Biography
Herman Hand was an Austrian-born American composer and orchestrator. Born in Vienna in 1875, he trained as a French horn player at the Vienna Conservatory before emigrating to the United States in 1900. He became a naturalised citizen in 1922 and worked initially in theatre, providing incidental music and orchestrations for Broadway productions including Chauve-Souris (1922).
From the late 1920s he contributed to Hollywood film scores, mainly for Paramount Pictures. His work, often uncredited, included composition and orchestration on films such as A Farewell to Arms (1932), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), Shanghai Express (1932), I'm No Angel (1933), The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) and The Devil Is a Woman (1935). He continued as an orchestrator into the 1940s on titles including North West Mounted Police (1940) and Unconquered (1947). Hand died in Los Angeles in 1951.
