The Mysterious Film World of Bernard Herrmann

The Mysterious Film World of Bernard Herrmann

Cover and record have normal wear and tear for the age. Both graded VG.

The Mysterious Film World of Bernard Herrmann Review by Bruce Eder
This album was recorded by the composer early in 1975 and has proved to be one of the more enduring parts of Bernard Herrmann's catalog, a steady seller on LP, and issued several times on CD, including an audiophile version from Mobile Fidelity. During the early to mid-'70s, Herrmann began re-recording many of his earlier scores at Kingsway Hall in London with the National Philharmonic Orchestra. The sound glitters, some of the brightest and richest audio of its period (attested to by the album's being part of Decca/London Phase 4 Stereo), and the performances have a dignity and intensity that makes the music -- drawn from the key parts of Herrmann's scores for the Ray Harryhausen-created fantasy films The Three Worlds of Gulliver, Mysterious Island, and Jason and the Argonauts -- seem even more serious and profound than it originally did. Herrmann tends to take the tempos slower than he did in the original scores, which gives him and the players a chance to open up the detail and nuances in the music, bringing out their surprising depth and complexity. What's more, the players sound like they're having the time of their lives playing it.