Valentine's Day, Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 10:20 am

gets a revelation at that instant when reading an official communication--a bitHerrmannesque but also reactive as Steiner would've done it.Roemheld has a highly reactive (to screen) score here, not necessarily strongly moodsetting as Herrmann would've done it (except at spots here by Roemheld). At 04:06 hemimics the drunk with the piccolo or flute with the tipsy music. Roemheld is reactingstrongly to the events on the screen, just as Max Steiner usually did.Don't get me wrong: I like the music. It has great locomotive propulsion and energy,but it's not Herrmannesque except for a few isolated spots. More Steiner with a hint ofTiomkin perhaps. I would think B. Kaun would be a far more likely candidate thanRoemheld! I'm no expert of his music either but I appreciated his contributions in SHE(especially the highly atmospheric "Saber-tooted Tiger" cue), and his Black Legion scoreat times, especially the Main Title, and of course the M.T. of Frankenstein. Kaundemonstrates, I feel, more of the Herrmann sensibility than Roemheld--but, once again, Ineed to hear all or most of the scores of Kaun and Roemheld become I come to any finalconclusion. But neither one of them would be a "precursor." They were maybe only adecade older, something like that. And Herrmann was writing his type of music in thelate 1920's and early 1930's (in his Early Works) before sound pictures took hold.Precursors would be the composers of merit who came before them, influenced themperhaps to some extent. This would include Balakirev, Wagner, maybe Alfven, maybe abit of R. Strauss, Charles Koechlin, and even Tchaikovsky had similar effects in hisreactive ballets such as the Nutcracker in some of the moody scenes.I agree with Avie in the sense that Herrmann tends to have a "deeper" effect, and evenmeditative at times (almost "dream-like" in effect). It cuts to the core or heart of thedramatic moment, so I guess that would be "primal."Well, it's well past my bedtime--time to enter my own dreams...._______________________________________________talkingherrmann mailing list***********************1-10-10:Talking Herrmann: chandosReply by: Bill Wrobel ()______________________________________________________________________What does it mean here when the label says of this recording, "Arranged from theoriginal manuscripts by Stephen Hogger"??? My initial reaction, ala Hans Solo, is that Ihave a bad feeling about it. The full scores exist so why "arrange" anything?? I can see ifthe producer wants to augment the strings, for instance, to reflect modern recordings, butotherwise I hope they didn't diminish instrumentation. Besides, I am not too excited aboutanother Citizen Kane recording! I still haven't purchased a film music cd in a year so if I193