Bernard Herrmann (1911–1975) wrote some of the most celebrated music in film, from Citizen Kane and The Day the Earth Stood Still to Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho and Taxi Driver. In 2018 the Film Music Foundation, in co-production with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Oral History Projects department, recorded these conversations about his life and work with his family, people who worked with him, and people who keep his music alive. Most were recorded at the Academy’s Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood and conducted by Jon Burlingame.
The player above plays the collection in this order (each interview is preceded by a short teaser):
- Dorothy Herrmann, his daughter and an author (38 min)
- Norma Herrmann, his widow, interviewed by Tim Burden (1 hr 15 min)
- Larry Cohen, writer-director of It’s Alive, which Herrmann scored (32 min)
- Paul Hirsch, film editor of Brian De Palma’s Sisters and Obsession, both scored by Herrmann (45 min)
- Steven C. Smith, Herrmann’s biographer (48 min)
- Leonard Maltin, film critic and historian (24 min)
- Norman Lloyd, actor and producer who worked with Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock (49 min)
- Richard Kaufman, conductor, who leads Herrmann’s scores for Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho live to picture (40 min)
- Les Zador, Secretary-Treasurer of the Film Music Foundation and son of composer Eugene Zador (20 min)
The collection closes with four composers on Herrmann: Howard Blake (27 min), Laurie Johnson (22 min), Gabriel Yared (4 min) and Christopher Young (5 min). Their full interviews are on their own pages.