Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo—A Film Score Handbook

Herrmann, a classically trained musician, wrote the scores for Citizen Kane , The devil and Daniel Webster , The magnificent Ambersons , Anna and the king of Siam , and Psycho as well as an opera of Wuthering Heights and other concert works. This study focuses, scene by scene, on the composer's music for Hitchcock's 1958 classic Vertigo , a film that presents an almost seamless integration of its components and yet owes much to Herrmann's score in the realization of its mysterious, disturbing mood. Cooper (U. of Leeds) provides background on Herrmann's career, and then traces the musical flow through the film's narrative "from Wagnerian chromatic harmony, through Pucciniesque diatonic bel canto to Schoenbergian atonal Klangfarbenmelodie ." Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

DAVID COOPER is Senior Lecturer and the Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Scientific Research in Music at the University of Leeds.