Lessons from Ives

Although Charles Ives is rarely considered a major influence on movie scoring, the composer Bernard Herrmann, in both his film scores and his symphonic compositions, drew on Ives’s techniques and his broader aesthetic. However, Herrmann did so sparingly incorporating only one or two of Ives’s techniques in a symphonic work or film score. The result is a fusion of Ivesian modernism with Herrmann’s own neo-Romantic idiom; a contribution to film music that has been almost completely overlooked. This paper focuses on Herrmann’s cantata Moby Dick, dedicated to Ives, and his film scores, The Devil and Daniel Webster and Hangover Square in order to explore the impact of the older composer. The ‘psychological’ hallmarks of Herrmann’s film scores, shocking orchestral colors, unresolved chromaticisms, and ostinatos, are also significant characteristics of Ives’s music. Herrmann’s use of these practices, refined in his later, more famous scores as well, profoundly influenced future film composers and thus the development of music for cinema.