After more than 10 years working exclusively for the 20th Century Fox, Bernard Herrmann entered for the first time in contact with Alfred HItchcock in 1955, which marked the beginning of a memorable collaboration that produced a good number of masterpieces. However, this common premiere was thanks to a movie that, on the paper, was radically far from the habitual postulates of both artists: The Trouble With Harry (1955) was a black comedy with a series of eccentric characters, a corpse, and a definitely autumnal atmosphere for which both Hitchcock as Herrmann (more oriented to dramatic films) seemed slightly inadequate. Far from it, The Trouble With Harry was not only one of Hitchcock's most delicious and original films, although its prestige is smaller, but rather it allowed to know a scarcely see facet of Herrmann, that of a composer able to create cheerful and sarcastic music, and to interrelate it with passages of an insulting beauty; only the Academy Award Winner and already distant The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) had shown such a facet, revealing that the versatility of Herrmann (on the other hand, broadly demonstrated in the concert hall) allowed him to maintain his high creative level in any gender type, something that only the big geniuses are able to do. A new jewel of Varése's collection, and a new demonstration of the ability as conductor of the composer Joel McNeely.

THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY (1955) - 42:48
Royal Scottish National Orchestra - Director: Joel McNeely
VARESE SARABANDE VSD-5971 / 43'

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