# Bernard Herrmann
**Bernard Herrmann** (born Max Herman; June 29, 1911 – December 24, 1975) was an American composer and conductor whose film scores for *Citizen Kane*, *Psycho*, *Vertigo*, and *Taxi Driver* made him one of the most distinctive musical voices in cinema. He was born in New York City and died in Los Angeles of a heart attack.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002136/bio/) He rejected the label "film composer," preferring to call himself a composer who sometimes wrote film scores.[2](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bernard-herrmann-mn0000760240)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born / died | June 29, 1911, New York City; December 24, 1975, Los Angeles (heart attack)[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002136/bio/) |
| Birth name | Max Herman[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002136/bio/) |
| First film score | *Citizen Kane* (1941), for Orson Welles; Oscar-nominated that year[3](https://resources.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/biography) • [4](https://cadenaser.com/nacional/2025/12/24/bernard-herrmann-el-genio-irascible-cadena-ser/) |
| Academy Award | Won for *The Devil and Daniel Webster* (1941), his only Oscar[4](https://cadenaser.com/nacional/2025/12/24/bernard-herrmann-el-genio-irascible-cadena-ser/) |
| Hitchcock collaboration | Nine film scores between 1955 and 1966, ending when Hitchcock rejected his *Torn Curtain* score[3](https://resources.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/biography) |
| Output | 61 film scores, plus opera, ballet, radio, and television music[5](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/film-and-television-biographies/bernard-herrmann) |
| Final score | *Taxi Driver* (1976) for Martin Scorsese; he died the night he completed the recording[6](https://www.classical-music.com/features/composers/bernard-herrmann) |
## Training and early career
Herrmann studied at DeWitt Clinton High School, the [Juilliard School](https://www.edgepedia.org/juilliard-school), and New York University between 1929 and 1933, taking conducting with Albert Stoessel and composition with Bernard Wagenaar and [Percy Grainger](https://www.edgepedia.org/percy-grainger). Grainger, who recognized the young composer's taste for unusual sounds and atmospheres, encouraged his creative development.[3](https://resources.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/biography) He won a composition prize at 13 and, around the age of 20, founded and conducted the New Chamber Orchestra, which performed mostly contemporary music, particularly British.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002136/bio/) • [3](https://resources.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/biography)
In 1934 he became an assistant staff conductor for the CBS orchestra, where he composed his first radio stage music and worked for roughly two decades.[3](https://resources.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/biography) Radio was a demanding training ground: he wrote 75 scores for the *Columbia Workshop* series and 22 for *Suspense*, and he collaborated with [Orson Welles](https://www.edgepedia.org/orson-welles) on the 1938 *Mercury Theatre on the Air* series, including the notorious *War of the Worlds* broadcast of October 30, 1938, whose convincing delivery led many listeners to believe an actual invasion was underway.[3](https://resources.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/biography) • [7](https://ressources.ircam.fr/fr/composer/bernard-herrmann/workcourse) The weekly discipline of writing and conducting narrative music, often live and for small ensembles, shaped the concise, short-sequence style of his later film work.[3](https://resources.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/biography) • [6](https://www.classical-music.com/features/composers/bernard-herrmann)
## Citizen Kane and the 1940s
When Welles moved into film, he brought Herrmann with him, and Herrmann's first film score was for *Citizen Kane* (1941), produced by [RKO Pictures](https://www.edgepedia.org/rko-pictures).[3](https://resources.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/biography) For the film he created orchestral textures and atmospheres new to the screen, deployed as short transitional cues and using a bespoke palette of instruments rather than the standard Hollywood symphony orchestra.[6](https://www.classical-music.com/features/composers/bernard-herrmann) He received an Oscar nomination for *Citizen Kane* but won the award that year for *The Devil and Daniel Webster*, the only Academy Award of his career.[4](https://cadenaser.com/nacional/2025/12/24/bernard-herrmann-el-genio-irascible-cadena-ser/)
