Strings that cut
Psycho (1960) · Bernard Herrmann
Hitchcock made Psycho fast and cheap, with the crew from his television series and for under a million dollars. There was little money for music, so Herrmann gave up the full symphony orchestra and wrote for strings alone.
He turned the cut into an idea. A black-and-white film, as he saw it, called for music in a single colour. With no brass or percussion, violins, violas, cellos and basses do everything. The title prelude already sounds like flight, and that drive returns when Marion drives through the night with the stolen money.
Hitchcock had asked for the shower scene to have no music. Herrmann wrote it anyway: shrieking high violins, repeated like blows. When Hitchcock heard it against the cut, he changed his mind. It is probably the most imitated sound in horror cinema.
Years later Hitchcock himself said that 33% of the effect of Psycho was due to the music. Rarely has a director so protective of his control given his composer that much credit.