Before I begin the actual article, I just want to give a little background on my ideal tribute. I feel that in order to properly salute an individual, I need to firstly feel in some way personally connected or influenced by that person and secondly familiar with their life's work as a whole. For example, as much as I would have wanted to pay tribute to the great Christopher Lee, who passed away just a few weeks before, I felt that I couldn't really do that very well because I only really knew his career from a millennial standpoint. The oldest film that I remember seeing Lee in was The Wicker Man, which hardly constituted all of his films prior to the 2000s. I haven't seen his Dracula yet, nor his James Bond villain or any of his Hammer Horror films. Certainly I know and love The Lord of the Rings, but that barely scratches the surface of his legacy. I hope that you all understand and sympathize with that statement and will appreciate those tributes to people who I have more of an understanding of. With that, now it's time to do just that, as difficult as it's going to be.
This is the first tribute I’ve ever done for a musician and it makes me especially sad that it has to be this one. James Horner was, for me, the composer’s composer, one of the finest and one of my favourites. Horner’s music graced all range of films that I consumed at every stage in my life. His scores were some of the most triumphant and stirring compositions that I knew for much of my life, equal to those of John Williams or Maurice Jarre. His ability to immerse and envelop a listener like me in the universe with music that seemed to speak so specifically to me… That skill is almost unmatched. And yet he had to be taken away at this time by one of the most profoundly unnerving and tragic accidents you could think of, which certainly makes it especially hard to talk about.
I can’t think of a time when I was not exposed in some ways to Horner’s music in film. In my very early years, preschool on, I devoured animated films of all types; though Horner never scored for Disney, it hardly mattered when movies like Balto and especially The Land Before Time and An American Tail appealed to me just as much. That was certainly the age before I even considered the music to be a separate entity from the film unless of course they were in song form; a little more on that later, though. It took me until several years later to really appreciate the craftsmanship of every cue of every melody and harmony; a couple of scores stood out in particular, but in all likelihood, none more profoundly than when I was fifteen years old and I first saw Braveheart. Any true admirer of Horner relates to this image immediately: the instant that the helicopter shot rises from over the lake and up towards the Scottish hills and you hear the first note of the Uillean pipes. So few musical cues strike you in such a way; it immediately seeps into you, becomes a part of your internal workings and echoes on for days on end. You know from that moment you want to hear more and experience it all and thank James there is so much more.
So many of Horner’s scores have left massive impressions of the field of film music. It really feels shallow to talk about how successful they were financially, but I suppose it’s one of the more effective ways of getting the point across. Even if you don’t recognize his melodies, you’ve heard them. After he burst onto the scene in the 1980s, people began to hear his music everywhere. His first major theatrical score for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was one of the few scores in its time to implement synthesizers in an age where orchestral music was the norm. Glory brought to light one of his personal expertise – the choir – and does that one ever entrance. His score to James Cameron’s Aliens, while somewhat limited due to his time restraints, lived on in the form of some of the most popular trailer music of the 80s and 90s. And… Titanic. Do I need to go any further? Horner helped craft the most successful film soundtrack album of all time. Yes, Celine Dion aided in that album’s success, but more often than not, you’re going to listen to the rest of the soundtrack first and you’ve all been moved by it, regardless of your opinion of the film. Every score by Horner has found some sort of following and appreciation; I could go on and on about how many have moved me in any number of ways. The Mask of Zorro, Apollo 13, Willow, Apocalypto, Field of Dreams, Avatar, stop me now, I’m going overboard!
And yet here we are now.
One of the things I’ve been avoiding in previous tributes is actually discussing how the individual has passed away; it’s not because of naiveté, it just feels more respectful. I don’t really know how I can do that with Horner because, unlike those previous individuals, Horner passed away because of an accident that happened when he was doing something he loved. Horner was a flight enthusiast and the plane that crashed in California was in his name; it was his property and his passion and yet, in this case, for whatever reason, it cost him. It’s very difficult to really accept that sometimes the things that we love are the most dangerous things and that is especially tragic. I cannot begin to imagine what was going through Horner’s mind when this happened or through the minds of his closest friends and family when they found out this had happened. It’s really just that much more hard when a man who was in otherwise healthy condition and was still in the process of doing incredible work lost his life to his other passion. My sincere condolences go to his family and friends, all of whom lost more than just an icon but a man whose passions they really understood and appreciated and someone they loved very dearly.
There’s really very little else that can be said to compliment the man; my admiration is very clear. I suppose the only way that I can properly close this tribute off is with a piece of music, so again, I have selected a personal favourite, close to my childhood. When I was very young, a family member and I performed it at a local vocal festival. It shouldn’t come as a surprise when I say the song was ‘Somewhere Out There’ from An American Tail, a truly melancholy song about the search for a loved one. I had this theme circulating in my head for a while after I learned about Horner’s passing and it really seems so fitting a song, in some ways a summary of his legacy, in other ways, just a heartfelt affirmation of the bond between those you hold close. I do not claim in any way to know who James Horner really was, but through his music, I think a lot of people, myself included, felt that on some level we did and we connected through the exploration of such an incredible talent. A voice, a melody that was individual and universal all at once. I leave you then with this clip of that iconic song; I hope that it feels befitting of such a tribute and such an incredible man.
James Roy Horner
1953-2015
