Bernard Herrmann ‎– Have Gun, Will Travel, The Original Score From Ethan Allen And The Western Suite

Bernard Herrmann – Have Gun, Will Travel, The Original Score From Ethan Allen And The Western Suite

Released on Cerberus Records in 1984, Have Gun, Will Travel – The Original Score From Ethan Allen And The Western Suite brings together three compelling examples of Bernard Herrmann's television and Western scoring, presenting music from Have Gun – Will Travel, The Ethan Allen Story and Herrmann's Western Suite. The LP was issued as Cerberus CST 0209 and contains 26 individual cues across the two sides.

The first programme comes from CBS's Have Gun – Will Travel, the classic Western television series starring Richard Boone as Paladin, which ran from 1957 to 1963. Herrmann composed the programme's distinctive four-note main theme, and the score is notable for its economical but highly dramatic use of brass and percussion, creating an atmosphere of tension, danger and movement rather than relying on conventional Hollywood Western clichés.

The album then moves into The Ethan Allen Story, a historical television drama dating from 1956, with Herrmann's music accompanying the story of the American Revolutionary War figure Ethan Allen. The sequence progresses through The Arrest, The Meeting, Call To Duty – The Fight, The Tories, Albany, Rural Grotesque, The Jail and The Escape, demonstrating Herrmann's ability to create character and atmosphere through short, sharply constructed orchestral cues.

The entire second side is devoted to The Western Suite, a concert-style sequence of Herrmann's Western-inspired writing. Beginning with Prelude, the suite moves through The Ambush, Tranquil Landscape, Dark Valley, The Meadows, Bad Man, Gunfight, Rain Clouds and Sun Clouds. The contrasting moods—from expansive landscapes and quiet pastoral passages to menace and sudden violence—showcase the dramatic vocabulary that made Herrmann one of the most distinctive film composers of the twentieth century. The Western Suite was subsequently featured in the composer's CBS Years repertoire, alongside music from Gunsmoke and other television Westerns.

For collectors of Bernard Herrmann, vintage television soundtracks, Western music and orchestral film scores, this LP offers a fascinating selection of material from an important period in Herrmann's career. These scores were written during the late 1950s and early 1960s, when Herrmann was simultaneously producing some of his most celebrated cinema work, giving this collection an especially interesting place within his wider catalogue.

Side A – Have Gun, Will Travel

1. Have Gun, Will Travel (Main Title)
2. The Street – The Card
3. The Fight
4. Travel
5. The Rocks
6. The Return
7. Captured – Reunited
8. End Title

The Ethan Allen Story

9. Main Title – The Arrest
10. The Meeting
11. Call To Duty – The Fight
12. The Tories
13. Albany
14. Rural Grotesque
15. The Jail
16. The Escape
17. End Title

Side B – The Western Suite

1. Prelude
2. The Ambush
3. Tranquil Landscape
4. Dark Valley
5. The Meadows
6. Bad Man
7. Gunfight
8. Rain Clouds
9. Sun Clouds