This release neatly follows Silva Screen's 4CD set of the original TV soundtrack recordings of music for The Twilight Zone by not only Herrmann, but also Jerry Goldsmith and others, which we reviewed on this site in November 1999. (We suggest you refer to that review and read it in conjunction with this one). The modern stereophonic, 20-bit digital sound allows this music to breathe and with all the instruments given depth and perspective we can now fully appreciate Bernard Herrmann's prodigious imagination and invention in creating such potently evocative and dramatic music with such limited resources. One might also infer that the limited budget was saved even further by enabling two (or more) scores to be recorded at one session, for The Lonely and The Eye of the Beholder, for instance, share much the same instrumentation? As Charles Husted, Manager, Bernard Herrmann Music, says in his notes, "…The Twilight Zone varies from episode to episode in every particular - it also challenges the logic of everyday normality, bringing with it a mood of the bizarre, the uncertain, the frightening. A composer is thus free to explore all manner of dissonant harmonies and provocative orchestration…" This 2-CD album not only includes all Herrmann's complete scores for The Twilight Zone but it also has the composer's Main Title and End Title for the first series plus new Twilight Zone opening and closing themes for a subsequent series. Herrmann scored the pilot Twilight Zone episode, Where is Everybody which featured Earl Holliman as a pilot searching about in a town presumably deserted of people but then he wakes up after two weeks in an isolation tank where he has been preparing for a space flight. For this episode, Herrmann used a chamber orchestra comprising: 12 violins, 4 violas, 4 celli, 2 basses, 2 flutes, oboe, cor anglais, 3 clarinets, 4 horns and percussion. Herrmann very successfully creates a disturbing sense of disorientation and isolation, and mounting unease verging on hysteria - a remarkable score. For Walking Distance, Herrmann has another chamber orchestra comprising strings and harp. This is altogether warmer and more lyrically sentimental music for this tale of Martin Sloane (Gig Young), who drives back into his home town to discover his own past and tries to reshape his own youth with disastrous consequences. The general feeling of nostalgic security is gradually dispelled by more anxious figures and there are moments that recall the expressive intensity of Vertigo ('The Parents' and 'Merry-Go-Round'). The most extended cue is the lovely Elegy that accompanies the climactic dialogue between the father and the adult Martin. The Lonely was about a prisoner who, alone on a remote asteroid, is given a robot woman for company. She has to be destroyed when the prisoner is released. He is distraut for he has fallen in love with her. Here, Herrmann uses an extraordinary ensemble comprising: 3 trumpets, 2 trombones with bass trombone, Hammond organ, 2 harps and 2 vibraphones to create a crystalline score that not only beautifully evokes the starlit heavens back-dropping the desolate asteroid landscape, but also in 'The Stars' the prisoner's growing affection for 'Alicia'. For The Eye of the Beholder, Herrmann again concentrated on the brass with 3 trumpets, 2 trombones and bass trombone, 2 tubas (adding a rich depth), 4 horns, 2 harps, and 2 vibraphones, with 2 percussionists. This was the episode in which what appeared to be a hideously disfigured woman's face turned out to be beautiful and normal amongst a sea of actually disfigured faces. This nightmare scenario is cleverly sustained by Herrmann's eerie, threatening, doom-laden score. Little Girl Lost was about a small girl who is lost in another dimension. This time Herrmann resorts to an ensemble comprising 4 harps, a mix of alto, piccolo and bass flutes played by 4 musicians, viola d'amore and percussion. The effect is brilliant, evoking another world deep and impenetrable and recalling the deep swirling watery evocations of Herrmann's music for Beneath the Twelve- Mile Reef. There is also a sense of pathos and the forlorn for the plight of the little girl while 'Fourth Dimension' is at once disturbing and merrily, quirkily playful. Living Doll concerned a cruel father intent on destroying his daughter's new doll who says sweet things like: "I'm Talky Tina, and I am going to kill you!" which she does. Herrmann's macabre waltz music is given to just a bass clarinet, 2 harps and celeste. This dark-seamed music suggests the danger lurking behind the doll's voluptuousness. Finally, Ninety Years Without Slumbering concerned an old man who believed he would die the moment his grandfather clock stops. Herrmann, this time, uses flute, oboe, 2 clarinets with bass clarinet, harp and vibraphone to play variations on the well-known children's song, My Grandfather's Clock. A brilliant addition to the Herrmann discography. Reviewer Ian Lace	Reviewer Ian Lace Reviews from previous months Reviews carry sales links but you can also purchase from:
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