Herrmann: Moby Dick - Sinfonietta

Herrmann, born in NY, 1911 to Russian immigrants is best known today as a composer of film music. He worked with Hitchcock on North by Northwest, Vertigo, & Psycho, Welles's for Citizen Kane & Scorsese's Taxi Driver. During his years as conductor & composer with the CBS Symphony Orchestra, Herrmann found the inspiration for Moby Dick A Cantata. Initially intended to be an opera, but the stage was not an ideal medium for a musical version of Moby Dick and a purely orchestral work could not make use of Melville's prose. A successful compromise was the cantata form, and Herrmann completed the work in 1938. Premiered by Barbirolli & the NY Philharmonic on April 11, 1940, who described the work as 'the most important work that he had heard from a young American composer'.