driving, neurotic mood that perfectly suited the film. It also had a direct influence on producer George Martins staccato string arrangement for Beatles 1966 smash hit single Eleanor Rigby. https://youtube/watch?v=VYPu4zWLWzs
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 11:13:48 +0000
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