“By the Fireside” – Bernard Herrmann (1958) – music from the Alfred Hitchcock film “Vertigo”

“By the Fireside”

Composed and orchestrated by Bernard Herrmann.

Recorded in 1996 by a grouping of strings from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Joel McNeely, conductor.

The story:

I have shared stories of my misadventures attempting to watch movies in theaters as a child in other posts here at swingandbeyond.com. Fortunately, my parents did not have a lot of discretionary cash to waste by sending me to the movies in my childhood years. Consequently, I rarely entered movie theaters until I was about sixteen. Even then, going to the movies was not something I did very often.

But as I was progressing through my teen years in the 1960s, there were many movie shows on television, and I was soon under the spell of the old feature films that were shown on them. As I began watching films made in the period from the middle 1930s through the 1950s on television, I knew almost nothing about cinema. I gradually learned which actors I liked and the kinds of films I preferred. I had little appetite for westerns, or musicals. Although I was not even remotely discerning when it came to cinematic quality, I slowly cultivated my tastes, and came to a point where I could tell from reading the synopsis of a film in the TV Guide if the film described was going to be one that I might like. I’m sure that I watched many very bad movies in my growing-up years, but I was too callow to know why they were bad. Nevertheless, I knew that I liked movies.

While I was slowly forming my tastes in cinema, I confronted and readily embraced what in retrospect can only be called a golden opportunity to learn more about movies. The high school I attended started operation when I was a fourteen year-old freshman. The administrators of that school had decided to phase-in full operation over four years. As a result, I and my classmates were upper-classmen for four years, and never had to suffer the slings and arrows of being tormented by upper-classmen. In addition, for reasons that never seemed valid to me, this school separated the girl students from the boy students. The only time we would see the girls was at lunch, and very little mixing went on there, at least at first.

In my junior year, one of our teachers, in what I have been ever-grateful for over the many decades since this happened, organized a film club at my high school. The film club met every other week on Thursday at 7:00 p.m. at the school, and it was co-ed. How the films were chosen for our viewing and study was something I never asked about. I long-ago concluded that the teacher who ran the film club chose the films. His objective was to expose us to some classics of cinematic art, and some other films that he thought were worthwhile. Upon reflection, I was confused by many of the films, and the opinions I expressed about them in our post-film discussions were hilariously devoid of even the most basic understanding. Of course, I was not alone. Most of the other students were as clueless as I was. The teacher, with the patience that only the best teachers have, allowed us to express our opinions, then he would explain to us what we had missed, which invariably was a great deal. Slowly, we learned. (Above left: budding cinephile – Mike Zirpolo in 1968.)

The most memorable film I saw at film club was Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Before I saw that film for the first time, I knew nothing about it. Indeed, I did not even know of its existence. After I saw the film, I was only dimly aware of what was going on in it. I caught perhaps 25% of what was happening on the surface. I caught none of the subtext. To this day, I remember what happened when the teacher who ran the film club asked me after we had seen the film when we were together for discussion: “Mike, can you explain what was going on in that film”? My well-considered critical opinion was as follows: “Well, Kim Novak is a very …beautiful…woman.” That incited the boys in the group to hoot and laugh, and the girls to smile uneasily (cringe) as they rolled their eyes. The teacher immediately sensed that I had nothing valuable to offer to the discussion, and called on someone else.

I did not see Vertigo again for approximately 35 years. When I saw it then, I was a different person, and Vertigo was a different film, …to me. I will not go on at length here about the many themes in Vertigo – dozens of books have already been written about that, and I suspect that because of the timeless appeal of the film, many more will also be written. I will say however that major themes of the film include a stylish use of the Adam and Eve story, suffused with obsession. On top of that, Hitchcock layered duality and treachery, and ultimately doomed love, and death.

There are four stars in Vertigo: James Stewart as Scottie, Kim Novak as Madeleine/Judy, and mid-Twentieth Century San Francisco, as it’s hauntingly beautiful self. Cinematically, and in terms of character, they balance each other perfectly. The fourth star is the film’s magnificent musical score, created by Bernard Herrmann.