He composed the score for Welles's *The Magnificent Ambersons* the following year, but refused to be credited after RKO heavily edited the film and removed more than half his music.[3](https://resources.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/biography) The success of *Citizen Kane* opened collaborations with leading Hollywood directors of the day, including Brahm, Curtiz, Hathaway, Ray, Dieterle, and Mankiewicz.[3](https://resources.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/biography) In parallel he kept composing concert music, and from 1943 to 1951 he worked on his only opera, *Wuthering Heights*, an example of his taste for dark, tormented subjects.[3](https://resources.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/biography)
## The Hitchcock years
Herrmann is best known for his work with [Alfred Hitchcock](https://www.edgepedia.org/alfred-hitchcock), writing the music for nine of Hitchcock's films between 1955 and 1966, from *The Trouble with Harry* to *Torn Curtain*, including *[Vertigo](https://www.edgepedia.org/vertigo-film)*, *North by Northwest*, and *Psycho*.[3](https://resources.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/biography) Each score had a different sound, from the drollery of *The Trouble with Harry* to the slashing dissonance of *Psycho* and the propulsion of *North by Northwest*, yet all bear Herrmann's imprint of fragmented motifs, floating modal chords, and sudden bursts of longing.[8](https://res.cloudinary.com/nyphil/image/upload/v1705415936/pdfs/program/2324/01-23_Vertigo_-_CONFIRM.pdf) On *The Man Who Knew Too Much* (1956) his contribution was unusual: he arranged received music ranging from Moroccan folk tunes to symphonic works, and appeared on screen as a conductor at the [Royal Albert Hall](https://www.edgepedia.org/royal-albert-hall), the only time he acted in a Hitchcock film.[9](https://academic.oup.com/manchester-scholarship-online/book/15386/chapter-abstract/169966024)
The shower scene in *Psycho* became the most famous cue of his career: Hitchcock did not want music in the scene, but Herrmann wrote it anyway, and the shrieking strings convinced the director.[6](https://www.classical-music.com/features/composers/bernard-herrmann) • [4](https://cadenaser.com/nacional/2025/12/24/bernard-herrmann-el-genio-irascible-cadena-ser/) The collaboration ended abruptly in 1966 when Hitchcock rejected Herrmann's score for *Torn Curtain* after asking him to include pop-style themes; the break was a blow to Herrmann.[3](https://resources.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/biography) • [4](https://cadenaser.com/nacional/2025/12/24/bernard-herrmann-el-genio-irascible-cadena-ser/)
## Style and orchestration
Herrmann was deliberately selective about film assignments and insisted on orchestrating his own scores, a practice almost unheard of in studio-era Hollywood, where composers typically handed their music to staff arrangers.[2](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bernard-herrmann-mn0000760240) Early exposure to [Hector Berlioz](https://www.edgepedia.org/hector-berlioz)'s *Treatise on Instrumentation and Modern Orchestration* made him attach particular importance to instrumental color, and he often used far fewer musicians than his peers for more striking effect.[2](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bernard-herrmann-mn0000760240) • [7](https://ressources.ircam.fr/fr/composer/bernard-herrmann/workcourse)
His musical method favored short motifs, one or two measures long, that stay in the listener's memory, and he preferred ostinatos and dramatic, sound-effect-like passages to conventional melodic themes.[10](https://brahms.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/workcourse) • [2](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bernard-herrmann-mn0000760240) Composer and film critic Michel Chion has pointed out that Herrmann nonetheless worked within the tradition of his predecessors, using leitmotivs and classical composition techniques; what distinguishes his music is the effectiveness of the writing and the way the scores intervene as the story unfolds, largely avoiding sync-with-the-image "underscoring."[10](https://brahms.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/workcourse) He liked unusual instruments and mixes, using the theremin's unsettling electronic sound in *The Day the Earth Stood Still*, and he specialized in mystery and suspense scores as well as fantasy and adventure films for producer Charles Schneer and [Ray Harryhausen](https://www.edgepedia.org/ray-harryhausen), such as *Jason and the Argonauts*.[4](https://cadenaser.com/nacional/2025/12/24/bernard-herrmann-el-genio-irascible-cadena-ser/) • [2](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bernard-herrmann-mn0000760240)
