The musical motel - Psycho in concert at Nottingham Royal
Appropriately on Halloween night itself, Midlands Movies headed down to Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall for a terrifying screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s often-seen horror Psycho (1960), but this time with a live orchestra playing the iconic score.
The music came courtesy of the excellent Limelight Orchestra who hoped to capture composer Bernard Herrmann’s nightmarish tones and oh boy did they!
If you’ve not heard of the concept, the film's music is removed and we get the orchestra playing along to the images. The conductor keeps in time, controlling the musicians and matching rhythmic beats to the movie cues.
To set the scene, the Psycho score itself is legendary and requires little introduction to cinephiles. But it has also permeated pop culture in general and has subsequently scared audiences for over 60 years. Its tension and drama adds so much - just try watching the film with the sound off and you’ll notice a huge difference!
During its creation, the film’s low-budget constraints meant Herrmann composed only for a string orchestra father than a full ensemble. And it is this simplicity that tonally matches Hitchcock’s simple black and white cinematography.
On this night, the score is obviously played in the film order – with the event beginning with an appropriate loud rendition of the main title, the orchestra coming in brilliantly with Saul Bass’s iconic (but equally simple) title sequence. The music stays thematically consistent for the first 40 minutes of exposition, yet tonight’s auditorium was on the edge of their seats for the impending arrival of the famous shower scene and its frightful refrain.
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The stabbing strings heard during Janet Leigh’s murder at the hands of (spoiler) Anthony Perkins’ Norman Bates, was a show highlight - with a few screams heard too! The screeching strings seem to sound like bird-calls, linking the brutal murder to Norman’s "bird-stuffing" hobby. The excellent control of the score by conductor Paul Murphy meant every violent violin and cutting cello was felt by the audience - inducing a palpable panic as we all felt what characters were physically feeling on screen.
Also, the venue’s acoustics added to the power of each moment, the performance giving real depth to a symphonic score most of us have only heard recorded. The strings soared when needed, held back during the tense final moments and there’s a chilly percussive effect in the playing – replacing the absence of the other orchestral components.
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An Academy Award-winner, Bernard Herrmann also collaborated on other Hitchcock movies (Vertigo, North by Northwest, The Birds). And if that wasn’t enough, his first film score was Orson Welles's Citizen Kane, and his last score was for Scorsese's Taxi Driver. Two films where the score contributed to them both being considered two of the greatest of all time. What a legacy.
Unbelievably however, the Psycho score was not even nominated for an Academy Award but tonight it was a winner in every sense of the word. Moving beyond its somewhat horror cinema cliché reputation, the Limelight Orchestra brought new life (and death) to the score this evening. With a receptive house, this was the perfect union of movie and music. And with the conductor and musicians at the top of their game, Psycho in Concert was an unmissable evening and created a fantastic memory that I’ll keep locked up in my head forever.
Michael Sales
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