Kim Novak as Madeleine in Vertigo. She was indeed a very beautiful woman.

Bernard Herrmann:

I first became aware of Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975) as a result of his masterful score for Orson Welles’s 1941 cinematic masterpiece Citizen Kane. This happened when I saw Citizen Kane for the first time at the Trans-Lux 85th Street Theater in Manhattan in 1969. Showings of Citizen Kane near my home in Ohio were non-existent then, at least to my knowledge. As with Vertigo, this cinematic experience was basically a one-off, for it was again decades until I acquired a tape version of Citizen Kane, which included a book that explained the genesis of the Welles-Hermann relationship at CBS radio in New York in the late 1930s.

Herrmann’s creative partnership with Alfred Hitchcock began in 1955 on the film The Trouble with Harry, and continued through the next decade.(1)  Their collaboration on Vertigo is widely recognized as the apogee of their creative partnership. To say that Herrmann’s music in Vertigo enhances the overall cinematic experience one has when watching the film would be an understatement. (At right: Bernard Herrmann in the 1940s.)

Many in-depth musicological and critical studies have been written to examine and explicate how Herrmann’s score for Vertigo plays a crucial role in the articulation and development of the film’s narrative and characters, and how it adds greatly to the emotional impact of many scenes. My focus in this post is basically one scene in the film: the one in Scottie’s home at 900 Lombard Street, after he has rescued Madeleine, who in the early evening had jumped into San Francisco Bay from a break wall at (Old) Fort Point beneath the Golden Gate Bridge.

The scene: 

Filming for Vertigo began in San Francisco on September 30, 1957. The cast and crew then filmed there for sixteen days without an off-day. (2) The relatively low angle of the sun at that time of year provided many outdoor scenes with a haunting, evocative autumnal quality. The remaining production of the film took place at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles from October 16 to December 19, 1957.

The scene that appears in the film between Scottie and Madeleine in his bedroom and living room is one of the most intimate in American cinema. Identified in the film’s production documents as “scene 151,” it was filmed on November 30 – December 1, 1957 on a sound stage at Paramount. But that was not the first attempt to capture it. That took place on October 16, but several timing and other technical problems prevented Hitchcock from getting exactly what he wanted then.

Set designer Henry Bumstead was responsible for creating the interior of Scottie’s home. Here is how that process played out: “…(T)here were a few specific requests from Hitchcock. … (H)e asked that Coit Tower appear outside Scottie’s large (living room) window, despite the fact that the actual tower was down the street, …and the window in question appears to face the wrong direction. Hitchcock revealed to Bumstead his purposes: ‘I was in Hitch’s office and he asked me if I knew why he wanted Coit Tower outside (Scottie’s) window. I confessed that I didn’t. He smiled and said, ‘Coit Tower is a phallic symbol.'”(3)

Filming for the scene began at 9:45 a.m. on October 16. The scene begins as Scottie is putting a log onto the fire in his living room fireplace. The living room is nicely appointed and cozy. Darkness has descended outside.  A long pan shot reveals the living room with its large window, and a doorway into a small kitchen. On a broomstick between kitchen cabinets we see Madeleine’s wet clothing hanging, drying. Then we see the open door to the bedroom framing Scottie’s bed. Madeleine, seemingly unconscious, is in Scottie’s bed in the prone position. She is covered by a sheet and a blanket. What is suggested by this sequence is that Scottie had removed Madeleine’s soaked clothing, and then put her nude body into his bed. Madeleine, still apparently not awake, murmurs something.

Alfred Hitchcock enjoys directing Kim Novak in the bedroom scene in the film Vertigo.

Madeleine is then “awakened” by the ringing of Scottie’s bedside phone, which he enters the bedroom and answers. She looks at him with a confused, questioning expression on her face. He reassures her in a kindly way, and offers her his red polka dot robe to put on, then he leaves the bedroom, closing the door on the way out.

