The Magic Lantern

Mary Poppins - Feed the Birds

(via astonyen & brandontoliver)

Angelo Badalamenti / Mysteries Of Love (French Horn Solo) [Blue Velvet OST, 1987]   

Composed by Angelo Badalamenti & David Lynch
Conductor - Angelo Badalamenti

Bernard Herrmann / Concerto Macabre For Piano & Orchestra (composed for the 1945 film noir Hangover Square, performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra with Sara Davis [F/K/A David] Buechner on piano)

“Not long after the film’s release Herrmann received an enthusiastic letter from a New York music student praising the concerto. Herrmann responded with a gracious thank you letter to 15-year-old Stephen Sondheim. Recalled Sondheim in 1986, “I can still play the opening eight bars [of the concerto], since they were glimpsed briefly on (lead actor) Laird Cregar’s piano during the course of the film, and I dutifully memorized them by sitting through the picture twice.” Herrmann’s influence can be heard in Sondheim’s musical thriller Sweeney Todd, an English melodrama rich in brooding thematic material and dark psychology.”

-excerpted from A Heart at Fire’s Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann by Steven Smith

 (via oldhollywood)

Bernard Herrmann / Fahrenheit 451: Prelude/Fire Engine/The Bedroom/Flowers of Fire/The Road & Finale (via The Fantasy Film World of Bernard Herrmann)

“When [Francois] Truffaut spoke to me about doing the score for the film, I said, ‘…You’re a great friend of [avant-garde composers] and this is a film that takes place in the future. Why shouldn’t you ask one of them? ‘Oh no, no,’ he said. ‘They’ll give me music of the twentieth century, but you’ll give me music of the twenty-first.’

I felt that the music of the next century would revert to a great lyrical simplicity and that it wouldn’t have truck with all this mechanistic stuff. Their lives would be scrutinized. In their music they would want something of simple nudity, of great elegance and simplicity. So I said, ‘If I do your picture, that’s the kind of score I want to write- strings, harps, and a few percussion instruments. I’m not interested in all this whoopee stuff that goes on being called the music of the future. I think that’s the music of the past.’”

Deeply heartfelt and rich in impressionistic nuance, Fahrenheit 451 was the composer’s finest screen work since Psycho and proof, for those who needed it, that Herrmann did not need a Hitchcock thriller to write a brilliant score.

-excerpted from A Heart at Fire’s Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann by Steven Smith

(via oldhollywood)

Corinne Marchand - Sans Toi (Without You) (via Cleo from 5 to 7, written by Michel Legrand) The lovely scene in which Marchand performs this song can be seen here.

 (via rubyglass & oldhollywood)

Psycho (A Narrative for Orchestra) - composed & conducted by Bernard Herrmann (for this 1969 London Philharmonic recording, Herrmann arranged highlights from his score for Psycho, including the iconic main theme & shower scene music, into this shorter suite)

“Going far beyond the temporary shock effects of conventional scary-movie scores, the composer summons what Edmund Burke defined as terror—something deeper than horror, the sense that the world is infinitely treacherous, that no place is safe, even a comfort zone like a shower. That Herrmann used only strings, normally a Hollywood marker for schmaltzy romance, is even more startling.

Herrmann’s music did more than just enhance Psycho; it probably saved it. A story of illicit love that morphs into a crime thriller and finally a lurid horror shocker, Psycho was a sensation with audiences. But during shooting, Hitchcock became convinced it was a dud, that something fundamental was missing, and was on the verge of cutting it up and putting it on television—until he heard the music. Herrmann passionately believed in the project and was convinced it needed only his score. He composed the shower cue in secret, against Hitchcock’s explicit directive, and boldly played it for him after Hitchcock returned to the set from a Christmas break.

Hitchcock openly praised Herrmann for the Psycho score, something he rarely did with his collaborators, but Herrmann worried that Hitchcock resented his pivotal role in the film’s success. Psycho was the beginning of a tragic rift that culminated in Hitchcock publicly firing Herrmann in 1966 for disobeying his directives for Torn Curtain…According to John Williams, Hitchcock’s final composer, ‘Hitchcock may have felt that his style was too dependent on Herrmann’s music, and that may have wounded his pride. They ended up being two matadors opposing one other.’

via Hitchcock’s Psycho at 50: The Sounds of Violence

(via oldhollywood)

Bernard Herrmann / ‘Prelude’ from The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

Bernard Herrmann’s score to The Ghost and Mrs. Muir perfectly captures being in love. It’s tender and like being dashed on the rocks of a cliff all at the same time.

“First Fossils”, composed by Edward Williams, from the soundtrack to Life on Earth (1979)

…And so in late 2009, 30 years on from the day it was created, we can all enjoy some of the most beautiful music made for some of the greatest TV ever produced.
Jonny Trunk, Trunk Records

The soundtrack to David Attenborough’s Life on Earth wasn’t released until 30 years after the programme first aired, when serendipity brought a copy pressed by the composer as a gift for one of the musicians into the hands of Jonny Trunk. Trunk obtained permission from the BBC to issue the album and from Sir David Attenborough, who described the music as “jolly good”, to use the famous Life on Earth frog photograph as cover artwork.

“First Fossils” is a track from the series’ first episode, “The Infinite Variety”. It’s a mysterious and beautiful piece of music, filled to brimming with a wonder of nature.

♥

 (Thank you, stopvoleuse)

Julien dans l’ascenseur, Miles Davis; from the film Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows).

(Thanks, musicophilia & awayalonealastalongtheriverrun)

Jonny Greenwood - Iron Swallow/ 24 Hour Charleston/ Splitter

(via catsputnikz)

Alain Goraguer / Déshominisation I /

La Planète sauvage / 1973 

(Thanks, itnumberpi, membrane, & melisaki)

“Limelight” (1952) theme by Charlie Chaplin

re-arranged & performed by Thomas Beckmann (cello) & Johannes Cernota (piano)