A Heart at Fire’s Center : The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann by Steven C. Smith

There is so much more in A Heart at Fire’s Center—the nature of Herrmann’s three marriages and his need, as he wrote, “to be pampered”; his opera Wuthering Heights, inspired by his love of England; his later work, in the late 1950s and early ’60s: seven episodes for Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone and more than twice that number for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour ; his five films for Ray Harryhausen’s stop-animation adventures; his classical recordings, especially Raff’s Fifth Symphony and Ives’ Second Symphony; and so much more.

Simply put, Steven C. Smith’s book is highly recommended. Smith’s writing is direct and, most welcomed, devoid of esoteric snobbery and grandiosity. Beyond the more than 350 pages of thoroughly documented text, there is an invaluable appendix: a filmography, lists of Herrmann’s concert pieces, radio and television works and recordings conducted by him. In the middle of book are twenty-seven pages of Herrmann photographs, both private and professional, some either too light or too dark, the only negative in an otherwise excellent endeavor. Well, maybe the index could have been more extensive. There are so many anecdotes about Benny I’d like to add, but this is, after all, a review not a sequel to the book! As many individuals try to be the first to shout “bravo!” at the end of a piece in classical music concerts (even after a terrible performance), all I can say is “Bravo!” Just sorry I could not have been among the first to do so, that my discovery of the book was so belated.

It seems only proper to close with Herrmann’s own words. One of the highlights of the book came at the end, the text of a speech he gave in 1973 as part of a symposium on the function of sound and music in film. Starting with the Greeks, he rendered his general philosophy about music and film, straightforward yet erudite. Here is a small part:

Some of the most sensitive directors are complete ignoramuses concerning the use of music in their own films, while sometimes an inferior director will have a great instinct for it. . . . Hitchcock generally was very sensitive about the use of music. He sometimes said to me, “I’m shooting this scene tomorrow. Can you come down to the set?” I’d come to the set and watch, and he’d say, “Are you planning to have music here?” I’d say, “Well, I think we should have it.” “Oh, good,” he would say, “then I’ll make the scene longer, because if you were not going to have music, then I would have to contract it.” Some directors are considerate about things like that. Hitchcock, at least, likes people to work with him through the shooting of a film. So do Welles and Truffaut. But there are many directors whom I never even met until the picture was completely shot. They’re not even interested enough to care. . . . I remember Hitchcock said to me, “Well, music will do better than words there.”

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