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From The Desk Of Cardinal’s Eric Matthews: Bernard Herrmann

After an 18-year absence, Cardinal has finally returned with Hymns (Fire), its sophomore album. To rabid fans of the bi-coastal duo who’d all but given up hope of ever hearing a sequel to their masterful self-titled 1994 debut, that freshman year must have seemed interminable. When its first longplayer appeared on an indie-rock scene buzzing with grunge and punk, it was such a breath of fresh air, some people became giddy from lack of oxygen. To those without a sense of history, it was as though Richard Davies and Eric Matthews had discovered something that had never been done before. Harpsichords and baroque trumpets on a pop album? Preposterous! We love it. No one knows better than Davies and Matthews, themselves, both men with a sense of perspective, that you only have to dig out your copy of the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour album to hear “Penny Lane,” awash in baroque trumpet. Or listen to the two LPs by the Left Banke, a mid-’60s combo that hit it big with “Walk Away Renee” and “Pretty Ballerina,” for a hit of string quartets and harpsichords. Not to say that Matthews and Davies didn’t create something perfectly wonderful, both then and now. The duo will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with them.

Matthews: He is the captain and leader for me in the field of film and television composers. It started for me with The Twilight Zone episode “Walking Distance.” That score is still one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard. It’s a simple statement of his system of composition but topped with soaring high melodies and dramatic musical shifts. In it, you can hear a kind of blueprint for his other work, the stuff with Alfred Hitchcock especially. The catalog is huge and getting bigger by the day even though he died decades ago. My brother is buying up these boxed sets that have been coming out this year, limited sets of music compiled from the vaults at CBS, where Herrmann was a staff composer for much of the ’30s and ’40s. And almost more valuable than anything is the new set that is essentially his complete musical output from his work on TV show Hitchcock Presents. Every bit of great film music written after 1950 owes a huge debt to Bernard. Whatever John Williams or Jerry Goldsmith writes next is sure to include more than a hint of The Master. Is Jerry still alive?

Video after the jump.