For his main title music for Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Bernard Herrmann used alternately ascending and descending arpeggiated chords in contrary motion in the treble and bass voices; no clear direction, up or down, is established, nor is a harmonic center confirmed. With its almost uninterrupted, destabilizing undulation, the music provides a musical evocation of vertigo that is reinforced by Hitchcock’s spiraling geometric images.
This according to “The language of music: A brief analysis of Vertigo” by Kathryn Kalinak, an essay included in her Settling the score: Music and the classical Hollywood film (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992) and reprinted in Movie music: The film reader (London: Routledge, 2003).
Today is Bernard Herrmann’s 100th birthday! Below, the virtiginous title sequence in question.
This is one of my favorite film scores. Thanks for calling attention to it. Hermann is more well known for the Psycho theme, but I prefer Vertigo because it’s understated and more original, while the Psycho song sounds so much like some of Shostakovich’s darker compositions. I was greatly upset recently to hear Hermann’s Vertigo score featured in a Lady Gaga video.