Tag Archives: Vertigo

Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas—In Concert with the TSO

Tonight Erika and I watched The Nightmare Before Christmas shown with the Toronto Symphony playing the score live, conducted by Sarah Hicks at Roy Thomson Hall. As with the 100 Years of Film Music concert we attended earlier this week, … Continue reading

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The history of film music = the history of film

A friend of mine asked me to suggest a way to begin studying film music, knowing that I teach a course at the Royal Conservatory called Cinematic Music: How We Hear Film.  The course begins later in March. As a … Continue reading

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Psycho and the art of horror with the Toronto Symphony

For Halloween the Toronto Symphony presented their latest film with a live accompaniment, namely Psycho. A film buff might call it “Hitchcock’s Psycho.“ A film-music buff might prefer “Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho” which is closer to how I see it. Without … Continue reading

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In common

Once every decade Sight and Sound magazine polls experts on film to determine which films are understood to be the best.  In 1962 they chose Citizen Kane best film, and every ten years since that time, they have returned Kane … Continue reading

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The Descent of Psycho

I don’t know very much about Charles Darwin, but have always been fascinated by the profound reverberations set off in my head by the title The Descent of Man.  I am not a naturalist.  I understood that Darwin meant “descent” … Continue reading

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