Bernard Herrmann is a music composer who in over 40 scores enriched the work of directors like Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Francois Truffaut, and Martin Scorsese. He scored for "Fahrenheit 451", "The Day the Earth Stood Still", and "Psycho". This title is his biography exploring the inter-relationships between his music and his personal life.

"An exceptional work. I stand in awe of anyone who can piece together the puzzle of a man's life so fully, especially a man as odd and contradictory as Herrmann. A brilliant job."—Leonard Maltin

"Bernard Herrmann was a master of psychology. His incredibly innovative music ‘inhabited’ the film it was in, creating moods that stayed with the audience long after the film was over. Steven Smith captures the very heart of what Herrmann represented. I highly recommend this book to anyone who truly wants a glimpse into the world of this musical giant who changed the very nature of film composing."—Esa-Pekka Salonen, music director, Los Angeles Philharmonic

"Fascinating. The scholarship is impeccable, the judgments sound, and the whole thing as compulsively readable as eating popcorn."—Nicholas Meyer, director and writer