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•	2025 Album

•	2008 Album

•	1994 Album

The music falls squarely into familiar territory for the composer, his discordant lines flourishing as the thriller side of the score resembles Psycho and foreshadows Sisters. The work's romantic portions revisit the tone of his personal favorites, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and On Dangerous Ground, without capturing the resonance of either. Herrmann's ensemble is restrained to a full string section and harp along with two lead soloists. A solitary harmonica represents the male lead; the instrument was popular at the time in film scores, and it suggested the simplicity of a more modern rural character. On the other side, the viola d'amore, a seven-string baroque tenor viol, accompanies the lead woman and the unrecommended romance between the two, additionally representing the woman's psychological despair. These soloists don't make much sense as a duet, but that's the whole point of the pairing. Herrmann gets the most out of his ensemble as per usual, creating depth with fewer musicians, and "A New Beginning and Ending" combines all of these elements into the highlight cue of drama at the conclusion. The tone of the score is frantic and melancholy in alternating sequences and adheres to a chromatic scale to support its tension. Strings are instructed to provide intentionally distorted, subtle ambience to the aftermaths of the killings to denote insanity. The harp is a vital inclusion at certain points, its cascading figures helping reinforce the mental breakdown of the leads through the story as well. Interestingly, the closing cue resolves to a soothing, major key resolution rather abruptly, the final bars especially tinged with pleasant solace in their peaceful exit. There are comparatively nondescript parts to the score, as in much of "Nest in a Fallen Tree" and elsewhere in the middle of the narrative, though. The whining violin ambience in "Mary's Death and the Road Builder" is disturbing and long, and the high-pitch, unresolved conclusion to "Maura's Choice" is equally unnerving without being frightening.

The composer's themes for The Night Digger aren't all that memorable, but they function well enough to play their role, the main identity for the awkward romance and Neal's character leading the accessible passages. From there, Herrmann supplies the handyman with a difficult theme of suffering while adding a less cohesive identity for the mother character and a striking motif for the killings. The main romantic theme applies meandering and frantic phrasing that swirls in a circle of doom, its more dramatic descending extensions dripping with melodrama and sadness. Embroiled in the intrigue at 0:06 into "Prelude" on low strings under the tumult of the killing motif's strings, this theme is hampered by harmonica strikes as harrowing counterpoint at 0:23 before viola takes over for relief. Innocent at the highest ranges at the beginning of "Billy's New Room," this theme slightly flutters early in "Nest in a Fallen Tree," struggles against the killing motif in "Mary's Death and the Road Builder," and slowly gains warmth in "Maura and Billy," which offers highly intimate lower range performances. Softly following the disturbing material for the crime in "Murdering the Nurse and Burial," this idea resolves itself to muted interest in "What is It That You do Billy?" It proceeds with dying whimsy at 0:58 into "A New Beginning and Ending," in which it elevates to a frantic rendition at 4:38 for the full ensemble, and a viola and harmonica duet at 6:29 brings the score to a somber but digestible close. The theme for the murderer, Billy, starts with an ascending series that promises hope but yields to sick, descending answers of torment thereafter. It hints alongside the nearly religious contemplation in "Maura and Mother," interrupts the main theme on harmonica at 0:32 into "Billy's New Room" and then dominates the cue. After coldly meandering at the end of "Nest in a Fallen Tree," the Billy theme wisely contributes phrases directly against the main theme in "Maura and Billy." Finally, it stabs with faster pacing early in "Murdering the Nurse and Burial" and reduces to a lonely harmonica solo at 3:39 into "A New Beginning and Ending."

Among the lesser motifs, the theme for the therapist's mother is explored with somewhat sickly, elusive formations in "Maura and Mother," taunted by hints of the killing motif's rhythms. The nearly religious inclinations extending from this material return near the end of "Maura and Billy" and continue in "Maura's Choice," eventually leaving the scene cold in the middle of "A New Beginning and Ending." The killing motif is where Herrmann's music will attract the most attention, opening "Prelude" in full panic mode on terrorized strings that recall his Alfred Hitchcock classics. These methods persist in bursts at the start of "Mary's Death and the Road Builder" but are more restrained at the start of "Murdering the Nurse and Burial." They strike against the main theme once again at the outset of "A New Beginning and Ending," returning in similar form at 1:19. Ultimately, all the most engaging summaries of the themes and instrumentation exist in "A New Beginning and Ending," and this track is the only necessary inclusion from the score in a Herrmann compilation. The composer had arranged his music into seven suites called "Scenario Macabre for Orchestra" for an album, and the series of Label X releases through the years emulated these original arrangements for their presentations, with a 2008 option that added a brief track of harmonica performances of the Billy character material. A Dragon's Domain Records expansion in 2025 reconstructs the score in a longer form that Herrmann intended for the picture itself, this product using multiple sources to piece together that product in the best sound possible. That quality is fairly decent and shouldn't impede any listener, though don't expect it to sound significantly better simply because of the younger age of the recording. Collectors who obtained the Label X products in the 1990's and 2000's may not benefit from the longer product's additions, but for those exploring The Night Digger fresh, the 2025 album is the place to start. Just be aware that Herrmann's music for this score, while containing worthy trademarks of his classics from the decades before, isn't as alluringly impressive when heard outside of context.   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

• Music as Written for the Film:  ****
• Music as Heard on Album:  ***
• Overall:  ***