Check out this great photo essay of one the first masters of film scores. Bernard Hermann wrote music for a film the way a screenwriter would create drama and intrigue for their characters. He would write music to suit a character's mood, heighten a scene's tension and turmoil, and bring a bit of the inner phsycology of a character out in the open. Although par for the course these days, he was the first to work with the filmaker from early shooting through editing, crafting music for the film, and doing all the orchestrations. He learned his craft in the trenches with Orson Welles, conducting the music for his radio productions in the late thirties. What he perfected on those radio broadcasts is use of music to transition between scenes and tie dialogue together. He took those lessons learned from radio and went on to score Citizen Kane, some of Hitchcock's greatests: Vertigo, Psycho, North by Northwest, and many sci-fi classics. Below is some of his work, including a tribute with a compilation of his scores.
I've thought for a while that there needs to be more symphonies touring and playing film scores. That would be a fun show! And if there were scenes of some of those great films playing as a backdrop - even better!
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