Monday’s (9/16) amNew York (New York, N.Y.) includes an interview with conductor Constantine Kitsopoulos, making his New York Philharmonic debut on September 17 leading the first concert in “Hitchcock!,” a week of events “dedicated to film scoring, including screenings backed by live music from 2001: A Space Odyssey and clips from Alfred Hitchcock thrillers. ‘I became a Hitchcock fan a few years ago when I first learned Psycho in order to do it live with orchestra,’ says Kitsopoulos. ‘When I was growing up, I avoided thrillers…. I didn’t like the feeling of being scared or in suspense…. I think my favorite is Vertigo. Bernard Herrmann’s music is almost Wagnerian in scope…. Music was very important to Hitchcock. His integration of music, color, script, acting, editing, etc., is the closest thing in cinema to what Wagner referred to as Gesamtkunstwerk, that is, the organic combination of all aspects of a piece of art…. Herrmann referred to the scene as the melody and the music as the accompaniment.… The music in Hitchcock films is even more important to listen to today as it has influenced so many other film composers.… Just as Mahler is played more than ever, so should these scores continue to be programmed.”
Posted September 17, 2013
