Vertigo: Original Motion Picture Score (1995 Re-recording)
This is the most haunting and hypnotic of all of Bernard Herrmann's  scores (which includePsychoandNorth By Northwest)--from the  most haunting and hypnotic of all Alfred Hitchcock films. This is deeply  mysterious music, in keeping with the echoes of the past that keep recurring in  the movie. As the dizzying main theme opens up before you, you can feel yourself  falling right right in. (Herrmann himself did a sort of variation on it forObsession, the 1976 Paul Schrader/Brian DePalma re-working ofVertigo, released when the earlier picture had been out of circulation  for many years.) Perhaps the greatest compliment one could give this soundtrack  is that it's as powerful and unforgettable as the images it was written to  accompany.  And it stands beautifully on its own, as well.--Jim Emerson