Popularly known as the theme music to “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”, the fantastic suspense / horror / mystery TV anthology series created, hosted, and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, the piece “Funeral March of a Marionette” (French: Marche funèbre d’une marionnette) was composed by Charles Gounod, originally for solo piano, in 1872. Later arranged for orchestra by the composer in 1879, the piece has seen many uses and adaptations over the years. The earliest recording I could find was this one by John Philip Sousa’s band in 1903.
The opening to “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”:
Hitchcock himself was inspired to use the piece as his theme music after initially hearing it in the 1927 film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, and listed it among a handful of other classical and orchestral works as his “desert island” music selections. In addition to Gounod’s piece, some of his other favorite works included compositions by Roussel, Elgar, Wagner and Schumann.
I’m a very good listener. From an early age I was a devotee of symphonic music.
Alfred Hitchcock, “Desert Island Discs” 1959
For another example of Gounod’s Funeral March of a Marionette in use, check out this section of Witch’s Tale: The Gypsy’s Hand (1934), where a single hand is playing the melody on a keyboard, and the piece is mentioned by name. Now if you ever hear this haunting melody being played in the background somewhere, you will know it too!
And that brings us finally to my very own version of Funeral March of a Marionette, arranged for guitar solo. To create this arrangement, I worked from the original piano score, and tried to incorporate enough of the underlying harmony to give it structure, while still making it playable and listenable with a range of clean / distorted tones.
Hope you enjoy it, and if you’d like to try your hand at playing it, you can download the free sheet music / tab right here! A huge thank you to Rick Fincke for providing this expert transcription to the Shred of Dignity Guitar community – it is 100% spot on, and almost as fun to look at as it is to play!
Alfred Hitchcock Theme guitar tab
Alfred Hitchcock Theme arranged for guitar solo (FREE download for all newsletter subscribers!)
PDF Download, 2 Pages
