“Psycho” in the Cathedral, Part Three

For full context, please read Part 1 and Part 2.

Part Three

The Concert: A Few Words from Dorothy

After Psycho’s last note echoed through the great edifice and the applause subsided, Dorothy Herrmann approached the chancel: it was time for her to share some warm—and humorous—memories of her beloved dad.

Well, before I tell you this story, I’d like to thank all of you for coming tonight. I know that it would have meant a lot to my father. I don’t think he would have ever believed that such a nasty, morally corrupt piece of music would have been played in such [a] divine setting!

First of all, my father had reservations about Psycho from the beginning, and that had to do with the money that he was to receive for the score. Hitchcock wanted to make a movie very cheaply, and so he cut down on the budget. And one of the first things that his eagle eye looked at was the music budget. So he wanted to offer my father a car instead of his usual fee. And, as a matter of fact, I wish that my sister and I had been present at the negotiation because, believe you me, my father did need a new car. He had a 1941 Packard, which he [relegated] to his daughters. This is in 1960. And then he had another car, which was too precious for him ever to drive, so mostly we never went anywhere because we didn’t have any transportation.

My father, once, he took me to see Psycho, and this was his reaction after we came out—now I’m using a euphemism here—he said, “Wasn’t that the biggest piece of junk you ever saw in your life?” So, later, when it became a cult favorite, he said, “Oh my G__, it was a wonderful piece of music, a wonderful movie!” But believe you me, at the beginning, if he could have taken his name off the screen, he would have.

This isn’t to say that my father and Alfred Hitchcock did not enjoy a very fruitful collaboration. They did many scores together. Hitchcock was one of two directors who let my father have his way about the music. Now, usually a film composer is shown the completed score [sic; i.e., film], and he has to complete the score and put in the music to very specific timings, but in the case of Welles and Hitchcock, my father was allowed on the set, and they would discuss as they were filming a scene whether it should be expanded or contracted to satisfy the musical demands of that particular scene. And so Hitchcock, especially in Vertigo, he would say to my father, “Well, reel five is for you.”

So that was my recollections of my father and Psycho, and, again, thank you for coming out tonight. It’s a pleasure to see you all supporting his legacy. Thank you. (Dorothy Herrmann, spoken reminiscences, “Beyond Psycho,” Washington National Cathedral, 06.01.2019; https://www.wwfm.org/webcasts/2019-06-28/postclassical-presents-the-music-of-bernard-herrmann [26:14–29:46], accessed 08.30.2024.)

The Concert: Souvenirs de Voyage

In 1964 Herrmann and his second wife, Lucy Anderson, divorced. This, combined with a career slump, led Benny into a period of depression. During that time he wrote a piece for string quartet called Echoes. He said it was “a series of nostalgic emotional remembrances” (Smith, 264). It is a beautiful, wandering, melancholy piece of music in one movement.

Echoes was not a part of the concert, but a later similar work was featured: Souvenirs de Voyage (often erroneously referred to as Souvenir de Voyage), a concert piece for string quartet and solo clarinet, was written in 1967 and reflects a lift in Herrmann’s spirits. For one thing, he was romancing Norma Shepherd (nearly thirty years his junior!), who would become the third (and final) Mrs. Herrmann in November of that year.

Five members of the PostClassical Ensemble played Souvenirs. It’s a lovely, engaging work in three movements, inspired by poetry and art. It was Herrmann’s last concert work. After the piece concluded, it was time for intermission.

I took a few moments during intermission to speak to Dorothy again and express my appreciation for her words and for her father’s music. I told her how my mom had always talked about the first time she saw Psycho and how she could not believe the shower murder scene—spoiler alert!—that the main character was brutally and unexpectedly killed off, breaking all audience expectations. (“Well, if they’re going to kill off the main character this early in the film, anything could happen now!”) I recall that Dorothy replied, “Yes, it’s even more shocking because before it happens, she has repented and is planning to return the money she stole.” I hadn’t thought of that before!

The Concert: Norman Corwin/Bernard Herrmann: Whitman—A Radio Play

An historic moment: Norman Corwin’s

daughter, Diane (left), in conversation
with Bernard Herrmann’s daughter
Dorothy during intermission. June 1, 2019.

Herrmann’s entrance into the world of film-score composing could not have been more promising: he worked with a genius, Orson Welles, on what many have considered to be the greatest film ever made, Citizen Kane.[i] How was it that he was handed such an auspicious opportunity as his first film project?

It all goes back to Herrmann’s career in radio, which started in 1933 when he was hired as an assistant to CBS Radio’s arranger/conductor Johnny Green.

Radio, especially CBS, was the ideal place for Herrmann: an innovative communications medium where a single broadcast could make a career; where Herrmann could conduct, arrange, and program music with little concern for commerciality; and where music and drama were united in concert broadcasts, live plays, and poetry readings. “Within three weeks, Herrmann had the whole building on its ear,” Green recalled. “He was remaking the Columbia Broadcasting System, twiddling his hair, criticizing everything, and making himself a total nuisance. Soon I got called up to [division vice-president Lawrence] Lowman’s office, and he said, ‘Who is this madman you’ve inflicted on us? Can’t you contain him? If he’s so valuable to you, keep him in your unit!’ Benny was all over the place, and I idolized him.” (Smith, 44)

In 1938 Herrmann became the “composer-conductor of the new CBS drama series ‘The Mercury Theatre on the Air’” (Smith, 63). This meant he would be working shoulder-to-shoulder with a “brash, rebellious, brilliant and maddeningly young for his accomplishments” prodigy named Orson Welles (Smith, 63). In fact, remember how Welles scared the country to death with his War of the Worlds broadcast on October 30, 1938? Well, Benny was there, conducting the orchestra.

