Sale
16761 - Printed Books, Manuscripts, Music & Photographs, 24 Mar 2009
New Bond Street
Terms and conditions for this and all UK book sales can be found here.
Contents
Morning Session at 11:00am
General Books, Manuscripts and Photography Lots 1-54
Atlases, Maps and General Travel Lots 55-90
Continental Printed Books and Incunabula Lots 91-106
Art Lots 107-121
English Literature Lots 122-165
George Orwell Lots 166-189
Afternoon Session at 2pm
Music Lots 190-192
Bernard Hermann: Music and Film Lots 193-248
English Literature and Natural Sciences Lots 249-368
The Property of a Gentleman
 Pre-register to bid in the auction saleroom on the day in person
Lot No: 198
BERNARD HERRMANN
Music and Film: Scores, manuscripts and books sold on behalf of Norma Herrmann HERRMANN (BERNARD)
Autograph full score of his music for Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho, including the Murder in the Shower scene ('The Murder') and the 'Prelude', the first page signed and dated "Bernard Herrmann/ Jan 12 - Feb 12/ 60", written between January and February 1960 and reassembled by the composer in 1968 to form his concert suite Psycho: A Narrative for Orchestra, the present manuscript comprising:
Part I
(Cue 1) "1. 'Psycho' Prelude", incorporating "Flight": autograph manuscript of the first page of the original score in black ink, with paste-overs for bars 63-78, 109-110 and 129-131 (conclusion), timings in red ballpoint (up to one minute 57 seconds), later marked up for the suite in red felt-tip pen ("Pt I"), including suite revisions to the final three bars in red and blue felt-tip pen, 5 pages
(Cue 2) "2. The City": photocopy reworked in red ballpoint, plus timings in red ballpoint, paste-over autograph title (also originally reading "The City"), later marked-up for the suite in felt-tip pen, one page
(Cue 10) "10. The Rainstorm", incorporating "Flight", "Flight B", "Prelude", and "Flight": comprising a twice-repeated photocopy of the 'Prelude', paste-over titles (see note below), reworked in red ballpoint at bars 51-74, 93-96, and 209-216, adapted for the suite in red and blue felt-tip pen, 3 pages
Part II
(Cue 14) "14. The Madhouse": autograph manuscript of the original score in black ink, with paste-overs for bars 18-19, adapted for the suite in red felt-tip pen and inscribed on the blank recto "Psycho (Pt II)" and at the head "(Pt II)", one page
(Cue 17) "17. The Murder": autograph manuscript of the original score in black ink, adapted for the suite in blue felt-tip pen, 2 pages
(Cue 21) "21. The Water": autograph manuscript of the original score in black ink, with revisions (rests scraped out and replaced), timings in red ballpoint, 2 pages
in all 20 pages, on Ricordi music paper and photocopies thereof, partly taped together with some consequent discolouring affecting the edges and versos, 4to, mostly 12 January to 12 February 1960 [with further alterations made in 1968]
Estimate: £30,000 - 40,000
Request Condition Report
Footnote:
BERNARD HERRMANN'S MUSIC FOR ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S PSYCHO, INCLUDING THE MURDER IN THE SHOWER SCENE - 'PROBABLY THE MOST FAMOUS CUE IN FILM MUSIC' (Steven C. Smith, A Heart at Fire's Center, University of California Press, 1991, p.236).
