Hitchcock was an admirer of composer Bernard Herrmann
long before the temperamental musician agreed to write a score for
one of the director’s films. Herrmann finally signed on to write
the music for Hitchcock’s 1955 film The
Trouble with Harry. The two discovered an easy collaboration
and worked together for eleven years, until an argument over Torn
Curtain put an end to their partnership. Herrmann wrote
the bulk of the score for Vertigo, considered by
many critics and by Herrmann himself to be his finest film score, in
a little over a month. He also had been hired to conduct the orchestra
for the film’s soundtrack, but an American musician’s strike necessitated
that it be recorded in Vienna under the baton of British conductor
Muir Mathieson.
Herrmann scored the swirling harps and strings that imbue
most of the pivotal action sequences in the film to mirror the vertigo
that dogs the protagonist. The effect is heard as Scottie hangs
from the roof in the opening scene, and as Scottie drags Judy to
the top of the bell tower at the end of the film. The score also
includes hints of motifs used by Wagner in Die Walküre and
in Tristan und Isolde—a logical choice, given the
film’s roots in that myth. This highly romantic score also pays
homage to Latin melody and rhythm, especially in the portions of
the film meant to evoke feelings of the historic San Francisco and
its Spanish influences. In scenes that feature the amorous relationship
between Scottie and Madeleine/Judy, the orchestration reflects their
tumultuous romance by relying on swelling strings, harp, and contrabassoon.
Hitchcock places Herrmann’s background music in direct
opposition to music that is played deliberately as part of the action
of the film. While Herrmann’s score represents the forces of destiny
and the mysterious dream world inhabited by Madeleine, music that Midge
plays on her radio and record player represents her world and the
norms and strictures of conventional society. In two instances,
Hitchcock develops the characters of both Scottie and Midge by drawing
our attention to Midge’s music. In the scene that first depicts
Scottie recuperating from his brush with death, he becomes irritated
with her concern for him and complains about the music she is playing—Bach’s Sinfonia. The
music underscores the conventional life that Midge represents and
that Scottie rejects. The clash between the conventional world and
Madeleine’s world of romance and intrigue comes to a head after
Madeleine’s apparent death. Scottie is catatonic in a sanatorium,
where Midge vainly attempts to bring him back to reality by playing
Mozart’s Symphony No. 34 on a phonograph.
The music again provides a clue that he no longer responds to the
conventional world. Scottie is now completely lost in Madeleine’s
haunted dream world.
