Recording producers: Tony d’Amato (Herrmann); Raymond Few (Shostakovich, Walton, Bax, Benjamin, Lambert, Vaughan Williams, Bliss)
Recording engineers: Arthur Lilley (Herrmann, Shostakovich, Walton: Richard III); Arthur Bannister (Bax, Benjamin, Lambert, Vaughan Williams, Bliss, Walton: Escape Me Never)
Recording locations: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London, UK, December 1968 (Herrmann), March 1974 (Shostakovich, Walton: Richard III); Kingsway Hall, London, UK, November 1975 (Bax, Benjamin, Lambert, Vaughan Williams, Bliss, Walton: Escape Me Never)
Bernard Herrmann made some significant recordings for Decca in the late-1960s/early-1970s, many of these using the company’s then new audio technology, Phase 4, which brought the music into brilliant light. This collection brings together a selection of British Film Music as well as music by Herrmann himself for a series of Alfred Hitchcock films, including Psycho, Marnie and Vertigo (originally released under the title ‘Hitchcock Movie Thrillers’). It also includes a selection from Shostakovich’s dark score for Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
“Spellbinding … a firm favourite … performed with breathtaking precision by the LPO, and both they and the music come across with a thrilling and vivid immediacy” Gramophone Magazine (Herrmann)
“it is the Hitchcock items which are the most enjoyable here: those arresting string which play through the credits of Psycho give way to some wonderfully creepy and atmospheric writing...The bright, exhilarating music Herrmann provided for North by Northwest is brilliantly presented.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition
