Bernard Herrmann: Clarinet quintet "Souvenir de Voyage" and string quartet Echoes

Bernard Herrmann: Clarinet quintet "Souvenir de Voyage" and string quartet Echoes; Jerome Moross: Sonata for piano duet and string quartet. The Texas Festival Chamber Ensemble. Albany Records, $15.00.

This album is excellent for rainy days. Bernard Herrmann is best known for his movie scores for Alfred Hitchcock. The pieces here do sound a bit like his gentle Vertigo and Psycho cues, but are even more tuneful and bittersweet. Anyone who savors Brahms's clarinet quintet will probably like Herrmann's. Much of it is hauntingly wistful, with beautiful tensions in the harmonies. One movement is a portrait of the Aran Islands in Ireland. Moross was a boyhood friend of Herrmann's, and his composition gives 20 minutes of much lighter contrast, it starts to seem almost trivial after a while, next to Herrmann's brooding, but it is well crafted and catchy. Surprisingly, almost all its melodies move by thirds instead of steps.

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