HERRMANN Citizen Kane. 1 Hangover Square: Suite; Concerto Macabre 2 Rumon Gamba, cond; 1 Orla Boylan (sop); 2 Martin Roscoe (pn); BBC PO • CHANDOS 10577 (77:31)

The Film Music of Bernard Herrmann - Hangover Square & Citizen Kane
Audio CD; Soundtrack
CHANDOS CHACONNE
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Hangover Square is an obscure mid-1940s film noir about a deranged composer who murders people when a certain dissonant sound or chord triggers a seizure. He then recovers and has complete amnesia of the event. In the final scene, the police track him to a concert hall where he is playing the premiere of his piano concerto. This is pretty silly stuff, and the score does not represent Bernard Herrmann at his best, but the film is a good vehicle for morbid Herrmannisms including some harmonic and thematic progressions that presage Vertigo . The more famous Concerto Macabre uses most of the significant music from the film arranged into an 11-minute piece that combines Lisztian and Rachmanninoff-like virtuosity infused with Herrmann’s characteristic sound, which instantly raises it above the schmaltzy mini-concertos that were popular at the time. It ends with the completely crazy composer banging out the final chords as the burning building collapses around him after the orchestral musicians have split the scene. Herrmannophiles will surely rejoice over the first recording of a 17-minute suite from Hangover Square . The Concerto Macabre is ably played by Martin Roscoe (piano) and Rumon Gamba (conductor) in “a performing version by Norma Shepherd, 1992, based on the manuscript sources for the film Hangover Square , incorporating the composer’s revisions for concert performance.” This is roughly equal to the Charles Gerhardt-led recording on the RCA Classic Film Score series in every aspect but the sound (which is admittedly important in any Herrmann recording).

With Citizen Kane , we go from the ridiculous to the sublime. Given the reputation of the film and its score, Citizen Kane has had surprisingly few recordings. The principal competition is a Varèse Sarabande version played by the Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Joel McNeely. Both contain about 50 minutes of essentially the same music. They are very good interpretations, but neither has truly exceptional sound. Chandos and Gamba are marginally preferable sonically to Varèse Sarabande, but their slightly dense and mushy sound still lacks the cutting clarity that would do full justice to Herrmann’s orchestral score. This music virtually cries out for the Decca-London Phase 4 treatment. Herrmann’s previous recordings of excerpts from Citizen Kane (on Decca Phase 4 and Unicorn) appear to be more incisive interpretively at least partially because of the more aggressive and detailed sound.

Orla Boylan (Chandos) and Janice Watson (Varèse Sarabande) are both overextended in the fiendishly difficult “Salammbô” aria. If forced to choose, I would go with Boylan’s slightly less abrasive voice and Gamba’s more dramatic conducting in the aria and elsewhere, but neither can remotely compare to the young Kiri Te Kanawa in Charles Gerhardt’s indispensable 14-minute suite on the same RCA Classic Film Score CD mentioned above.

In the final analysis, Gamba’s conducting and Chandos’s sound are marginally superior to McNeely/Varèse Sarabande, and the presence of the Hangover Square music seals the deal. Herrmannophiles will also clearly need to have Gerhardt’s amazing recording, even if RCA butchered its CD transfer. Now, we desperately need SACD versions of all of the RCA Classic Film Score series, and especially the recordings devoted to Korngold, Waxman, and Herrmann. Arthur Lintgen