Bernard Herrmann wrote the original theme music for the TV show The Twilight Zone. He also wrote music for a few episodes in the first season, music that was recycled in subsequent seasons.

Although he was a classically trained composer and symphony orchestra conductor, Herrmann’s orchestrations went far beyond what you’d normally hear in Carnegie Hall. For instance, he is credited as the first person to include a theremin in the orchestration of a movie score. He did so for a 1951 science fiction film, creating the convention that when you hear a theremin you think about zombies or invaders from outer space (or the Beach Boys “Good Vibrations”). He had a gift for expressing the creepy, which endeared him to his long-time collaborator, Alfred Hitchcock.

Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone, idolized radio dramatist Norman Corwyn. Our director for Wuthering Heights, Eric Simonson, won an Oscar in 2006 for his documentary short film about Norman Corwyn’s VE Day radio broadcast On a Note of Triumph, a program heard by 60 million Americans.  And, in a The Twilight Zone-like coincidence, Bernard Herrmann wrote the music for On a Note of Triumph.