Hitchcock + Hermann = Halloween

The cymbals roll, the brass grows louder, and the strings play a crazy rhythm as they swirl upward in a dramatic spiral. At the peak of the crescendo, the suspenseful music ceases, and then a crashing chord spills out of the entire orchestra.

A Mahler symphony? A movement from Richard Strauss? Nope. A moment in a movie.

There are no statistics on this, but the odds are good that most Americans’ exposure to symphonic music comes via the movie screen, not the local orchestra or classical radio.

Quick, think of the shower scene in “Psycho.” You may see Janet Leigh in your mind’s eye, but it’s a good bet you can also hear those screeching upward thrusts of the violins, courtesy of composer Bernard Herrmann.

Remember “Lawrence of Arabia?” I dare you to think of it without the sweeping Maurice Jarre music in the background. And who among us can say “Star Wars” without hearing that John Williams theme in our heads?

The Phoenix Symphony proved, after a fashion, the greater popularity of movie music over classical symphonies a couple seasons back when it presented a concert of music from the “Lord of the Rings” films. Tickets sold faster to that concert than to any other concert in the history of the orchestra. Surprisingly enough, the orchestra hasn’t done anything like it again–until now.

The movies of Alfred Hitchcock resonate in our minds as portraits of our most nightmarish inner landscapes. In a typical Hitchcock film, someone’s always after you, and you don't know who or why. Figures of authority–real ones like policemen, or stand‑ins like renegade airplanes–menace the heroes and threaten the peace. The most majestic instance of this is “The Birds,” when the authority of nature rises up against all of humanity.

A great deal of the impact in a Hitchcock film is in the music, which is usually by a man named Bernard Herrmann. Born in 1911 in New York City, Herrmann studied with the eccentric Australian composer Percy Grainger and attended Juilliard. He became a staff conductor for CBS Radio, where he met Orson Welles and supplied the music for an off‑the‑wall Welles project in which H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds” was broadcast as a news story, as if it were really happening. This landed him Welles’ first feature‑length movie, “Citizen Kane,” and suddenly, Herrmann was a major film composer.

It was when Hitchcock hired Herrmann for 1955's “The Trouble With Harry” that the composer found his perfect directorial match. From that point until 1964's “Marnie,” Herrmann supplied music for every Hitchcock film. In “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1956), the big cantata performed at London’s Albert Hall in the climax of the film, was actually written by another composer, but Herrmann got to play the conductor in his only screen appearance.

“Vertigo,” “North by Northwest” and of course, “Psycho,” were all Herrmann scores, and each of them has a place in the history of film music. In a move unusual for the time, Herrmann used only strings in “Psycho,” where lesser composers might have stooped to the clichés of spooky muted brass or clattering percussion, especially for the shower scene. The lack of instrumental music in “The Birds” somehow fuels the shock of nature in rebellion. In its place, Herrmann inserted manipulated recordings of birdsong.

The Phoenix Symphony will present music by Herrmann and other composers as part of “Hitchcock for Halloween,” conducted by the orchestra’s new resident conductor, Lawrence Golan, at 8 p.m. Oct. 27 and 28, and at 2 p.m. Oct. 29, in Phoenix Symphony Hall. As film clips from Hitchcock’s cinematic masterpieces play, the Symphony will perform the music live.

Playing film music live‑in‑concert is a new, profitable venture for symphony orchestras. But why stop there? Symphonic music in concert with images presents unlimited possibilities. Why not create new work that is equally visual and aural? In standard movies, the music is strictly subordinate to the film, but in some new genre‑yet‑to‑be, it might be possible to balance the two. Perhaps a film director and a composer could be co‑commissioned to make a film that depends almost entirely on music for its expressive content. The result could be screened, with the music performed live by a symphony orchestra.

We are a visually‑oriented culture, but music can plug into that without sacrificing integrity. Popular music has music videos. Why shouldn’t the symphonic world trade on the success of movie music and develop new combinations of orchestral music and motion pictures?

Listen to Ken on “Two on the Aisle” every Sunday at 7 p.m. on KPHX, 1480 AM.

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