This manuscript comprises the key elements of the original score of Herrmann's music for Psycho as reassembled by him for the concert suite Psycho: A Narrative for Orchestra in 1968. In putting together the suite, Herrmann extracted the selected pages, such as the 'Prelude' and 'The Murder', from the autograph full score - and with the 'Prelude' came the first page of the whole manuscript, the one bearing the imprimatur of his signature and the date of composition. The rest of the score - less our chosen highlights - is to be found among the composer's papers, now at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Santa Barbara remnant comprises: (Cue 3) I/3 Marion; (Cue 4) I/4 Marion and Sam; (Cue 5) II/1 Temptation; (Cue 6) III/1 Flight (A); (Cue 7) II/3 Patrol Car; (Cue 8) III/2 The Car Lot; (Cue 9) IV/2 The Package; (Cue 11) V/2 Hotel Room; (Cue 12) V/3 The Window; (Cue 13) V/4 The Parlor; (Cue 15) VI/3 The Peephole; (Cue 16) VII/1 The Bathroom; (Cue 18) VIII/1 The Body; (Cue 19) VIII/2 The Office; (Cue 20) VIII/3 The Curtain; (Cue 22) VIII/4 The Car; (Cue 23) VIII/5 The Cleanup; (Cue 24) IX/1 The Swamp; (Cue 25) VII/1 The Search; (Cue 26) X/1 The Shadow; (Cue 27) X/2 The Phone Booth; (Cue 28) XI/1 The Porch; (Cue 29) XI/2 The Stairs; (Cue 30) XI/3 The Knife; (Cue 31) V/4 The Search; (Cue 32) XII/1 The First Floor; (Cue 33) XIII/1 Cabin 10; (Cue 34) XIII/2 Cabin 1; (Cue 35) XIII/3 The Hill; (Cue 36) XIV/1 The Bedroom; (Cue 37) XIV/2 The Toys; (Cue 38) XIV/3 The Cellar; (Cue 39) XIV/4 Discovery; (Cue 40) XV/1 Finale (University of California, Santa Barbara, Library, Special Collections, Bernard Herrmann Papers, 1927-1977, PA Mss 3: we have inserted the generally used 1-40 cue-sequence for ease of reference, the Roman/Arabic cue-numbers have been taken verbatim from the Library's list; there also exists the Paramount Pictures Cue Sheet #19,752, dated 27 June and 1 July 1960, which breaks the score down into 60 timed cues, for full details of which see the Bernard Herrmann Society website).
The ten autograph pages of our manuscript - namely 'Prelude' (Cue 1), 'The Madhouse' (Cue 14), 'The Murder' (Cue 17), and 'The Water' (Cue 21) - clearly originally belonged to what Herrmann in 1960 intended to stand as the final fair-copy of his Psycho music, from which parts could be transcribed for performance, in other words with the material now at Santa Barbara. This is attested by the presence of his signature and date of composition at the head of the first page. Although Herrmann has evidently attempted to make these ten autograph pages as neat and clear as possible, as befits their function as master-text, they still nevertheless incorporate a number of revisions. The smaller alterations, mostly of rests and the like, he has made by carefully scraping out the old version and writing in the new. But in other places, most notably bars 63-78 of the first section, he has inserted the new music over the old by means of paste-overs (which makes it more than likely that the superseded version is recoverable). In paying such careful attention to the manuscript it could be said that Herrmann was very much following the scribal practice of previous generations of classical composers, of which he was a close student. Herrmann's music is scored for fourteen first violins, twelve second violins, ten violas, eight cellos and six bases, and these numbers have been entered in red crayon against each instrument at the start of our manuscript.
Half the pages - comprising 'The City' (Cue 2) and 'The Rainstorm' (Cue 10) - are however in photocopy, which Herrmann has then reworked in red ballpoint. The first assumption might be that these copies were made for the benefit of the suite. But this is clearly not the case. As Herrmann's correspondence with Charles Ives demonstrates, photocopying was an extremely useful working tool for twentieth century composers, before the advent of computer programs such as 'Sibelius'. A simple explanation for why these ten pages should be photocopied rather than manuscript is that they are repeat passages. Take 'The Rainstorm' (Cue 10). This consists of two repeats, with variations, of the opening 'Prelude'. Herrmann's use of photocopy at this point can be neatly illustrated by close examination of our score. On its first reappearance in photocopied form, at page 7, Herrmann has pasted over the original heading "(1) 'Psycho' Prelude", substituting in black ink on the paste-over "10 The Rainstorm". However the dated signature at the top-right does not appear in this photocopy. Either it was masked out or, rather more plausibly (seeing as the title has not been masked out either), it was not present in the original when photocopied; in other words the copy was taken before the score had been signed and dated. On its second appearance in photocopied form, at page 11, both "(1) 'Psycho' Prelude" and the dated signature appear at top-right and have been deleted by paste-overs. The photocopy, therefore, was made after Herrmann had signed and dated the score, and presumably represents some sort of second thought on his part (possibly reflecting the exigency of fitting music to film). The other photocopied section, 'The City' (Cue 2), is a section that was to be reprised as 'The Car Lot' (Cue 8) just before 'The Package' (Cue 9). The photocopy's cue number "R4/1" has been altered by Herrmann in manuscript to "R1/2" (there is no IV/1 at Santa Barbara).
