In recent years, Intrada Records have used Kickstarter to fund their re-recording projects. This year, they have teamed up again with composer/conductor William Stromberg who, in the 1990s, pioneered re-recording classic film scores from start to finish. The goal of this Kickstarter project was to record two Bernard Herrmann scores, ‘On Dangerous Ground’ and ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’. For both scores, it is the first time since the 1950s that they have been recorded in their entirety, so I am lucky to be one of only a handful of people who have heard them played live since that time.
On the first day of recording, the team started with the Prelude from ‘On Dangerous Ground’. I had only heard this piece a couple of days before. I was more familiar with ‘The Death Hunt,’ which is a piece from the film that a lot of people know of because of numerous performances and recordings. ‘The Death Hunt’ is written in a typical Bernard Herrmann style with lots of repetitive rhythms played by a huge orchestra.
The first run-though of the Prelude blew us all away! And it gave us some idea of the standard of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO). The first run-through was not recorded, it was just used to acquaint the orchestra with the music. However, it was obvious that they knew the piece very well. By the time we started recording, it was as if they’d been playing it for years.
(Bill Stromberg talking with Doug Fake and Mike Ross-Trevor.)
Cues were be recorded in full, and sometimes they would be recorded again in sections so that they could be edited together, if necessary, by Mike Ross-Trevor, who oversaw recording. Anna Stromberg, An orchestrator and Bill's wife, and I were sitting behind Bill, and we had the scores in front of us, as well as a crib sheet with approximate timings as to how long each cue should last. Although Bill wasn't conducting ‘to picture’, he wanted to try and be as close to the original film tempos as possible to be faithful to what Herrmann would have wanted. When it comes to Hermann’s original conception of the music, the Prelude contained a section that was cut from the original soundtrack recording; this coda was re-inserted in this new recording. I think this will be the first time anyone will have heard that section, and you will hear it on this new album.
There were many people who had input into the recordings, not only Doug Fake in the control room, but also Anna and Bill’s colleague and friend John Morgan who was watching the livestream and was texting Anna with suggestions. I presume he also had the score in front of him. With the Prelude, I suggested to Bill that maybe the run-through was a little bit too fast because Hermann, as a conductor, was notorious for conducting slowly, at almost half the tempo the pieces were written. Bill agreed and conducted it at a little slower. Afterwards, Doug Fake came through on the intercom and said that it was perfect.
After lunch we started on ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’. For this score, we recorded all of Herrmann’s original music for the film, plus the VistaVision title music written by Nathan Van Cleave. This piece requires lots of brass and percussion; 6 trumpets, 6 trombones, 2 tubas, 9 horns, and 9 percussion players. Tam Tam and crash cymbals were used because they are an integral part of the story. This brilliant fanfare blew everyone away! It's not often that you hear very short pieces of music played at full blast by a live orchestra because they are just meant to be heard on film soundtracks. We recorded both versions of the opening title music, but only one was used in the film.
Spoiler alert, for those who aren't familiar with ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ there is the famous concert scene filmed in the Albert Hall in which the composer, Bernard Herrmann, has a cameo. He was conducting the London Symphony Orchestra performing a piece that wasn't recorded for this album because wasn’t by him. This piece was written by Arthur Benjamin and called ‘Storm Clouds Cantata’ composed for the original film in the 1930s. The scene depicts an assassination attempt on the prime minister of a fictional country who is attending the concert. The music is part of the plot there is a crescendo, when the cymbals crash together, meant to mask the sound of the assassin’s gun going off.
On the second day of recording, we had a smaller orchestra, and this is when we recorded the viola d’amore solos from ‘On Dangerous Ground’. For those of you who don't know what that a viola d’amore is, it’s an early Baroque string instrument. Herrmann wrote several solos for the film for this instrument with, orchestral accompaniment. We also recorded some small pieced from ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’, such as the three, so called, ‘Arab Trios’ using only three players: a harpist, a violinist, and a clarinettist. The ‘Arab Trios’ are source music that was played in the background during the sequences in Marrakesh. These were the last pieces that were recorded.
It was great sitting with Anna, behind Bill; you could say it was like being at one of the best concerts ever! Yes, it was a recording session where you're not allowed to clap and you expect the orchestra to make mistakes and keep stopping and starting, but it was a wonderful experience. It's not every day that you hear these full scores performed from start to finish. For highlights of these recording sessions see the Kickstarter page.
Acknowledgements:
Thank you to Bill Stromberg who was kind enough to obtain a pass for me. Thank you to Anna Stromberg, Paul Talkington, the Intrada team, and people at the studio for their kind hospitality. And a huge “well done” to the RSNO!!!
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