Bernard Herrmann - Other Works

Other Works

From the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, Herrmann scored a series of notable mythically-themed fantasy films, including Journey to the Center of the Earth and the Ray Harryhausen Dynamation epics Jason and the Argonauts, Mysterious Island, The Three Worlds of Gulliver, and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad .

During the same period, Herrmann turned his talents to writing scores for television shows. Perhaps most notably, he wrote the scores for several well-known episodes of the original Twilight Zone series, including the lesser known theme used during the series' first season, as well as the opening theme to Have Gun–Will Travel.

In the mid-1960s he composed the highly-regarded music score for François Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451. Scored for strings, two harps, vibraphone, xylophone and glockenspiel, Herrmann's score created a driving, neurotic mood that perfectly suited the film. It also had a direct influence on producer George Martin's staccato string arrangement for Beatles 1966 smash hit single "Eleanor Rigby".

In 1967, he married his third wife, Norma Shepherd.

Herrmann's last film scores included Sisters and Obsession for Brian De Palma. His final film soundtrack, and the last work he completed before his death, was his sombre score for the 1976 film Taxi Driver, directed by Martin Scorsese. It was De Palma who had suggested to Scorsese to use the composer. Immediately after finishing the recording of the Taxi Driver soundtrack on December 23, 1975, Herrmann viewed the rough cut of what was to be his next film assignment, Larry Cohen's God Told Me To, and dined with Cohen, after which he returned to his hotel for the night. Bernard Herrmann died from cardiovascular disease in his sleep at his hotel in Los Angeles, during the night. Scorsese and Cohen dedicated both Taxi Driver and God Told Me To to Herrmann's memory.

As well as his many film scores, Herrmann wrote several concert pieces, including a symphony in 1941; the opera Wuthering Heights; the cantata Moby Dick (1938), dedicated to Charles Ives; and For the Fallen, a tribute to the soldiers who died in battle in World War II, among others. He recorded all these compositions, and several others, for the Unicorn label during his last years in London.