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Volume 2 this is a three-in-one album covering the composer's years working under the legendary Alfred Newman at Fox Studios.
Tender Is The Night comes first, and with it all the tragedy of ill-fated passion that Herrmann could muster. In places, his similarly tragic-romantic material from
Vertigo and
The Ghost And Mrs Muir can be detected (e.g."The Walk"). Somewhere in-between the light and dark styles he is best known for, is his deft ear for underscore.
The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit is a perfect example of this talent for unobtrusive scoring. The film is rich with strong dialogue culled from the source novel tale of a serviceman coping with post-war life, so the music sensibly plays beneath. Then in stark contrast to these two essentially quiet scores comes a 16-minute suite from
A Hatful Of Rain. This was the first Hollywood movie to tackle drug addiction, and the controversial drama inspired a dark and oppressive score from Herrmann. It concludes the album in a state of high agitation--the solution for which is to move straight on to Volume 2!
--Paul Tonks