Herrmann: Symphony No. 1 / Schuman: New England Triptych

Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975) was one of America's greatest composers of film scores. Most notably, he wrote scores for many of the great Alfred Hitchcock films--Psycho, Vertigo, Torn Curtain, and North by Northwest. He always wanted to write music that had its own visual character, that could stand apart from any film. Which it does. Here, in his Symphony 1, he has taken all his film-score talent and put it to good use in a symphonic work. Herrmann was influenced by the generation of American composers of the '30s, particularly Copland, as well as William Schuman. Schuman's New England Triptych is already a classic. --Paul Cook