Of a similar way to what occurred with Alex North and his famous rejected score for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Várese Sarabande recovers the also mythical music that Bernard Herrmann composed for Torn Curtain (1966), his last collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock. The motives of such rejection are clearly outlined in the commentaries that accompany this issue, that includes the whole music that Herrmann achieved to compose (with the exception of two very brief cues of scarce seconds of duration) since he never got far beyond the bus scene (The Bus, the last cue of the disk). Available until now in a very wanted LP from Elmer Bernstein's Film Music Collection, the thirtyone cues included by Joel McNeely demonstrate until waht point was mistaken the British director with despising this work of obscure and dramatic tones in favor of the mostlight and sticky (but not negligible) score by John Addison; themes as the impressive Prelude that was accompanying the main titles or, in the limit of the curiosity, The Killing that was accompanying the brutal scene of the assassination in the farm (on which Hitchcock was not wishing any music), can be a good contact piece of how much it would improved the film. Recomendable, as it is the whole of this stupendous CD, it is to prove to superpose the music over a video copy of the movie...

TORN CURTAIN (1966)
National Philharmonic Orchestra - Conductor: Joel McNeely
VARESE SARABANDE VSD-5817 / 48'

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