James Bernard * The Voice of Hammer _ Frankenstein / Dracula / Prince of Darkness * Lee _ Cushing

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• published: 25 Apr 2015
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Oscar winner James Bernard was born James Michael Bernard on September 20, 1925 and died on July 12, 2001. These 3 masterful scores have never been commercially released or re-recorded in their entirety. I've put them together here away from the visuals so people don't forget how good they are on their own. Film score fans are eager. What are soundtrack producers waiting for? *Curse of Frankenstein (1957) Justine 0:00 Elizabeth 2:29 *Horror of Dracula (1958) Harker 4:35 Lucy 5:39 Mina 8:20 Gerda 10:42 *Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966) Sandor was right 11:35 Whose cases are these? 14:22 There'll be no morning for us 16:23 Alan, don't leave me 18:47 I'll wake the others 19:51 You don't need Charles 21:28 Not a sight for the squeamish 26:14 James Bernard was a prominent British film composer, especially of eerie horror scores, particularly for Hammer Film Productions and came to be known as the Voice of Hammer. Starting with The Quatermass Xperiment, he scored such classics as The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Horror of Dracula (1958). In 1944 James Bernard met Paul Dehn, who was then a Major working for Military Intelligence, Section 6 (MI6). This was the start of a lifelong love partnership, the two moved in together in an apartment on King's Road while Bernard was still serving with the RAF in 1946. Paul Dehn, by now a writer and critic, asked Bernard to collaborate with him on the original screenplay for the Boulting Brothers film Seven Days to Noon (1950). For this Paul Dehn and James Bernard shared the 1952 Academy Award for the Best Screenwriting. In 1953 Bernard received his first commission to write incidental music for a radio play by Patric Dickinson, The Death of Hector. Not having been taught orchestration at the RCM, Bernard often turned for advice to Imogen Holst, whom Benjamin Britten had recommended. Bernard also sought her assistance when writing for a broadcast radio production of The Duchess of Malfi, which starred Richard Burton, Peggy Ashcroft and Paul Scofield. The music for this so impressed John Hollingsworth, music director of Hammer, that when the composer originally scheduled to score The Quatermass Xperiment fell ill the job was offered to Bernard. The Quatermass Xperiment was scored for strings and percussion only at John Hollingsworth's instruction: "I don't think he trusted me with anything more than a small string orchestra", Bernard later suggested. "At that time John Hollingsworth was one of the chief conductors of the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, so he used players from the Opera House orchestra," Bernard elsewhere wrote. The score, predating Bernard Herrmann's Psycho by five years, has been cited as the first film score to treat strings in an unconventional, non-romantic manner, including the use of tone clusters and asking string players to bow on the wrong side of the bridge. Again, Bernard showed the score to Imogen Holst before he committed it to the recording sessions for the soundtrack. Bernard scored Hammer's first horror film, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957); this included some music he had originally composed for The Duchess of Malfi. Next came Dracula (1958), in which the title cue featured a motif based on the sound Dra-cu-laaaaa, inspired by a suggestion Paul Dehn made to Bernard. Other Hammer scores include The Kiss of the Vampire (1962), The Plague of the Zombies (1966), The Devil Rides Out (1968) and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969). A distinctive trait in Bernard's Hammer scores are their use of clashing harmonies, often created by doubling a motif a tone higher, as in his famous Dracula theme. His music is also frenzied and pacy at times, frequently making use of percussion such as timpani and snares. The Devil Rides Out (1968) and The Plague of the Zombies (1966) are good examples of this. However, he could also write lushly romantic melodies, such as appear in Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970) and Scars of Dracula (also 1970). Unlike the majority of film composers, Bernard orchestrated almost all of his work. Paul Dehn died in 1976. Working on She (1965), Bernard first met the man who later became his second life partner, actor Ken McGregor, with whom he lived in Jamaica until McGregor's death there in 1994. Bernard then moved back to London and lived there for the remainder of his life. In later years, he was invited by silent film historian Kevin Brownlow to write an original score for F. W. Murnau's classic silent horror Nosferatu (1922/1997) and for Brownlow's documentary Universal Horror (1998). He also wrote the score to Paul Cotgrove's 2001 short horror film Green Fingers (starring Hammer veteran actresses Ingrid Pitt and Janina Faye). David Huckvale's critical biography of the composer, James Bernard – Composer to Count Dracula was published by McFarland in 2006.