## Radio, television, and concert work
Beyond film, Herrmann worked steadily as a composer and conductor, serving as a guest conductor of the [New York Philharmonic](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-york-philharmonic), the Hallé Orchestra, and the [BBC Symphony Orchestra](https://www.edgepedia.org/bbc-symphony-orchestra).[5](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/film-and-television-biographies/bernard-herrmann) For television he wrote music for *Suspicion* (The Alfred Hitchcock Hour), *The Virginian*, and twenty-three episodes of *The Twilight Zone*, for which his music was notably inventive and unexpected.[3](https://resources.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/biography) He regarded his personal work, especially the opera *Wuthering Heights*, as the best use of his talent, and several of his orchestral suites were drawn from his commercial film and broadcast music.[3](https://resources.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/biography)
## Final years
After the Hitchcock break, Herrmann moved to Europe and worked with directors who admired him, including [François Truffaut](https://www.edgepedia.org/francois-truffaut), for whom he scored *[Fahrenheit 451](https://www.edgepedia.org/fahrenheit-451-1966-film)* and *The Bride Wore Black*.[4](https://cadenaser.com/nacional/2025/12/24/bernard-herrmann-el-genio-irascible-cadena-ser/) Back in Hollywood in the 1970s, [Brian De Palma](https://www.edgepedia.org/brian-de-palma), another Hitchcock admirer, engaged him for *Sisters* and *Obsession*, and in 1975 De Palma suggested Herrmann to Martin Scorsese for *Taxi Driver*, whose dark sonorities were to translate the protagonist's state of mind.[4](https://cadenaser.com/nacional/2025/12/24/bernard-herrmann-el-genio-irascible-cadena-ser/)
Herrmann completed the *Taxi Driver* recording and died of a heart attack in his hotel in Hollywood on the night of December 24, 1975, at 64.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002136/bio/) • [4](https://cadenaser.com/nacional/2025/12/24/bernard-herrmann-el-genio-irascible-cadena-ser/) • [6](https://www.classical-music.com/features/composers/bernard-herrmann) His music reached screens again after his death: for Scorsese's 1991 remake *Cape Fear*, Elmer Bernstein used material Herrmann had written for the original *Cape Fear* along with music Hitchcock had rejected for *Torn Curtain*.[4](https://cadenaser.com/nacional/2025/12/24/bernard-herrmann-el-genio-irascible-cadena-ser/)
## Assessment
Some music critics consider Herrmann the most important film composer in the history of the medium, and his *Psycho* shower music may be the most imitated piece in movie-music history.[5](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/film-and-television-biographies/bernard-herrmann) A history of 1950s Hollywood film music describes him as arguably the decade's most respected film composer, at a moment when public awareness of a composer's individual contribution to a film's success was growing.[11](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/history-of-film-music/mainstream-divides-postwar-horizons-in-hollywood/2D75B363C18BFDCA80510F9A1770C316) Since his death, more than ten albums of his recorded music, primarily original film scores, have been released.[5](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/film-and-television-biographies/bernard-herrmann)
## References
1. [Bernard Herrmann – Biography, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002136/bio/)
2. [Bernard Herrmann – Biography, AllMusic](https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bernard-herrmann-mn0000760240)
3. [Biographie – Bernard Herrmann, IRCAM Resources](https://resources.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/biography)
4. [Bernard Herrmann: El genio irascible, Cadena SER](https://cadenaser.com/nacional/2025/12/24/bernard-herrmann-el-genio-irascible-cadena-ser/)
5. [Bernard Herrmann, Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/film-and-television-biographies/bernard-herrmann)
6. [Bernard Herrmann: the iconic film composer who formed a dream team with Alfred Hitchcock, Classical Music](https://www.classical-music.com/features/composers/bernard-herrmann)
7. [Parcours de l'oeuvre – Bernard Herrmann, IRCAM Resources](https://ressources.ircam.fr/fr/composer/bernard-herrmann/workcourse)
8. [Vertigo in Concert – Notes on the Program, New York Philharmonic](https://res.cloudinary.com/nyphil/image/upload/v1705415936/pdfs/program/2324/01-23_Vertigo_-_CONFIRM.pdf)
9. [Portentous arrangements: Bernard Herrmann and The Man Who Knew Too Much, Manchester Scholarship Online](https://academic.oup.com/manchester-scholarship-online/book/15386/chapter-abstract/169966024)
10. [Survey of works by Bernard Herrmann, IRCAM](https://brahms.ircam.fr/en/composer/bernard-herrmann/workcourse)
11. [The mainstream divides: post-war horizons in Hollywood, A History of Film Music, Cambridge University Press](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/history-of-film-music/mainstream-divides-postwar-horizons-in-hollywood/2D75B363C18BFDCA80510F9A1770C316)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Film people and crafts › Craft crew: cinematographers, editors, composers, critics › Film score composers*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license