An extraordinarily moving piece, as good as anything from the 19th century romantic composers or from 20th century composers. With the simplest orchestral phrases he makes deeply tragic statements. There is an entire world of feeling in this work. This is a piece written with great confidence and ingenious artistry. And yet overall lacking in pretension. It is refined emotion, tragic in dimension. I agree. One of his best.
What a composer. I can't understand how anyone wouldn't respond to Herrmann's music. It's always compelling. It's no wonder that composers like Goldsmith idolised him.
This is what makes genius! Being able to tell who composed a 'certain' score by hearing just a couple of notes. I can never stop saying waht a true genius Bernard Herrmann was!
@Pepper Williams: 12 years later I’m responding to your comment. I can hear a few notes in The Twilight Zone series or the Alfred Hitchcock series and know that is Bernard Herrmann.
@@lilybond6485 Thanks to broadband Internet. I'm investigating the subject since over a decade. Well - in the end it's a matter of definition, but you have a cornucopia of time-honored concepts which out of biometric and sociometric matches that can be shown mathematically indeed make identity. And you also can interpret such matches as identity yourself, independent of traditional religion or philosophy.
I am preparing to perform The Concerto Macabre next year. I'm so excited, as it is rarely performed and has to be reconstructed with cadenza. Such an eerie piece and such a phenomenal movie goth noir with Laird. But I wont set the auditorium on fire LOL.. but we pianists are indeed mad to tackle such crazy ass difficult works to play.
Absolutely wonderful music from Bernard Herrmann, thank you so much for making this and stills from Hangover Square available. I have the movie (Fox Horror Collection Vol. 1) and it holds up beautifully thanks to great performances by Linda Darnell (never sexier or more vicious) and Laird Cregar in his last and best performance.A great movie about romantic obsession and insanity.
I love the movie and watch it a couple of times a year. Linda Darnell must have been at her most beautiful. The tragic deaths of both Laird Cregar and Linda Darnell -- especially Linda Darnell dying in a fire -- in my mind the absolute worst way to go.
I have to agree with your comment 100%. The film, well it's entertaining, but the score implies something much more macabre, and in many ways is fine as a stand-alone piece. To this day, nothing can create such emotion and atmosphere as this piece, well except for my second favorite piece: Pacific 231
This amazingly evocative score perfectly complemented the noir-ish original film starring Laird Cregar as the tortured genius prone to murderous dissociative episodes in between playing this masterpiece by Bernard Herrmann. Laird Cregar died shortly after the film was completed at the tragically young age of 28. The music and lighting in addition to Cregar's stellar performance made this film so memorable when i first saw it over 50 years ago and I have never forgotten it.
I love this movie and the soundtrack. It’s one of those movies that I feel a need to watch at least 3-4 times a year. Even if it’s playing in the background and I’m doing something else.
So glad to see so many interested in this amazing work. I have the original piano reduction score from the movie. I'm performing it in October. Note due to movie scenes. parts had to be reconstructed. Mostly a new cadenza was added. It works well in a two piano version too.
This is an astonishing and beautiful piece. As with many of Herrmann's scores, it transcends the film itself (which is merely OK), and becomes something so much greater. Time and again I wonder how he was able to write such magnificent music for what were often such ordinary, even mediocre, films (those of Hitchcock, Welles, and a couple of others excepted).
I never tire of this. So perfect, so beautiful. It's interesting that both Korngold and Herrmann were involved in creating concert pieces within movies, and they're all absolutely outstanding,
Just finished watching Hangover Square with its riveting, chilling concerto scene. Listening to this piece through again while reading the bio of the beautiful Laird Cregar just made tears roll down my cheeks. I'll forever associate this amazing, haunting composition with him.
Wonderful piece! The section between 3:24 and 4:23 (and its grand reprise around 8:25) is among the most moving music Herrmann has written. It's kind of sad to realize that in the past you had all these truly great and imaginative film composers like Herrmann, Korngold and Rosza whereas today we have mostly incompetent fourth-rate film composers like Hans Zimmer producing schlock with meager musical substance or invention.
Was just watching on PBS - The Red Shoes Ballet choreographed by Matthew Bourne using the music of Bernard Herrmann. It is based broadly on the 1948 film The Red Shoes by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Mr Bourne used music from the film scores of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Fahrenheit 451, Hangover Square, and Citizen Kane.
Thank you very much for this great posting, Frank. I definitely appreciated it. It was one of the highlights from that old, rather dusty and dated film, "Hangover Square." This music piece, as I remember, was one of the best things to come out of that film; along with seeing the gorgeous Linda Darnell in her prime, of course.
I adore this piece of breathtaking music - can anyone recommend other pieces with a similar sound/feel to them? I imagine it's difficult as this is such a singular and extraordinary piece of music!
GK Knight: 9 years later - responding to your comment -- The theme from a Twilight Zone episode “Walking Distance”starring Gig Young. It has the same feel as the beginning of this masterpiece.
GK-Knight: I’m glad you weren’t asking for medical advice. 😂 I think I made a mistake with referring you to Twilight Zone “Walking Distance” soundtrack. Although it is one of my favorites for melancholy music, it doesn’t sound anything like this. NOTHING sounds like this. This masterpiece is an entity all it’s own. If I do remember or come across anything that I think you may be interested in I will send you a note on here. Anything would be hard to compete with this. Also, hopefully it won’t take 9 years. : )
One must see the film "Hangover Square" to fully appreciate Maestro Herrmans' Concerto Macabre, as well as the riveting performance of brilliant actor Laird Cregar! His well publicized weight loss was astounding also!
