A Masterpiece for a Masterpiece

It's a bit strange that a film score aficionado like myself didn't have the music from Psycho in his collection. It's an omission I recently decided I had to rectify.

On the other hand, perhaps it was not that strange an omission, as I'm also a purist for original recordings. (This was a lesson learned back before complete albums for the Star Wars trilogy were finally released. Some of the unofficial albums that offered a track you couldn't get anywhere else unfortunately also featured re-recordings that sounded nothing like the versions in the movies themselves.) The problem is, the original tracks for Psycho simply don't exist. My options were re-record or nothing. "Nothing" finally reached the point where it seemed the worse of two evils. I figured at least that being one of the most revered film scores of all time, any re-recording of the music would be carried out faithfully.

Bernard Herrmann composed for many Alfred Hitchcock films, but his Psycho score is legendary. With the film on a tight budget (being financed by Hitchcock himself), Herrmann didn't have as much money for his orchestra as he was used to. His response was to ditch most of the orchestra and compose only for the string section -- violin, viola, cello, and bass. One great triumph of the score is how much Herrmann squeezes out of this limited ensemble, how many different ways he uses the versatile instruments. Melody isn't just reserved for the violin section; viola and cello get to carry it at times as well. Players use broad, slow strokes and swift, sharp ones. Strings are plucked with the fingers and all but stabbed with the bow. Much of the music is played with mutes on the instruments, swallowing up any reverberation in the sound; this in turn makes the few unmuted moments leap from the speakers.

Psycho is such a celebrated score, with so much scholarly commentary written about it, that there's likely nothing I can say here that hasn't been said somewhere before. But I can at least point to what about it stands out for me.

The first half of the score establishes three different tones, with three different themes. First, there's a manic melody used for "Flight," "Patrol Car, and "The Rainstorm." With swirling violins over dark bass notes, this music represents fear in the film -- sheer, animal panic to run like hell. It's thus quite appropriate that this is the music that plays with the opening credits, in "Prelude," winding up the audience right out of the gate.

The second motif is a sultry, seductive one. It represents the character of Marion Crane in the few moments she feels fully in control.

The third motive is a blend of the two, keeping the slow pace of the Marion music, but introducing some of the movement from the "Flight" music. The strings aren't taking off at a run, but neither are they fully settled. There's a deliberate slowness to it that ratchets up the tension, and it's used to great effect as the plot unfolds, in tracks like "Temptation" and "Hotel Room."

As Norman Bates finally enters the story, a fourth sound begins to emerge. At first, it's a small variation on the seductive Marion music, though underpinned by darker, fuller bass notes. But through tracks like "The Peephole," the theme continues to develop.

Then comes probably the most famous piece of music in the history of film, "The Murder." Often referenced, memorable even out of context, what makes it work so great in context is how different it is from everything that has come before. Just as audiences of the time were completely unprepared for the death of the film's apparent heroine, nothing in the score foreshadows this sudden screeching of strings like attacking birds. Famously, Hitchcock had not planned to have music in the scene at all, but he changed his mind in the editing room after hearing Herrmann's composition.

Cleverly, it's after the murder that the score begins to use tremolo strings for the first time. After a scene like that, anything could happen, and so even the notes themselves are less certain now. In the immediate aftermath of the murder, the bass and cello parts begin to move around as the violin and viola parts did when representing Marion earlier. It seems the walls are closing in on him as they once did on her.

But then things slow down instead. A lot. Some of the material in the back half of the movie, Herrmann is said to have cribbed from one of his earlier scores for a non-Hitchcock film. In any case, it's the most controlled, deliberate music of the entire film, running quite counter to the threat that events at the Bates Motel might be brought to light. I think this unexpected stability suggests in a subtle way that someone might actually get away with murder, which helps pull the audience in two directions at once.

I haven't found many older films I'm fond of, but Psycho is definitely one of them. And the score is one of the best things about it. It has held up more than 50 years, even to countless people playfully screaming "reee! reee! reee! reee!" as they stab the air with imaginary knives. It's an absolute grade A example of film composing, and I'm glad to finally have it in my collection.