A review by JAMES SOUTHALL

The detective thriller On Dangerous Ground was natural territory for Bernard Herrmann, able to see the dark side in everything (one can imagine the thrusting trombone ostinatos which may have run through Dumbo had he got his hands on it).  It concerns a big city detective sent out into the country to find a young girl's killer, full of the kind of psychological tension for which Herrmann was so renowned.  Director Nicholas Ray was still a few years away from Rebel Without a Cause, but the picture was reasonably successful.  It was almost like a homecoming for the composer, since it was made about ten years after Citizen Kane, by the same producer (John Houseman) at the same studio (RKO Radio Pictures).

The score's most celebrated feature is its incredibly aggressive hunt music, heard most famously in the magnificent "The Death Hunt", one of Herrmann's most impressive achievements.  The orchestra, featuring no fewer than eight horns, positively erupts with violence for a truly memorable sequence.  The same music is also heard elsewhere, notably in the "Prelude".  But there is a lot more to the score than that, including some truly gorgeous music for solo viola d'amore, especially in "Blindness", which introduces a particularly beautiful theme.  The high-register strings in "Faith" sound like they could come from one of Alfred Newman's spiritual scores and see Herrmann exhibiting a wonderfully melodic, emotional side - a side with which he is not frequently associated.  There is also the occasional moment of film noir suspense music, though even there Herrmann maintains a fairly strong melodic base.  The action music is dynamically thrilling; the emotional music stunningly beautiful.  What more could anybody want from a film score?

Christopher Husted's liner notes are magnificent, among the finest I have read.  His detailed analysis of the film and music and stories of how Herrmann came to be hired are fascinating, and extracts from Herrmann's own letters (and those of his friends) nothing short of hilarious, particularly his letter to the film's producer saying that it suffered from a weak script and he would try his best to rescue the movie, and his insistence that if the music in the hunt sequence was obscured by the noise of barking dogs then he would withdraw his entire score.  Sadly, "magnificent" is not a word that could be used to describe the sound.  Both the album cover and booklet are covered in warnings about it, and these warnings should be heeded.  This is not a CD for audiophiles.  There is considerable surface noise heard during many of the tracks.  I'm pleased that the album's producers chose not to use some sort of noise reduction technology to get rid of it, since that would have removed so much of the detail from Herrmann's magnificent orchestrations, but it's impossible to miss.  Having said that, the music is impressive enough that it would take a great deal more than tape hiss to diminish its impact.  This is one of Herrmann's finest scores, and is simply unmissable.

Tracks

1. Prelude (1:23)
2. Solitude (1:11)
3. Violence (:32)
4. Nocturne (2:01)
5. Pastorale (2:22)
6. Hunt Scherzo (2:44)
7. Snowstorm / The Silence (3:36)
8. The House (:40)
9. Blindness (3:38)
10. Fright (2:15)
11. Faith (2:11)
12. The Searching Hunt (1:39)
13. The Whispering (1:09)
14. Dawn / The Idiot / Fear / The Cabin (5:41)
15. The Death Hunt (2:22)
16. The Hunt's End (2:12)
17. Grief (:55)
18. The Winter Walk (1:34)
19. The Parting / The Return / The City / Finale (6:04)
20. Prelude (alternate) (1:22)
21. Outtakes (2:13)