Gutbrain Records

Tuesday, 22 February, 2005

I spent the weekend reading Modesty Blaise comic strips and Nicholson Baker's Room Temperature. I also read a few Roald Dahl stories, just for variety's sake. It was a very nice weekend.

What would also be very nice is if the CD included with the companion book to Douglas Gordon's Feature Film installation were to have its own wide release, so more people could hear this superb recording of Bernard Herrmann's music for Vertigo. From what I gather, the other Vertigo CDs, the original soundtrack recording conducted by Muir Matheson and the 1995 recording conducted by Joel McNeely, are not complete. The Gordon/Feature Film CD (Paris Opera Orchestra conducted by James Conlon) offers 74:35 of music at a slightly faster tempo than the 64:56 Matheson CD. (I don't own the McNeely yet, but I've read that it clocks in at 63:19.) It's too bad that Herrmann wasn't able to conduct the recording of the music that was used in the movie. There is a 10:36 Vertigo suite, performed by the London Philharmonic, Bernard Herrmann conducting, which appears on Herrmann's Music from the Great Hitchcock Thrillers album, though.

Speaking of Herrmann, it was the Bernard Herrmann discussion forum that led me to this amazing Odd Music Gallery, one of the coolest things I've seen in a while. Herrmann apparently used the serpent in at least one score.