Film music is frequently episodic and repetitive in nature. Usually the best way to present it as concert music is to make a concise suite or a single-movement tone poem from its best ideas. Despite being titled a "suite", this seven-minute movement is virtually a rhapsody based on the music of Alfred Hitchcock's great film (the only one for which he won an "Oscar"). Waxman's score captures the main elements of the plot, drawn from DuMaurier's famous novel, in quick deft strokes. The brooding estate where it takes place, the love of the nameless heroine for her new husband and the haunting memory of his deceased first wife all emerge from the lyrical opening. The heroine's determination to understand Rebecca and the strange spell she still seems to exert builds up a strong tension in the middle of the suite. The final catastrophe breaks out in a thrilling fast ending that releases all this tension. This is not only fine music in its own right, it is a brilliant synopsis of the novel.

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