In the vast and glittering array of music-oriented get-togethers, the only piano concerto ever written where the soloist concludes the piece without the accompanying orchestra is THE CONCERTO MACABRE. This was composed by the brilliant Bernard Herrmann (who wrote the scores for films ranging from JANE EYRE and CITIZEN KANE, to PSYCHO and VERTIGO, to SISTERS and TAXI DRIVER, his final work before his death).
“The Concerto Macabre” is part of Herrmann’s overall score for the film HANGOVER SQUARE (1945). Gothic romance is given full expression as the story unfolds around a composer, George Harvey Bone (Laird Cregar) who is subject to insanity and amnesia. After murdering a man, he then falls in love with a cheap music-hall singer (Linda Darnell) who casts him aside when she has no further use for him, scorning his love and talent; he ultimately kills her, of course.
Bone is performing his Concerto Macabre when the police come to arrest him, sets fire to the hall in his attempted escape, and plays his concerto to the end as his surroundings crash in fragmented and fiery ruins around him.
The Concerto Macabre would have been more than appropriate to describe Poe’s HOUSE OF USHER; it’s descriptive of the simultaneously passionate, mysterious and demonic within an atmosphere of pervading madness. The romance of Liszt lies in its virtuosity and is heard within a muted horn fanfare in the wake of Bone’s murders. A cadenza blends into bird-like cries which are transmuted notes on the piano (Bone’s subconscious mind) that become piccolos that shriek during one of Bone’s seizures. The concerto’s performance builds into an alternating second and central theme that idealize then destroy the singer (Darnell) he once loved in elevated tones and flashbacks. These and other motifs occur until the orchestra flees in the ensuing fire leaving Bone to play the final 28 bars alone.
Bernard Herrmann was in many ways a “solo pianist” himself: a rebel who defied convention before being rebellious was in vogue. He was a stubborn, temperamental man who lost many friends with his angry outbursts and caustic personality, but befriended just as many with his self-effacing wit and genuine affability.
But he astounded everyone with his musical genius (the above being only an example); he was undoubtedly one of the greatest (some would say “Greatest”) film composers of all time. His compositions gave description and meaning to every aspect of the films he scored (pioneering the way for future composers and musicians): from the physical to the psychological, from the objective to the subjective…all this with the most minimal instrumentations. He was truly one of the major benefits of the Modernist/ Post-Modernist genre that had reached into cinema and whereas his Concerto destroyed the film’s protagonist, Herrmann (unlike many of this M/P-M genre) was only enhanced by his solo piano playing…in defiance of convention, even in defiance of Romanticism.
*[Just some gibberish from some left-handed scrawls of mine...I had intended to re-work it, but I'm currently too lazy for such exercise. Even though this post isn't NYC-related, Bernard Herrmann was born here and much-influenced by this city. For the few who care, while on your way to something better, this Concerto along with Herrmann had a profound influence on me as a pianist. Thanks]
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