Bernard Herrmann

Herrmann studied at NYU and Juilliard before working as a staff conductor for CBS Radio, where he composed extensively for prestige radio drama before Orson Welles brought him into film scoring.

Hitchcock's essential composer (Psycho, Vertigo) reached for two theremins to give an alien visitor's arrival a sound no audience had heard before. He was famous throughout his career for unconventional instrumentation choices, and his use of paired theremins alongside a full orchestra for this score was considered radical for a major studio production at the time.

His decades-long partnership with Alfred Hitchcock later became one of the most studied director-composer relationships in film history, though this earlier science fiction score predates that famous collaboration.