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DERIE
HERRMANN COULD NOT HAVE KNOWN
HOW PRESCI ENT H IS QUESTION
WOULD BE
—only four of Spielberg’s
movies do not carry the credit “Music
by John Williams.”
Two of the duo’s most cherished
projects,
E.T. e Extra-Terrestrial
and
Raiders of the Lost Ark
, will be shown at
Ravinia this season, with the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra supplying Wil-
liams’s music live—
E.T.
on August and
Raiders
on August . One of Herrmann’s
most critically acclaimed scores, that
accompanying Alfred Hitchcock’s
classic
Vertigo
(which recently unseated
Citizen Kane
atop the British Film In-
stitute’s list of the best lms of all time),
will be shown a couple weeks later, on
August , with the CSO again bringing
the score to life.
Despite their fateful meeting in De-
cember
, Spielberg and Herrmann
would never work together. e creator
of the music for
Citizen Kane
,
e Day
the Earth Stood Still
, and
Mysterious
Island
—and even the rst version of the
title theme for
e Twilight Zone
TV
series, as well as scores for multiple epi-
sodes—died of a heart attack in his sleep
only hours a er glaring at the young
director of the new movie
Jaws
.
In a sense, their meeting earlier that
day marked a metaphorical passing of
the baton from cinema’s greatest com-
poser/director team to that of the next
generation, and an arguably even greater
team at that.
Until their bitter falling out over the
political thriller
Torn Curtain
, Her-
rmann and Hitchcock had
made a magical marriage
of music and moving images. Herrmann
supplied the music for episodes of
e Alfred Hitchcock Hour
TV series and
scores for seven Hitchcock lms, includ-
ing the disorienting, chaotic title track
of
North by Northwest
, the rhythmi-
cally piercing strings of
Psycho
, and, of
course, the lush, ominous orchestrations
of
Vertigo
.
en the Soaring Sixties hit with
electric guitars and synthesizers.
Hitchcock, worried that Herrmann’s
traditional score to
Torn Curtain
sound-
ed outdated and old-fashioned, urged
the composer to come up with some-
thing more pop and jazzy. Herrmann
agreed, but simply created another
one of his “old-fashioned” scores, one
instantly scrapped by Hitchcock. e ri
between the two artists never mended.
eir relationship—the clash of the
titan egos—sharply contrasts with how
Spielberg and Williams have worked
together for years.
JULY 23 – AUGUST 5, 2018 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE
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