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a wonderful afternoon: Bernard Herrmann

Author: ahebert
Date: 2021-08-16 01:03

My wife and I went to Santa Barbara, California a couple of weeks ago to meet up with her family since we haven't seen anybody since COVID hit. I took an afternoon off and went to the University of California, Santa Barbara library special collections department. I'd set this visit up weeks ahead of time, and when I got there, the librarians had pulled several boxes of scores from the Bernard Herrmann collections. So from 1:00 - 4:00 PM I got to handle, photograph and study the ORIGINAL....as in the actual paper that Bernard Herrman had in his hands as he wrote it....scores for the Souvenirs du Voyage clarinet quintet and the score to the 1947 movie "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir".

The original handwritten parts for the quintet were in the box as well, complete with mistakes corrected in red ink, omissions (he left out a couple of measures here and there) and performance notes from what I assume is the first performance. The scribbles and notes used terminology common to musicians in the UK, not the USA, so I think it's reasonably likely that these notes were from the first recording of the Quintet, with Robert Hill on clarinet, and the Ariel string quartet.

For those of you who don't know the music from "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir", it's worth a listen on YouTube. It's scored for TWO bass clarinets, and the bass clarinet parts are very prominent.

I photographed the entire handwritten score for "Ghost" and the entire handwritten score and parts for the Quintet. I'll be looking them over ~Very~ closely and might be writing an article for the ICS magazine about them this Fall.

What a privilege to be able to do this!

Post Edited (2021-08-16 01:05)

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