The music is big… it’s the PICTURES that got small.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” it’s an hour of music from television scores by composers better known for their work in film.
Bernard Herrmann began his film career right at the top, with “Citizen Kane” in 1941. He is perhaps best recognized for his scores for the films of Alfred Hitchcock, many of which have gone on to become classics, including those for “Vertigo,” “North by Northwest,” and especially “Psycho.”
Less well known is his work on the television series “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour,” which ran from 1963 to 1965. Herrmann composed music for 17 of the episodes. He was also responsible for suggesting Hitchcock’s signature tune, Charles Gounod’s “Funeral March of a Marionette,” which appears throughout the series in Herrmann’s own arrangement.
Jerome Moross, Herrmann’s friend since childhood, had also enjoyed his share of success on the silver screen. Moross is best-remembered for having written the score for “The Big Country.” Nobody wrote western music quite like Moross. So it’s hardly surprising he would be asked to contribute to twelve episodes of “Wagon Train.”
When someone noticed that the “Wagon Train” theme bore a striking resemblance to some of Moross’ music written for the film “The Jayhawkers,” two competing studios were kind enough to look the other way.
Unlike Moross and Herrmann, who were both well-known by the time they ventured into television, John Williams was still very much on his way up. Williams, then billed as “Johnny,” was active in the movies throughout the 1960s, but his film projects at the beginning were mostly undistinguished, with titles like “Daddy-O,” “Gidget Goes to Rome,” and “John Goldfarb, Please Come Home.”
Of course, he worked as a musician on more reputable projects, appearing as pianist on the soundtracks of “The Big Country,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Charade.” He also worked as an orchestrator on “The Guns of Navarone.”
But what provided much of Williams’ bread-and-butter throughout the ‘60s was his work on television series like “Checkmate,” “Gilligan’s Island,” and – for our purposes this week – “Lost in Space.” Happily, that “Williams sound,” so beloved by fans of “Stars Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “E.T.,” was already in place.
Finally, Jerry Goldsmith may have been a little bit ahead of Williams in the ‘60s, in terms of being offered more substantial films, but he too worked in television, providing scores for “Have Gun, Will Travel,” “The Twilight Zone,” and “Dr. Kildare.” We’ll conclude the hour with a medley of familiar Goldsmith television themes, with the composer conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.
You’re invited to think inside the box, as film composers write for television this week, on “Picture Perfect,” this Saturday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