@@lilybond6485 shut your bitch ass up acting like I don't know what I'm saying. I'm an adult bitch I meant what I said he's UNDERRATED, not unknown, he's not a Pokémon fool
Lucky people up there in America !.I've seen this played here in Chile only once, luckily by spanish pianist Joaquín Achucarro, the same one on the RCA Victor CD mentioned by Frank Gonzalez- The Film Music of Bernard Herrmann.
It has the feeling of insanety mixed with tragedy. Like if someone has lost in mind and goes all lunatic and stuff... But he feels pains at the same time. Like if something's missing. Everyone knows that a lot of pain can get anyone out of their mind, and do terrible things...
Thank you so much for the upload! I just watched the movie a few days ago, and while I didn't super care for it (interesting idea, just rather poorly executed), this piece grabbed me by the throat and wouldn't let go! Herrmann has long been my favorite film composer, and this just blew me away.
Isn’t this just a beautiful composition ?! I really enjoyed the movie and the music had me in an alternative universe. Bernard Herrmann’s music was just so unique and over the top beautiful. As an aside, I never realized how gorgeous Linda Darnell was.
I read the book and the movie bears scant resemblance. The book featured a group of young drifters/malcontents and the main character was a mentally tortured alcoholic. In the movie the main character was changed to be more educated and refined. Probably not a good fit
At 1:54 the music segues into something completely different -- giving me goosebumps. The entire piece segued into something else. It is beautiful -- magical. Bernard Herrmann probably composed this on his lunch hour. 😂 Seriously -- where does it come from -- that someone can create this from their mind ? and -- where is it before it is in the mind ? What IS “the mind” ? Yeah. Getting off track here
Wow, the last three chords sound like the ending of, "Invaders from Mars" !!! ...OK, I just found it here on youtube, and yes, it IS the same ending, but orchestrated! BEAUTIFUL! Look for "Invaders from Mars (1953) isolated music score" It's really worth listening to the whole thing, but the last several seconds are what I'm referring to. It wasn't scored by Bernard Herrmann (who was at the top of his game), but it's still wonderful!
Thank for this Frank Gonzalez. I was introduced to this piece on RU-vid. What a nice job you've done showcasing the film and the great Bernard Herrmann. I am ordering the film today. Thnaks again!
krellabs is very complimentary. I thank you. I just finished the biography of Herrmann. What a sad man, alienating so many with his sudden and violent emotional outbursts, but then alternately calm, charming, knowledgeable about music in so many ways. He died of heart disease and a university study suggests his personality type simply wears out the heart. He was only 64 when he shuffled off this mortal coil.
Mi ha sempre entusiasmato la musica di Bernard Herrmann. Avevo 10 anni quando vidi il film "The man who knew too much" (1956) mi colpì subito la musica iniziale (grazie anche alla bella ripresa di Hitchcock sulle percussioni) e la Cantata di Arthur Benjamin diretta dallo stesso Herrmann alla Royal Albert Hall. Poi i capolavori le musiche di "Vertigo" e l'originalità di "Psyco" per soli archi. Grazie dell'inserimento di questo "Concerto macrabo" Raffaele Montanaro
The film is a must see; as brilliant as this is on its own, it really doesn't impart its full power without the visuals it was written to accompany. The shockingly surreal sight of the tortured pianist madly pounding out his Magnum Opus amidst the salon fire that he himself has set is singularly compelling in its twisted and psychotic grandiosity. I'm surprised that this hasn't been remade with one of today's pop stars...its the perfect anti-hero vehicle.
@floolagin - a "photostat of the manuscript full score in Bernard Herrmann's autograph" is in the Special Collections division of the University of California, Santa Barbara. This is where Herrmann's papers are housed.
UNBELIEVABLE, in the original sense of the word, the primordial sense. How about this though......the ultimate gothic atmospheric score painting its own landscape...havent yet seen the film, but listening to this I dont feel that ive missed much.......Herrmann was and is the ultimate, non?
It was incredible not only vertigo but the first season of Twilight zone belongs to Bernard Herman which is probably the most haunting music for a television series aside from One step beyond also he did the Western The garden of evil in 1954 that has made that movie better with his brilliant score for a western but so many others like vertigo now people are learning how great he really was he is more well known now than when he was actually creating all these scores
Benny would walk around his house conducting to the symphony playing on his gramophone player or conduct the paw of one his beloved pets. Too funny this genius.
Are you being serious!?! He was a genius, who wrote sublime music, straight from the heart of his soul. If you ask me he's not that far from Beethoven in importance.
@SebastianQ86 There are two CD's available on Amazon, I would personally recommend the one in which it includes the score for Hangover Square along with the Citizen Kane score. It's called "The Film Music of Bernard Herrmann-Hangover Square and Citizen Kane, I believe it can also be purchased as an mp3 download
This is the perfect example of a gorgeous score that greatly enhances a fairly-average film, although I felt that Linda Darnell and Laird Creger were outstanding, particularly the latter, which Hermann's score complements seamlessly. Hermann's personal favorite score was "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir," which was a surprise to many, but not to me. I went to the B. Hermann tribute in Manhattan June 2011, which was nothing less than incredible.
The score does not exist in any medium outside the film, though the Concerto was rerecorded by Naxos on a film music piano concerto compilation and later on a superior Herrmann compilation from RCA Victor conducted by Gerhardt.
Try Franz Liszt's Totentanz - which is an obvious influence: widely available as a solo piano piece or for piano & orchestra as here. James Bernard's Vampire Rhapsody from the Hammer film Kiss of the Vampire is also similair. Or try the two piano concertos of Alberto Ginastera, or the first piano concerto of Alfred Schnittke.
there is a new book on laird creger. it barely mentions herrmann but covers the movie. the final fire got out of control' creger had gotten fox to buy the book for him but hated the script and didn't want to do it.