The conclusion one comes to is that all the pages of this manuscript - both those notated by Herrmann himself in black ink and those passages present in photocopy - formed part of the original 1960 manuscript. Then there are the notated passages and markings in red crayon and red ballpoint pen on the photocopied pages. These appear to be also part of the original composing process, in other words to belong to the film music itself rather than having been added - as one might at first assume - when Herrmann was putting together the suite. The red crayon has been used to delete passages from the photocopy and the red ballpoint to do the rescoring. The most extensive passages of original notation in red ballpoint occur at bars 51 to 74 and bars 210 to 218 of the photocopied 'Rainstorm' section. What Herrmann is here doing is adapting each ending of the repeated 'Prelude' to give us the new 'Rainstorm'. He has deleted the now-redundant photocopied passages in red crayon and added the new bar numbers in the same black ink as in the original autograph 'Prelude'. In the same red ballpoint there have been entered, at various sections, tempo markings, dynamics and timings (for further details, see below).
And then there are the alterations Herrmann made when cannibalising the original manuscript in order to assemble the suite in 1968. These have been made in bold red and blue felt-tip pen, a writing-implement that became increasingly popular in the later 1960s (in other words in the interval between original score and suite). As one would expect, these later alterations mainly consist of deletions and indications - not always very clear - of what passage should lead where. He has also deleted the marks for mutes ("sords") at the opening in blue felt-tip. The suite has been divided into Parts I and II in red felt-tip.
Herrmann's music for Psycho and the Murder in the Shower in particular have been subjected to a great deal of analysis. Stephen Rebello, for example, in what has become the standard study of the film, assesses its overall impact: "For Psycho, Bernard Herrmann was to concoct nothing less than a cello and violin masterwork, 'black and white' music that throbbed sonorously as often as it gnawed at the nerve endings. The score would prove to be a summation of all of Herrmann's previous scores for Hitchcock films, conveying as it did the sense of the abyss that I the human psyche, dread, longing, regret - in short, the wellsprings of the Hitchcock universe" (Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of 'Psycho', paperback edition, 1998, p.139). While Herrmann's biographer, Steven C. Smith, provides us with a detailed account of the score's genesis: "Psycho was their collaborative masterwork, a film that, as Hitchcock admitted at the time, depended heavily on Herrmann's music for its tension and sense of pervading doom. It remains Herrmann's best-known score, unprecedented in its use of strings soli to match the texture of the cinematography, and featuring probably the most famous (and most imitated) cue in film music. At the time of its making, Psycho was hardly considered classic material. Based on a grisly novel by Robert Bloch, it included such sordid elements as mass murder, body snatching, and matricide... Paramount disliked the film, and after editing the final cut with George Tomasini in December 1959, Hitchcock too was disappointed. Fortunately, before recutting the film he screened it for Herrmann. 'Hitchcock...felt it didn't come off,' Herrmann recalled. 'He wanted to cut it down to an hour television show and get rid of it. I had an idea of what one could do with the film, so I said, "Why don't you go away for your Christmas holidays, and when you come back we'll record the score and see what you think."... "Well," he said, "do what you like, but only one thing I ask of you; please write nothing for the murder in the shower. That must be without music."' Herrmann's idea made cinema history. In thirty film scores he had used a wider, more successful diversity of orchestral combinations than any screen composer; but in limiting his Psycho score to strings alone, 'to complement the black-and-white photography of the film with a black-and-white score' (and to accommodate the budget restriction), Herrmann created his most audacious and brilliant challenge. 'In addition to the purely musical problem induced by a limitation of orchestral color,' wrote Fred Steiner in his study of the score 'Herrmann's selection of a string orchestra deprived him of many tried and true musical formulas and effects which, until that time, had been considered essential for suspense-horror films: cymbal rolls, timpani throbs, muted horn stings, shrieking clarinets, ominous trombones, and dozens of other staples in Hollywood's bag of chilly, scary musical tricks'" (Smith, op.cit., pp.236-7, quoting Steiner, 'Herrmann's "Black-and-White" Music for Hitchcock's "Psycho"', Filmmusic Notebook, Fall 1974, part 1, pp.31-32).
