Intrada Soundtrack Forum

I was given this new recording by my daughter for my birthday. I don't know where she acquired it but it is an incredible album recorded live by John Mauceri and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and runs for a whopping 81 mins.
It is called simply "Music for Alfred Hitchcock" and is on a label called Toccata Classics and includes some first recordings notably Bernard Herrmans' "The Man Who Knew Too Much" concert overture and his arrangement of Arthur Benjamins' Storm Clouds Cantata used in the finale of the film.
Other gems include new concert arrangements of DimitriTiomkins' "Strangers on a Train" and "Dial M for Murder", Franz Waxmans' "Rebecca" and "Rear Window". Bernard Herrmann is further represented by "Vertigo", "North by Northwest" and "Psycho".
The album concludes with Danny Elfmans' end titles for "Hitchcock"
Even if you think you've heard some of this before check out this album, the recording is simply stunning.

I bought this album last year on the "eClassical" site. The recordings are quite engaging, particularly the Strangers on a Train and Dial M for Murder suites.

Just want to add an extra point here. The CD comes with a 20 page booklet which is quite informative but there is one 'howler'. In the notes about Tiomkin the author writes that he won his first two oscars for the score and song from "Shane"!!!! We all know of course that it was for "High Noon"

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"He who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at once." - Robert Browning

"As long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning." - Aaron Copland

The CD is a bit...overzealous...in calling things 'first recordings' because Mauceri did some unexplained "editing" of the scores. Usually 'editing' in this context means fixing up wrong notes, changing dynamics, etc etc -- stuff that doesn't really actually change the arrangement,