Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975) was one of the movies' greatest musical dramatists. He had the remarkable ability to see a film, imagine its musical possibilities, and translate them into a compelling dramatic score that enhanced and often deepened the story being told.

For fifteen years in the late 1950s and the 1960s, television also benefited from Herrmann's genius. Much of that work was accomplished under the auspices of the television and radio arm of the Columbia Broadcasting System.

Starting in late 1956, Bernard Herrmann received several television commissions from CBS, including considerable music for a genre that largely eluded him in feature films: the western. One of his themes, "Have Gun -- Will Travel," ran for six years on the network and then had a healthy decades-long run in syndication.
Herrmann was, when he wrote most of this music, at a high point in his cinema career, between scores for Alfred Hitchcock ("The Man Who Knew Too Much" was behind him, "Vertigo" just ahead) and the great Ray Harryhausen fantasy films (he would soon embark on "Seventh Voyage of Sinbad").

Among the music on this CD, two of these scores were written specifically "to picture," these were the pilot score for the Richard Boone TV Series "Have Gun,Will Travel" and Herrmann's score for the episode THE TALL TRAPPER from the
long-running TV series "Gunsmoke" starring James Arness.

The other three for the CBS music library (occasionally borrowing musical ideas from his 1953-54 CBS radio series "Crime Classics").

The three library suites ("Western Suite," "Indian Suite," "Western Saga") are demonstrative proof of Herrmann's vivid musical imagination. He was writing to no visual or timing cues, only to vague concepts as suggested in the titles of each piece. It's a testament to both his dramatic sense and his musical efficiency -- these were all written for ensembles of less than 15 players -- that his music was used again and again in many television programs through the
mid-1960s.

All of it, however, is clearly and unmistakably Herrmann.

HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL pilot:
"Three Bells to Perdido"*
1.) Suite (10:19)

WESTERN SUITE *
2.) Prelude (1:26)
3.) The Ambush (2:55)
4.) Tranquil Landscape (3:28)
5.) Dark Valley (2:15)
6.) The Meadows (3:21)
7.) Bad Man (1:53)
8.) Gunfight (1:34)
9.) Rain Clouds (2:58)
10.) Sun Clouds (1:24)

GUNSMOKE-THE TALL TRAPPER **
11.) suite (9:24)

THE THE INDIAN SUITE *
12.) Indian Ambush (3:26)
13.) Echo (1:11)
14.) Indian Signals (2:18)
15.) Indian Fight (2:10)

WESTERN SAGA *
16.) Prelude (:55)
17.) Street Music (1:44)
18.) Open Spaces (3:29)
19.) The Hunt (2:08)
20.) The Watching (3:09)
21.) The Canyons (2:23)
22.) Gunsmoke (1:55)
23.) Gunfight (1:15)
24.) Victory! (:44)

*World-Premiere CD Release

**World-Premiere Release

sound samples in MP3 format