They Stand Alone

The art of scoring a film is a complex one. The music must not only complement the plot, it must establish character, create moods, heighten tension, and even play against audience expectations. Perhaps no director understood the relation between score and film better than Alfred Hitchcock, himself a master creator of cinematographic moods. Hitchcock collaborated most often with Bernard Herrmann, and Herrmann's scores have become models for other composers. This new Musical Heritage Society release features four other composers from the Golden Age of Hollywood who collaborated with Hitchcock: John Williams, Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman, and Roy Webb.

John Williams has become today's most sought-after film composer, famous for his grand scores for Star Wars and ET. Williams worked with Hitchcock on his last picture, Family Plot, a comedy-thriller featuring a wonderful cast of eccentric characters portrayed by Karen Black, Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris, and William Devane. The ''End Credits'' music captures perfectly the light, fluffy, yet menacing nature of the film. The spooky female voices are associated with Barbara Harris' character, Blanche, a medium who relies on inside information in order to predict the future.

Strangers on a Train is one of Hitchcock's best-loved films, recently parodied in Danny De Vito's Throw Momma from the Train. Dimitri Tiomkin was Hitchcock's second composer after Herrmann, scoring such notable works as Shadow of a Doubt (with its wonderful use of American themes) and Dial M for Murder. Tiomkin, a Russian native, brings dissonant harmonies and rough-edged rhythms to his work. He created a theme for each main character, using a melody played in the high harmonics of the violins to portray the neurotic Bruno, who conspires to swap murders with the unwitting Guy.

Franz Waxman composed the scores for two Hitchcock films, Rebecca and Suspicion. Waxman worked in the romantic, lush Hollywood idiom while still creating distinctive, listenable music that stands on its own. The story line of Suspicion is simple -- Joan Fontaine is swept off her feet by playboy Cary Grant, but she soon discovers that he is a compulsive gambler and liar. Worse still, she begins to suspect that he plans to murder her. Waxman’s score perfectly captures the psychological tension of the plot, most notably in the music entitled "Too Fast," which accompanies a scene in which Grant takes Fontaine for a ride. She thinks he is trying to wreck the car and kill her, when in fact he is simply enjoying the thrill of speed. The music alternates between her fear and the exhilaration of the trip.

Roy Webb is the least known of our quartet of film composers, but not the least active. He scored many films. Including The Last Days of Pompeii, Farewell My lovely, I Remember Mama, Hitchcock's little-known comedy Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and dozens more. Spending most of his creative days as a house composer at RKO, Webb used many sophisticated touches to makes his scores unique. In Notorious, Cary Grant, an American agent, enlists Ingrid Bergman, the daughter of a convicted Nazi, to be a double agent. Bergman must "marry" Claude Rains, a Nazi living in South America, in order to get important information. Rains, on discovering Bergman's identity, begins secretly to poison her. The plot centers around Grant's initial jealousy when Bergman marries Rains to his realization that he loves her to his final dramatic rescue of her from the clutches of the evil Nazi.

From the trumpet blares that begin the music for the main titles, Webb creates a score that employs dissonance, sparely evocative melodies, and unusual tone textures to great effect. Many of the film's most memorable sequences feature no dialogue at all; the music must capture the changing moods of the characters. Throughout the film, the music captures the romance, the grandeur, and the fear and danger that is an integral part of the plot.

These four scores will bring back many happy memories for lovers of Hitchcock's screen works. But they also stand alone as four sterling examples of the art of the film score.