Orson Welles, left, and Bernard Herrmann, right, Oct. 30, 1938, “The War of the Worlds”

So when Welles was given a free hand to direct his first film, “there was no doubt who would score [it]. ‘Orson insisted I go [to Hollywood] despite my protests that I’d never worked on a movie before,’ Herrmann said in 1975” (Smith 72).

All of this, though important, is tangential to the focus of the concert. But I wanted to mention Benny’s background in radio because it directly correlates with the last work on the program, Norman Corwin/Bernard Herrmann: Whitman: A Radio Play.

When you started this (lengthy) article, it’s likely that the name “Bernard Herrmann” was unknown to you. And the name “Norman Corwin” is even more likely to be a mystery to you.

Ah, fleeting fame!

Norman Corwin was widely acclaimed as the greatest writer-director-producer of the Golden Age of Radio. In the 1930s, early in his career, he moved from print journalist to on-air radio announcer, quickly moving up to host his own show and catching the ear of CBS Vice President William B. Lewis, who hired him and relocated him to New York City—and the rest, to those who know the story of twentieth-century American radio, is history (“About Norman Corwin,” accessed 08.30.24).

Corwin’s productions, though sometimes humorous, were never “fluff.” His vision as carried out unquestionably elevated radio’s intellectual and aesthetic output. He brought modern poetry (“An American Trilogy,” featuring works from Sandburg, Whitman, and Wolfe [Smith, 115]) and dramatic storytelling (“The Moat Farm Murder”) to the airwaves. Politically progressive, he was a patriot who used his bully pulpit to demonstrate support for the US throughout World War II (“We Hold These Truths”) and for years beyond (“Our Lady of the Freedoms and Some of Her Friends,” broadcast in July 1997)[ii] (“Quote of the Week,” accessed 08.30.24).

Whitman: A Radio Play unites poetry and Americana. Let me quote from writer Steven Herrmann (not related to Benny) who summarizes the work quite well.

The radio play Whitman was broadcast in 1944 to counter anti-Axis propaganda and to inspire domestic support of World War II. Norman Corwin’s script selects lines from at least seven of Whitman’s finest works: “Song of Myself” (1855), “Salut Au Monde” (1856), “By Blue Ontario’s Shore” (1856), “Poets to Come” (1860), “Drum Taps” (1865), “One’s-Self I Sing” (1867), and “Years of the Modern” (1871). They were carefully chosen to position Whitman as a spokesman for American democracy. Whitman’s thoughts comforted families, mothers and loved ones. They expressed faith in our nation’s ability to triumph over any threat to democracy and the future of civilization. . . . Corwin’s use of Whitman as a wartime patriot on such a grand scale was unprecedented. (Steven Herrmann, “Walt Whitman, Norman Corwin & Democracy,” “Beyond Psycho” program notes, 2)

Corwin’s spoken program is indelibly enriched by Herrmann’s musical cues—the marriage of music and poetry transforms the work from possibly being denigrated as “hifalutin poetry” into a powerful emotional experience: “The music is scored for strings, harp, piano and percussion. The combination is hypnotic,” says PostClassical Ensemble Executive Director Joseph Horowitz, who also notes that the performance is a celebration of the centennial of Whitman’s birth (“Notes on the Program,” “Beyond Psycho,” 1–2).

And thus the evening ended, with narrator William Sharp quoting from Whitman’s “Years of the Modern,” accompanied by Herrmann’s emotive, uplifting score:

I see not America only—I see not only Liberty’s nation, but other nations preparing;

I see tremendous entrances and exits—I see new combinations—I see the solidarity of races;

I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world’s stage; . . .

I see Freedom, completely arm’d, and victorious, and very haughty, with Law on one side, and
      Peace on the other,

A stupendous Trio, all issuing forth against the idea of caste;

—What historic denouements are these we so rapidly approach?

I see men marching and countermarching by swift millions;

I see the frontiers and boundaries of the old aristocracies broken;

I see the landmarks of European kings removed; . . .

—Never were such sharp questions ask’d as this day;

Never was average man, his soul, more energetic, more like a God; . . .

His daring foot is on land and sea everywhere—he colonizes the Pacific, the archipelagoes;

With the steam-ship, the electric telegraph, the newspaper, the wholesale engines of war,

With these, and the world-spreading factories, he interlinks all geography, all lands;

—What whispers are these, O lands, running ahead of you, passing under the seas?

Are all nations communing? is there going to be but one heart to the globe?

Is humanity forming, en-masse?—for lo! tyrants tremble, crowns grow dim;

The earth, restive, confronts a new era!

Photos and text copyright 2024 by Steven Nyle Skaggs

If you would like to hear this live concert recorded in full, go to https://www.wwfm.org/webcasts/2019-06-28/postclassical-presents-the-music-of-bernard-herrmann.

I treasure this photo, which I was able to get right after the concert. That’s me with Wendy (Herrmann) Harlow, the younger daughter of Bernard and Louise (Fletcher) Herrmann.

Good night, all!

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[i] In recent years Kane’s place at the top of some lists has been usurped by Hitchcock’s Vertigo—which Herrmann also scored—and I saw one list that, oddly, put a different Hitchcock/Herrmann collaboration at the top: Psycho!

[ii] Yes, Corwin was still quite active in 1997—and beyond: “Norman Corwin continued to write in his later years and remained an active champion for the ideals he had always cherished. A proud and sometimes critical American, Norman Corwin stood firm in his convictions. He passed away at his home in Los Angeles on October 18, 2011. He was 101 years of age” (Author unknown, “Norman Corwin: A Biographical Sketch,” https://www.normancorwin.com/articles/about-norman-corwin/, accessed 08.30.24).