Madeleine comes out of the bedroom with just the red robe on, and enters the living room: it is as if an apparition is occurring. She asks Scottie why she is there, and their conversation, a gentle game of cat-and-mouse, begins. But who is the cat, and who is the mouse? This duality is a recurring theme throughout almost the entire film. But in this scene, it plays out in the most subtle, intimate way. Scottie, understandably, is fascinated by the lovely young woman in his living room at fireside wearing only his robe. The infatuation he has had with Madeleine since he first saw her in Ernie’s restaurant,  which has increased as he followed her about San Francisco in his car over the previous couple of days, is growing. Indeed, it is very near to tipping over into obsession. Hitchcock, to make sure the audience gets the point, shows Scottie standing and walking in front of his living room window, with Coit Tower visible in the distance. Behind Madeleine in the fireplace, the flames become larger. The tender game of thrust and parry continues until the phone rings again, just as Scottie and Madeleine’s hands touch as they both reach for her coffee cup. The magic spell is broken as Scottie gets up from his couch to answer the phone.

Who is the cat, and who is the mouse?

The music:

The music presented with this post, the sequence Bernard Herrmann composed and arranged for the scenes in the film Vertigo discussed above, is a great example of a master film-maker, Alfred Hitchcock, allowing a master composer to use his skills and talents to create music that enhances, indeed, elevates what is going on on the screen. On the surface, what is going on between Scottie and Madeleine is soft, gentle and quiet, indeed intimate, exactly the same as Herrmann’s music. But just below the surface, emotions are intense.

Here is a technical description of “By the Fireside” provided by my musical guru, Dennis Roden. I gave him no information about this music: he listened carefully and gave me his impressions:

“This music could give you vertigo if you have trouble listening too long without a resolution. (Pun intended.) It is definitely melodic in a meandering way, searching for a resolution. Many very interesting harmonic motions, from the opening 2 chord sequence, to some modal sounds – Lydian and Dorian, and the changing harmonies over the rising chromatic bass in the middle, finally resolving to D major at the end for just a moment, before ending with same dissonance it starts with, although now in a new key.”

The key idea in both Hitchcock’s film sequence, and Hermann’s music, is that despite the warmth and intimacy of these scenes, there is no resolution as between Scottie and Madeleine. In fact, their relationship is more confused and troubled after these scenes than before. The cozy living room/fireside scene ends – “with the same dissonances it starts with, although now in a new key.”  The Hitchcock-Herrmann collaboration, along with all of the other brilliant cinematic touches that make up these scenes, are great examples of film-making at its creative pinnacle.

Recording Herrmann’s music for Vertigo:

Bernard Herrmann composed and arranged the music for Vertigo between January 3 and February 19, 1958. Due to a strike by the musicians’ union in Los Angeles in 1958, which lasted from February 20 to July 20, 1958, Herrmann’s score could not be recorded there. The Scotsman Muir Mathieson, a renowned conductor of film scores in London, was hired to record Herrmann’s music with the London Symphony Orchestra. He did record almost half of it in early March, but then the musicians in London went on strike in support of their Los Angeles brothers and sisters, forcing Hitchcock and the producers of Vertigo to seek yet another conductor and orchestra to finish recording the film score. The balance of the score was recorded in Vienna at sessions that started on March 14 and ended on March 18. (4)

Conductor Joel McNeely and some of the string players from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Despite the events described above, the music on the sound track of Vertigo sounds very good. Nevertheless, it was not until 1996, and the superb performance and recording by Joel McNeely and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, that Bernard Herrmann’s score for Vertigo was finally captured in its full magnificence.

The recording presented with this post was digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.

Notes and links.

(1) Here is a list of the films Bernard Herrmann worked on with Alfred Hitchcock.

• The Trouble with Harry (1955) – composer
• The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) — cast: Conductor/Himself (uncredited)
• The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) – composer
• The Wrong Man (1956) – composer
• Vertigo (1958) – composer
• North by Northwest (1959) – composer
• Psycho (1960) – composer
• The Birds (1963) – as consultant
• Marnie (1964) – composer

Herrmann also provided music for the television show The  Alfred Hitchcock Hour in the early 1960s.

(2) Vertigo …The Making of a Hitchcock Classic, by Dan Auiler (1998), 95. Hereafter Auiler.

(3) Auiler, 100.

(4) Auiler, 143-143.