For instance, I recently saw The Ghost and Mrs. Muir for the first time since childhood and was beguiled by Herrmann's haunting expression of bittersweet yearning. The theme he used sounded familiar, and I found a variation of it in his exquisite Clarinet Quintet, Souvenirs de Voyage, in which he captures the kind of aching lyricism that was his hallmark. I never tire of hearing this wistful theme because it so perfectly expresses that mysterious heartache that romance often awakens but can never fully satisfy. Using variations of this theme, Herrmann was able to cast a spell over entire films and psychologically capture the audience in so complete a way that his music can hardly be called incidental. For this reason, he is one of the few film composers whose scores I enjoy listening to in their entirety, rather than as suites of highlights.
Unresolved harmonies convey disturbing ambiguities.
The single most stunning new recording of a Herrmann score for a Hitchcock film is the new Varese Sarabande CD of the complete score of Vertigo, with Joel McNeely conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. It helped that Herrmann was also a brilliant orchestrator. He left behind the Viennese lushness of Korngold's treatments and favored a more economical use of the orchestra. The most famous example of this is the score for Psycho, written for strings only. Yet when called for, Herrmann could also whip up a wonderfully Wagnerian delirium, as in the Tristanesque sc ne d'amour in Vertigo.