Bernard Herrmann: The CBS Years
Vol.1: The Westerns


Prometheus Records (5400211001523)
Prometheus Records (5400211002520)
Film | Date: 2003 | Type: CD
 

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# Track   Duration
Three Bells to Perdido Suite
1.Have Gun, Will Travel (Pilot)10:19
 
Western Suite
2.Prelude1:26
3.The Ambush2:55
4.Tranquil Landscape3:28
5.Dark Valley2:15
6.The Meadows3:21
7.Bad Man1:53
8.Gunfight1:34
9.Rain Clouds2:58
10.Sun Clouds1:24
 
The Tall Trapper Suite
11.Gunsmoke9:24
 
The Indian Suite
12.Indian Ambush3:28
13.Echo1:11
14.Indian Signals2:18
15.Indian Fight2:10
 
Western Saga
16.Prelude0:55
17.Street Music1:44
18.Open Spaces3:29
19.The Hunt2:08
20.The Watching3:09
21.The Canyons2:23
22.Gunsmoke1:55
23.Gunfight1:15
24.Victory!0:44
 67:46
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Bernard Herrmann: The CBS Years - 05/10 - Critique de Tom Daish, ajouté le (Anglais)
This first volume of Herrmann's music for CBS serials is largely library music, designed to be laid by the producers where appropriate, thus saving the time and expense of having a new score written for each episode. While this seems a bit of a cheap answer, it seems reasonable to want to spend the money on stunts and action, rather than music which really isn't a major draw for a weekly adventure serial. It's a practice that has pretty much died out, although I don't really think the quality of TV scoring has obviously improved or decline, just moved on. Although it probably seems daft, the prospect of television music by an esteemed a film composer such as Bernard Herrmann always fills me trepidation. It's not the expectation that it'll be bad, merely that it will be disappointing and while the contents aren't dreadful, that expectation is largely realised.

Listening to the album, it's clearly by Herrmann, but his style is pared down to chamber size, using different combinations of orchestral sections for different moods. Winds lead the way for the quieter, pastoral moments, with brass and percussion to liven up the action sequences. Despite the claim of Jon Burlingame's otherwise insightful liner notes, I don't honestly believe that much of this music 'could easily have been played by a chamber ensemble of the time and enjoyed by concert goers as pure music,' it is simply too repetitive and can become somewhat uninteresting. I have commented elsewhere that minimalist music needs the full range of orchestral colour to keep it novel and so it proves here, the limited palette simply isn't enough to sustain the basic material. Every track introduces a few note motif in whatever ensemble is being employed, then this is repeated for a couple of minutes with only a small variation.

The Indian Suite improves on the occasional drudgery of the Western Suite with some sprightly brass figures and surprisingly un-cliché percussion ideas. Western Saga has some more lighthearted moments that recall the more traditional sounds of the western score, but filtered through Herrmann's unmistakable sound. There are, naturally, a few rather more pleasing moments; the harps and clarinets of Tranquil Landscape are lovely and unsurprisingly, the darker material is appropriately menacing, even if Gunfight seems just a touch static. The two longer suites, from Have Gun - Will Travel and Gunsmoke, continue the style of the library music, the former including a descending figure not a million miles from Torn Curtain, while Gunsmoke is that bit more gentle and varied in tone.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the music is how it echoes better know Herrmann scores, particularly some of the terse action cues he composed for Ray Harryhausen, all the pounding timpani and muted brass that feature in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Mysterious Island. However, it's the kind of album that's hard to enjoy as pure music; there are some lively and entertaining cues, but sometimes you just want Elmer Bernstein to ride into town with a catchy melody or two to displace yet another repeating brass and percussion figure that is interesting for 20 seconds, but doesn't really go anywhere, nor appears to be intending to do so. The mono sound is reasonable with low to moderate levels of hiss, but the clarity is fine. The aforementioned notes are useful, even if they appear to be discussing music far more interesting than the disc actually contains. For Herrmann completists I think.


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