Marnie: Original Motion Picture Score [Soundtrack]

Bernard Herrmann | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 15, 2000)
• Original Release Date: August 15, 2000
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Label: Varese Sarabande
• ASIN: B00004VW31
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #185,787 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Prelude

2. Marnie

3. Forio

4. Red Flowers

5. Flashback I

6. The Bowl

7. The Safe

8. The Drawer

9. Mark's Office

10. The Storm

11. The Stranger

12. The Paddock

13. The Homestead

14. Romance

15. Encounter

16. The Porch

17. The Checkbook

18. The Bridal Suite

19. The Cabin

20. Love Scene

See all 41 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Herrmann's final complete Hitchcock score, August 17, 2000

By 

Daniel Trachtenberg (Searingtown, New York USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marnie: Original Motion Picture Score (Audio CD)

I have awaited the release of a complete score for Marnie for the longest time. The movie itself, released in 1964, was originally considered a bomb. I have learned that this was to be Grace Kelly's return to films, but when that failed to pan out, Hitch turned to Tippi Hedren instead. Hitch's famous break with Hedren left him to give up on the movie, and some say it shows in the production values. This movie has since earned the respect and admiration of many. Certainly, it has become one of the most debated of Hitch's later films.

As for the score, rarely have I heard a Herrmann score I didn't like. This score, to me, stands out as being even more emotionally driven than his others, which with Herrmann, you wouldn't think possible. In some ways, it reminds me of his work for Vertigo, but in a more concise, fine-tuned form. As with all Varese Sarabande re-issues or re-recordings of scores, this one is top quality. The sound quality is great, and long time Herrmann conductor Joel McNeely keeps faithful to the original, so much so that it is hard to tell the difference. Bravo!

Now where's The Man who knew too much and The Wrong Man?

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Herrmann completely mesmerizes us with theme variations", March 24, 2001

By 

J. Lovins "Mr. Jim" (Missouri-USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Marnie: Original Motion Picture Score (Audio CD)

Often compared to "Vertigo", the score for "Marnie" is really very different. I would pair them up (not to be sold separately) as compansion scores, Herrmann completely mesmerizes us with his themes, blending variations with eloquent and subtle cues, depicting each character in the film. "Marnie" is more emotionally driven than "Vertigo", and fine tuned to the story-line. Herrmann was a genius and knew his craft well.

Herrmann's "Marnie" relies heavily on strings, usually with lyrical solos for the winds. This re-recording of the award-winning Royal Scottish National Orchestra, under the direction of Joel McNeely, is truly an major event - the absolute in capturing the essence of the Original Motion Picture Score.

Outstanding release from - Robert Townson (producer), Jonathan Allen (recording engineer), Richard Hale (asst engineer), Bruce Botnick (mastering engineer) and Varese Sarabande, everyone concerned put together another classic film score which has become a cult favorite among movie and music collectors alike.

Also available on Varese Sarabande - other works by our favorite composer Bernard Herrmann - "Bernard Herrmann At Fox Vol. 1" (302 066 052 2), "Bernard Herrmann At Fox, Vol. 2" (302 066 053 2), "Citizen Kane" (302 065 806 2) "Fahrenheit 451" (VSD-5551), "The Ghost And Mrs. Muir" (original soundtrack/VSD-5850), "The Ghost And Mrs. Muir" (score/VSD-47254), "Journey To The Center Of The Earth" (VSD-5849) "North By Northwest" (VSD-47205), "Psycho" (VSD-5765), "The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad" (VSD-5961) "Trouble With Harry" (VSD-5971)"Torn Curtain" (unused score/VSD-5817) and "The Twilight Zone (TV) (302 066 087 2)...from our favorite composer, legendary icon - BERNARD HERRMANN!

Total Time: 50:39 on 41 Tracks...Varese Sarabande 302 066 094 2...(2000)

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dark and Evocative - A Perfect Interpretation, November 27, 2004

By 

Interplanetary Funksmanship "Swift lippin', e... (Vanilla Suburbs, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marnie: Original Motion Picture Score (Audio CD)

In just four short years, Alfred Hitchcock went from being a cutting-edge genius of cinema to an old-fasioned has-been who lost touch with his audience. Or, so it would seem: The director of the brutal and gothic "Psycho" forged a shocker that immediately grabbed viewers by the jugular and never let go; "Marnie," though, was a more elusive movie. It was the "last of an era" Hitchcock movie, a Cinderella fable gone tragically awry.

Bernard Herrmann's scores for these two movies likewise receive credit and blame: His avant-garde polytonal string score for "Psycho" seemed terribly modern, even though it was mostly reworked from an earlier Herrmann composition, Sinfionetta for Strings (1936). His score for "Marnie," though heavily reliant upon a rich string ensemble, was less brutal and more lush. Most of the score is built around three themes, the opening theme predominates. First announced on strings, the themes echo fleetingly on woodwinds and French horns in a tapestry of orchestral color.

As Hitchcock's linear narrative, use of painted backdrops and upper-crust social settings seemed faintly British (the novel "Marnie" was penned by English author Winston Graham, and Hitch transplanted the story to Philadelphia, Baltimore and the Virginia Hunt Country), Herrmann (who was himself a lifelong Anglophile) provided an aural companion to the onscreen action: There are hints of Elgar, Arthur Benjamin and Vaughan Williams in the score, and although the score to "Marnie" is often compared to the score Herrmann wrote for "Vertigo," the movie as a whole has a feel more akin to "Rebecca" or "Suspicion," particularly through Herrmann's robust music during the hunt scene.

Because "Marnie" flopped at the box office, many blamed Herrmann's old-fashioned score. In just four years, he too went from being avant-garde to regarded as horribly un-hip. Soundtracks by 1964 relied less and less on orchestral scoring and more and more on inserting pop as background music to the action onscreen.

Time does have a funny way, though, of changing people's perspective, and ironically "Marnie" is regarded as ahead of its time, and Herrmann's score to it as one of his greatest.

May the Saints bless conductor Joel McNeely for taking on the yeoman's task of recording Herrmann's major scores and bestowing his scholarly knowledge of Herrmann's music and TLC in orchestral phrasing in his performances. While I did not warm up to his recording of "Vertigo" (Muir Mathieson's soundtrack sits too powerfully in my mind's ear) as readily, I believe McNeely really hit the mark with "Marnie." His reading is darkly dramatic and nuanced, but he never loses sight of the overall line and tone of the music. It is as Herrmannesque as any of Elmer Bernstein's superb recordings.