This should have been an excellent album highlighting Herrmann's greatest achievements with Alfred Hitchcock, unfortunately it's a rather unsatisfying compilation that features a few noteworthy moments, but also its fair share of duff ones. Getting off onto a spectacularly bad foot is the Narrative for Orchestra that Herrmann assembled from his score to Psycho. The biggest problem is that it lacks any energy, indeed the prelude is played with no vibrancy at all and since the prelude relies quite a bit on the energy of performance as well as the dynamics to keep it interesting, this makes Herrmann's music sound about uninspired as one is likely to hear. The few slower sections, such as the City motifs come out better, but the murder music is if Norman Bates had chronic arthritis of the arms and all the menace of a piece of old cheese.
The highlight for Herrmann fans will undoubtedly be the suite from Marnie, so far only released as a bootleg, this is the most elusive of Herrmann's scores for Hitchcock (even his rejected Torn Cutain has received more releases than this). It is with some relief that I can say that to me, this music is played with all the vibrancy that I would expect and as such provides a fairly decent ten minute cross section of the score. The bold and dramatic opening to the exciting scherzo in the second half the music and playing are great and are a great asset to the album. North by Northwest's riveting Overture is given a fairly exciting rendition that is a hundred times clearer than the original album recording sounds today. The only thing I would say is the recording quality for this is perhaps a little too deadened in places and where there should be a little echo, all we hear is silence. I suppose that considering Herrmann's scores tended to be recorded with a very dry acoustic this makes it more faithful in style, but I would prefer just a little more warmth to my recordings.
Vertigo features the most important cues of the original score in a, believe it or not, slightly fast interpretation. This doesn't quite have the booming grandeur of Joel McNeely's recording and in comparison sounds a bit thin and unexciting and not to mention a fraction rushed in places. A couple of misplaced notes in the performance don't help matters. The Scene d'Amour is rather better and is paced at a more civilised tempo, although again the dry acoustic does nothing to enhance what should be a slightly more lush and rich atmosphere. The Portrait of Hitch from The Trouble with Harry is enjoyable and fun even though I can't help thinking that it sounds too much like slightly overwrought comedy music in places, particularly with that opening four note phrase and the use of mutes to emphasise the final note. Still a joyous interpretation of some of Herrmann's lighter music.
As Herrmann is conducting, we cannot rule out the merits of the somewhat different performances that he extracts from the London Philharmonic, but I can't say that there aren't better performances out there. Psycho in particular will have most people rushing for their videos just to hear if it really should be that slow and lethargic. The Phase 4 stereo isn't quite as upfront as some of the other compilations that Herrmann conducted, but not being a fan of a very deadened acoustic the recording style ultimately wouldn't have been my choice. Worth getting for the suite from Marnie, but if you own the others then probably you can give it a miss unless you're a Herrmann fanatic.
Rating ~ 
Total Time ~ 46:39