{"id":11337,"date":"2024-08-13T08:00:21","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T08:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=11337"},"modified":"2024-08-13T11:01:31","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T11:01:31","slug":"alfred-hitchcock-had-a-wicked-way-with-film-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=11337","title":{"rendered":"Alfred Hitchcock had a wicked way with film music"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

The films of Alfred Hitchcock, who was born on this day 125 years ago, are noted for their exceptional scores and it was no accident.\u00a0 <\/span>Composer John Williams told me that the master of suspense had a wide interest in music.<\/p>\n

Among his vast number of accomplishments, the multi-Oscar-winning American composer has the distinction of scoring Hitchcock\u2019s final picture, \u2018Family Plot\u2019 and the first feature by one Steven Spielberg, \u2018Sugarland Express\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018We could have another whole conversation on my relationship with Hitch because my time with him was filled with wonderful stories,\u2019 Williams said when I interviewed him in 2000. \u2018I used to have lunch with him alone and we\u2019d talk about the film for about five minutes and then he would speak to me, knowledgeably about the state of British music. He was enormously interested in British music from between the wars \u2026 by Vaughn Williams, Benjamin Britton, William Walton and others. He knew their work and knew what was happening in British music and was greatly interested in it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u2018He was a man full of marvellous stories and history. It was a great experience being in his presence. He was a lover of Edward Elgar, I think, more than anything. He talked about Elgar and Gustav Holtz all the time and was very interested in Walton. Of course, he had a long relationship with Bernard Herrmann, who was a great friend of mine.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Herrman had an extraordinary collaboration with the director on eight movies including \u2018Vertigo\u2019, \u2018North By Northwest\u2019 and \u2018Psycho\u2019 with its famous stabbing violin sequences. Their last film together was \u2018Marnie\u2019 in 1964 and Hitchcock hired composer John Addison for \u2018Torn Curtain\u2019 (1966), Maurice Jarre for \u2018Topaz\u2019 (1969) and Ron Goodwin for \u2018Frenzy\u2019 (1972).<\/p>\n

In 1976, he turned to Williams for \u2018Family Plot\u2019 starring William Devane, Karen Black, Barbara Harris and Bruce Dern (pictured with the director top).<\/p>\n

\u2018The first conversation I had with Hitchcock, it was a bit sheepish on my part because of my closeness to\u00a0 <\/span>Herrmann,\u2019 Williams told me. \u2018I didn\u2019t feel I could accept the assignment without either talking to Herrmann or understanding why it was that Hitchcock had broken off with him, which was one of those relationships in film that we all were hoping would continue. Hitch said to me, \u201cNo, no need to be sensitive about that because Mr. Herrmann and I have agreed not to work together again. I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll be very happy if it\u2019s you if it\u2019s not going to be him.\u201d I did ring up Herrmann and he said about the same thing. He said, \u201cNo, no, Hitch and I will not work together any longer but I am delighted that you will be doing this.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

They got along famously. \u2019He was full of this kind of whimsy and wit with an ironic edge to things,\u2019 Williams said. \u2018At one of our lunches, Hitch was describing a composer he\u2019d hired to write a score for a film about a murder. He said he went to a scoring session and the composer had every double bassoon and timpani that was capable of making an ominous sound for the score. I said that sounded as if it was close to the mark and Hitch said, \u201cNo, you don\u2019t understand, murder can be fun.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

John Williams, 92, earned his 54th Academy Award nomination in 2024 for \u2018Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny\u2019. He has won five Oscars. .Alfred Hitchcock, who died on April 29, 1980, had five Oscar nominations but no wins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett The films of Alfred Hitchcock, who was born on this day 125 years ago, are noted for their exceptional scores and it was no accident.\u00a0 Composer John Williams told me that the master of suspense had a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,1263,8,2257],"tags":[316,380,5467,723,5468],"class_list":["post-11337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-interviews","category-memory-lane","category-music","category-recalling","tag-alfred-hitchcock","tag-bernard-herrmann","tag-edward-elgar","tag-john-williams","tag-family-plot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11337"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11345,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11337\/revisions\/11345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}