Sunday’s New York Times mentioned Bernard Herrmann in an article about the 35th Anniversary Blu Ray reissue of the movie Taxi Driver. The article says, “What could be more expansively operatic than Mr. Scoresese’s opening movement, a 10-minute montage of infernal imagery set to Bernard Herrmann’s threatening, mournful score?” That phrase has a nice ring, doesn’t it, “expansively operatic.”
Stephen Sondheim was another artist influenced by Bernard Herrmann, as Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd was an homage to the great composer. A 15-year-old Sondheim saw the 1945 movie Hangover Square twice so he could memorize the Bernard Herrmann score. He then sent Herrmann a fan letter and discovered they lived around the block from each other in New York City. Sunday, at an event at the Minnesota Opera Center, host Phil Gainsley told of an interview he did with Sondheim in Chicago a few years ago when Lyric Opera of Chicago was producing Sweeney Todd. Gainsley commented on Herrmann’s relative obscurity, noting that, “Bernard Herrmann is not exactly a household name,” to which Sondheim quipped, “It depends on whose household.”
