Performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra, and conducted by the composer, this piece was written and orchestrated in May and June of 1966, "Fahrenheit 451" was Herrmann's first score for director François Truffaut. The film was scripted from Ray Bradbury's well-known 1953 novel about a future society in which books are banned and "firemen" are given the task of burning them (451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which books catch fire) and arresting the violators. Meanwhile, the readers have secretly committed ...
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Performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra, and conducted by the composer, this piece was written and orchestrated in May and June of 1966, "Fahrenheit 451" was Herrmann's first score for director François Truffaut. The film was scripted from Ray Bradbury's well-known 1953 novel about a future society in which books are banned and "firemen" are given the task of burning them (451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which books catch fire) and arresting the violators. Meanwhile, the readers have secretly committed to memory one classic per person. The "Prelude" cue (title sequence) is mysterious and airy with the composer's signature stereo harp arpeggios, steady single glockenspiel bells and high strings -- on the screen we see a montage of 21st-century Britain, life as "some kind of fantastic nursery game...there's a greyness about it" (Herrmann). "Fire Engine" is the next cue which is a propelled march, monotonously strident, "aimless music for an aimless life." One of the firemen, Montag (his name means Monday in German), falls in love with one of the readers, and we hear the blossoming of their romance in the lovely, rubato waltz cue entitled "The Bedroom" for strings accompanied by arpeggio harps. It ends on a sustained unresolved chord. "Flowers of Fire" is another version of the previous cue, orchestrated with lower strings and eerie harmonies, and depicts the horrifying burning of the books, and (early in the movie) of an older woman who decides to perish in the fire rather than deny the wisdom that can be shared by anyone through books. "The Road and Finale" begins with a sweet lyrical theme depicting the snow falling at the retreat of the book people hidden in the woods, where they walk about reciting outloud the books they have committed to memory. Herrman called this theme "a full song of humanity." The fireman Montag receives Dicken's "David Copperfield" to remember as he decides to stay with his beloved. The music and film end with several sweeping large chords, which are echoed by other bi-tonal chords, and a final dissonant single chord left hanging in the air suggesting an unknown and uncertain future for the book people (by contrast, Bradbury's novel offers a more optimistic outlook). For "Journey to the Center of the Earth," Herrmann "decided to evoke the mood and feeling of inner Earth by using only instruments played in low registers" (Herrmann). His unusual orchestra eliminated all strings, and consisted of winds (including the Renaissance instrument called the serpent because of its many windings), brass, percussion, many harps, one large Cathedral organ and four electronic organs "to suggest ascent and descent, as well as the mystery of Atlantis." The opening cue is "Mountain Top and Sunrise" with magnificent brass calls, followed by lovely harp arpeggios, orchestral bells, and bright brass sounds and tremendous chords from organs and low brass. "Prelude" is a bi-tonal call-and-response between gradually murkier and descending brass choir and massed organs. The next main cue, "The Grotto," reintroduces the harps in ascending arpeggios with additive winds (mildly suggesting Bartok's "The Wooden Prince"). The "Salt Slides" are depicted by grainy-textured, suspended cymbal rolls, raucously trilling brass, quickly descending brass lines, and harp glissandi. The music then modulates into quiet, darkly textured chords, suddenly broken with low earthy blasts from the brass. "Atlantis" is built from a deeply reverberant Cathedral organ and vibraphone on a simple minor, Aeolian mode progression that floats in the air. "The Giant Chameoleon and the Fight" creates a primitive, pre-historic atmospheres through a reiterated blast from low winds and brass (prophetic of Xenakis' scores or Corigliano's score for "Altered States") with the serpent playing a strange melody in-between. At one point, multiple tympani break loose in a struggle. The ending is a horrifying, steadily ascending mass of sound...
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