Obviously, for this suite, Herrmann made a selection of what were for him - and are for us - the most significant moments of his Psycho score, a distillation of the music overall. The opening itself - present here in Herrmann's signed and dated autograph and then twice repeated in photocopy form with autograph reworking - is in this respect crucial and is second in fame only to 'The Murder' itself: "After conceiving his orchestration, Herrmann devised ways of using it to tighten the film's deliberate pace. First came the credits sequence. 'In film studios and among filmmakers, there is a convention that the main title has to have cymbal crashes and be accompanied by a pop song - no matter what,' Herrmann said in 1973. 'The real function of a main title, of course, should be to set the pulse of what is going to follow. I wrote the main title to "Psycho" before Saul Bass even did the animation. They animated the music... After the main title, nothing much happens in the picture, apparently for 20 minutes or so. Appearances, of course, are deceiving, for in fact the drama starts immediately with the titles... I am firmly convinced, and so is Hitchcock, that after the main titles you know something terrible must happen. The main title sequence tells you so, and that is its function: to set the drama" (Smith, p.238).
And then, of course, the murder in the shower, and the shrieking violins that are widely recognized as having become etched into popular consciousness: "Few viewers have ever forgotten after seeing Psycho's much-analysed shower sequence, visually outlined by Saul Bass and requiring seventy-eight camera setups. But as Hitchcock realized after watching the scene in dubbing, its impact was not all he had hoped for with only Leigh's screams and the sound of running water on the soundtrack. Herrmann silently agreed and without Hitch's knowledge wrote Psycho's most celebrated cue, a 'return to pure ice water.' 'Many people have inquired how I achieved the sound effects behind the murder scene,' Herrmann said 'Violins did it!... It's just the strings doing something every violinist does all day long when he tunes up. The effect is as common as rocks.' Yet its usage was unique in film music, linked powerfully to Psycho's visuals: the violin bridge slashes relate not only to the stabbing motion of Bates's knife and Marion's cries, but also to the imagery of Bates's stuffed birds, which hover throughout the film's design (When asked for his own description of what the cue suggested, Herrmann chose one word: 'Terror.')" (Smith, p.239).
Our manuscript of the 'The Murder' bears the graphic markings - markings that have become famous, too, in their way - "Molto Forzando e Feroce" and "senza sordi" (i.e. without mutes, the only passage so marked in the whole score). Obviously, this section required the closest attention when fitting it to the film. Hitchcock told Truffaut that 'The Murder' took "seventy-eight cuts for forty-five seconds of film" (for full analysis, see Naremore's Filmguide, p.57). At this point our manuscript has been marked off into intervals of 3, 6, 7, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36, 39, 42, 45, 48, and 51 seconds. In 'The Water' they are marked off at intervals of 9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 1.03 and 1.12 seconds, with timings from the start of another sequence (presumably the preceding cue 'The Curtain') entered above each of them. The tempo marking for 'The Water', also in red ballpoint, is crochet = 80.
Herrmann conducted the first recording of the suite, Psycho: A Narrative for Orchestra, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Decca in 1968, as well as a version of the full score for the Unicorn label shortly before his death in 1975. The suite has since been re-recorded by Esa-Pekka Salonen with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and the full work by Joel McNeely with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
Included in the lot is a copy of A Filmguide to 'Psycho', 1973, inscribed by the author "For Bernard Herrmann, with deep respect, James Naremore".
Contact the Specialist to discuss this lot or selling in a future sale
Email: Luke Batterham
Tel: +44 (0) 207 468 8351
|
|