Recordings and books rated by expert critics
Herrmann
Wuthering Heights – Suite; Echoes for Strings* (both arr. Hans Sørensen)
Keri Fuge (soprano), Roderick Williams (baritone); Singapore Symphony Orchestra/Mario Venzago, *Joshua Tan
Chandos CHSA 5337 (CD/SACD) 80:41 mins
See the name Bernard Herrmann and most will recall the film scores the American composer (1911-75) wrote for Alfred Hitchcock,Turning Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel into an opera was perhaps a logical step for him in 1943 (he’d just scored Fox’s ), though it was certainly a surprising one given the success he was enjoying on the radio and on the screen. Despite that success, Herrmann longed to be taken seriously as a composer (and conductor) and he launched himself into his opera, certain it would be a career-defining work. The result, a three-and-a-half-hour epic, was finally finished in 1951. Its gestation saw Herrmann obsess over Brontë’s world in between radio, film and conducting assignments. It took its toll, the period seeing the end of his first marriage and something close to a nervous breakdown. That the opera then went unstaged in his lifetime only added to Herrmann’s woes, though he mounted (and largely paid for) what is still the only recording of the complete work in 1966.
