Search - Elmer Bernstein, Bernard Herrmann :: Cape Fear: Music From The Motion Picture Soundtrack

Why Mess with Perfection?

Reginald D. Garrard | Camilla, GA USA | 04/04/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"When Martin Scorsese decided to remake "Cape Fear", he paid tribute to the original by featuring original stars Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, and Martin Balsam in cameos. Scorsese also recognized the contribution of the first film's composer Bernard Herrmann. Thus, Elmer Bernstein, himself a legendary musician (and recent Oscar nominee for "Far from Heaven"), adapted, arranged, and conducted Herrmann's original score for the newer film. This is a marriage of two giants in the business. A score that is as haunting and chilling as the more recognizable works "Psycho" and "Marnie", "Cape Fear" is true Herrmann with its ominous cues and screeching strings. Fans of Herrmann, Bernstein, or Scorsese must have this one!"

This music will scare the...out of you.

Alan Hutchins | Denver, CO United States | 07/26/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Bernard Hermann was a genius. His 35 year career in film scoring started off with a bang: Orson Welle's "Citzen Kane" was his first film project. Hermann decided to deviate from existing film score conventions of the time and construct motifs and themes that reflected and conveyed the psychological and emotional content of the character(s) and actions. In the past 50 years or so his ideas have become the norm for film score work, but he was one of the innovators that brought this about. His reputation and fame were at their peak during his 11-12 year association with Alfred Hitchcock, where he seemed to always make the right musical choices to support and even further the story in films like "Marnie", "Vertigo", and especially "Psycho". The Cape Fear score was one of many non-Hitchcock projects of his--the original film was released in 1962. The score almost prefectly reflected the movie's themes of justice, revenge, terror and escalating violence. It was only natural that when Martin Scorsese decided to remake the movie in 1991, he also decided to reuse the Hermann score. Elmer Bernstein sifted through the clues left from the 1962 score and reworked the major themes into what you hear on this disc. Hermann liked to use repetition, and the four note clarion call of the French horns in the main theme is fired up a great many times across the disc. It usually ends up leading down a somewhat different musical alley each time. There are quite a few blissful sections of gentle beauty interspursed in the first half of the disc, and there are harsh crescendos of extreme violence and discord, especially near the end of the disc in the sounds accompanying the desperate fight late in the movie. Music matched to scenes of the family waiting to see if villian Max Cady will try to enter the house almost exactly convey the sense of impatience and dread one would feel in that situation. At times this disc is a musical equivlant of slowing down to gawk at a fatal car accident: it's unpleasant and harrowing, but so fascinating and compelling that you can't stop yourself from looking (or in this case, listening). The two words that came to me to sum up this score are "Terrible Beauty". This is not what you'd put on the stereo for light listening--it's an overall frightening sound experience that can be so intense at times that one has to be 'in the mood' for it. There has scarcely been a movie more in debt to the music to set the scene and convey emotions as this Cape Fear remake is to Hermann's score. I knew as I was exiting the theatre in 1991 when I first saw the Scorsese film that I HAD to have this score. You will feel that way too if you're a fan of Hermann or of eerie, frightening musical experiences in general."

Herrmann puts the fear into Cape Fear

Joshua Kaufman | Cincinnati, OH | 02/13/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This soundtrack is worth seeking out. It's the only version of the score available. Herrmann's original score was re-worked (I have no idea how much) by Elmer Bernstein, and it sound absolutely great. The music in Cape Fear can only be described as chilling. It's loud and bombasitic, with its famous four note motif sounding loud and clear many times throughout the score. Herrmann was a master of orchestration, and this is no exception. It's not only in the instruments used, but also the intervals. Cape Fear is a perfect example of how he managed to creep the listener out simply by using the correct combination of flutes and horns There's really no reason to go into individual tracks, as all the tracks are on the same wavelength (a common Herrmann trait). This is the opposite of bad, however, because the music is always interesting, and you hear something new in it each time. As I said above, this score is highly worth seeking out. Hopefully it will be reissued or possibly Herrmann's original version will be re-recoded (or found and an OST released), but until then, this version should suffice nicely, and fits well into any score fan's collection."