The music score for

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...

's 1958 film '' Vertigo'' was composed by

Bernard Herrmann Bernard Herrmann (born Maximillian Herman; June 29, 1911December 24, 1975) was an American composer and conductor best known for his work in composing for films. As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. He is widely re ...

between 3 January and 19 February 1958. The recordings were made in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, with orchestra conducted by Muir Mathieson. A musicians' strike had prevented the score from being recorded in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

with Herrmann conducting. What follows is a list of the music cues that appear in the film and where (or if) they can be found on the various releases of the original soundtrack recordings and significant re-recordings of the score.

Breakdown of music cues

Bernard Herrmann's score for ''Vertigo'' consists of 42 cues, which comprise about 74 minutes of music heard in the film. (The small bits of source music used in the film, such as the Mozart piece heard on Midge's phonograph or the music Scottie and Judy dance to late in the film, were not composed by Herrmann and are therefore not considered as part of the score.) Note that Herrmann spelled the Kim Novak character's name as Madeline, not Madeleine. In the following table, the length of the cues in the actual film are given. The letters afterward represent which CD release the cue can be found on, if applicable. is the original version of the soundtrack recording; the McNeely re-recording; and the expanded re-release of the original soundtrack. would be the Conlon re-recording, but as this recording contains all cues below, it was deemed unnecessary to be included in the list.

1958 original soundtrack LP

The original soundtrack LP on

Mercury Records Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. In the United States, it is ...

contained 34 minutes of the music score. It included most of the major musical cues from the film but represented less than half of the complete score. The album was released on CD in 1990 as Mercury 422 106-2.

1995 McNeely re-recording

In 1995, Varèse Sarabande released a new recording of the ''Vertigo'' score with Joel McNeely conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. This recording boasted much better sound quality over the then 37-year-old original soundtrack recording, and it included almost twice as much of the score.

1996 expanded original soundtrack re-release

Research conducted during the two-year-long restoration of ''Vertigo'' by Robert A. Harris and

James C. Katz James C. Katz is an American film historian and preservationist who has restored and reconstructed a number of classic films. Though he began his career as a film producer, he concentrated his attention on preserving existing films. His film p ...

uncovered the original master recordings of the music score at

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

. These stereo masters were used in the new 5.1 mix of the film, as well as a much expanded CD of the original soundtrack recording. This CD is 64 minutes long (with the selection of cues closely matching that of the McNeely recording). Unfortunately, the tapes had not been stored under the best of conditions, and deficiencies can be heard in some spots. The CD liner notes state that the music track for the cue "The Graveyard" was too damaged to be included. For the 5.1 mix, the film restoration team was forced to lift the audio for the sequence from a music and effects reel located in Spain. However, 13 other (mostly minor) cues in the film are missing from the expanded soundtrack CD without explanation. Several can be cleanly extracted from the 5.1 mix of the film, indicating that the music tracks for some of these cues survive and were used for the new mix. (Note that some parts of the CD are in stereo, and other parts are in mono. This is due to the London cues being recorded in stereo and the Vienna cues in mono.)

1999 Conlon re-recording

This recording, with

James Conlon James Conlon (born March 18, 1950) is an American conductor. He is currently the music director of Los Angeles Opera, principal conductor of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, and artistic advisor to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Early ...

conducting the Paris Opera Orchestra, is the only recording to date to feature the entire Bernard Herrmann score for ''Vertigo''. All 42 cues are included, though the CD presents them as one long 74½ minute track. This CD is not as accessible as the previous two, as it was not released on its own. It was included with the now out-of-print

Douglas Gordon Douglas Gordon (born 20 September 1966) is a Scottish artist. He won the Turner Prize in 1996, the Premio 2000 at the 47th Venice Biennale in 1997 and the Hugo Boss Prize in 1998. He lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Work Much of Gordon's w ...

book, ''Feature Film''.

References

* Mulhall, Kevin, ''Herrmann's Liebestod'', liner notes to Varèse Sarabande CD (VSD-5759).
''Vertigo''
at SoundtrackCollector - The Movie Soundtrack Database

External links

''Vertigo''
at Film Score Rundowns - Cue-by-cue analysis of the score.

at Film Music Review - Film in Focus. {{DEFAULTSORT:Vertigo (Film Score) Film scores Thriller film soundtracks 1958 soundtrack albums Mercury Records soundtracks Varèse Sarabande soundtracks Bernard Herrmann albums 1995 soundtrack albums 1996 soundtrack albums 1999 soundtrack albums