In keeping with our tradition of film-concerts, we're leaving our beloved Chaplin behind to attend a performance of Psycho, by the master Alfred Hitchcock; the legendary score will be performed live by our friends from the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. An evening of haunting suspense, thanks in no small part to the musical genius of Bernard Herrmann.
Bernard Herrmann's music for Psycho, one of the master of suspense's darkest and most frightening films, with the disturbing figure of a deranged young man superbly played by Anthony Perkins, is guaranteed to send shivers down the spine. For this fourth collaboration with the great Hitch, the composer had been given carte blanche but had a limited budget that prevented him from using a symphony orchestra. In the end, this constraint paid off, as the choice of strings alone was perfectly suited to the black-and-white images, particularly in the ‘shower scene’ that became so famous thanks to Bernard Herrmann's strident music accompanying the murderer's fatal gesture. Herrmann revolutionised film music with his dissonant harmonies, ostinatos, minimalism and harmonic structures, distancing himself from the romanticism that was rife in Hollywood at the time.
