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James Horner conducting Titanic in 1997

"I'm a fanatic about Irish music. I love its moody, modal and timeless quality. I'm different from some other composers, because I don't look at this as just a job. I think of music as art."


For two decades, James Horner has been a composer at the center of many soundtrack fans' controversies and discussions. His styles and techniques have been questioned again and again about repitition and attribution, even though he's quickly become one of the most easily-recognized Hollywood composers. His score for Titanic catapulted him into the international spotlight, while also advancing the cause of orchestral film music. He emphasizes, though, that he isn't particularly interested in his fame, and that it doesn't affect his professional and artistic outlook on his career.

Horner's career is still young, yet it features some striking changes in style. In the early 1980's, Horner was the master of combining several talented musicians with synthesizers (and a small orchestra) and producing a creative and innovative sound. There are many fans of Horner's early works, such as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Krull, Wolfen, and Brainstorm, and many of them believe that Horner's distinct orchestral and electronic mix of the time is some of his best material. Ironically, there aren't many people who lovingly embrace both these early classics and Horner's modern, fully-orchestral works at the same time. Much of the arguement presented by critics of Horner's recent works revolves around the belief that most of Horner's recent styles, all the way through Enemy at the Gates and The Four Feathers, are mutations of his earlier, superior work.

Regardless of the validity of these beliefs, Horner began evolving in the mid-1980's as his scoring assignments began to change. With Cocoon in 1985 came a hint of Horner's orchestral mastery. By 1988, although still utilizing his synthesizer skills in such scores as Vibes and Red Heat, Horner completed his first two massive, thematically dramatic orchestral efforts, Willow and The Land Before Time. Considered by fans to be two of his best, these scores combined Horner's interest in exotic instruments with a full orchestra and the opportunity to score popular films. A year later, along with his first Academy Award nomination for Field of Dreams, Horner received his first critical success for Glory, for which he wrote a heart-breaking theme that has been used in numerous trailers and television commercials to date. An American Tail introduced Horner's song-writing skills, which would become nationally evident a decade later with Titanic and The Mask of Zorro.

Horner in 1998

Horner, like veteran composer Jerry Goldsmith, used the early '90s to build up his resume with countless smaller films. He became a master at scoring children's films while also composing more subtle, powerful works for such films as The Man Without a Face, Searching for Bobby Fischer, and The Pelican Brief. In 1995, he burst back into the national spotlight with an amazing streak of impressive scores. Hot off the success of Legends of the Fall, Horner was nominated by the Academy for both Braveheart and Apollo 13 --two ethnically opposite, but stylistically elevated scores. He also bade a triumphant farewell to his children's scores with two of his best in the genre, Balto and Casper, while also creating controversy with his short and bitter score for the bizarre sex-thriller, Jade. After a country-magical score for The Spitfire Grill in 1996, Horner hit the financial and critical jackpot with Titanic, Deep Impact, and The Mask of Zorro in 1997-1998.

As a relatively young composer, it's possible that Horner will be remembered eventually for the classics he will undoubtedly write in the 21st Century. The current decade has included a continuation of Horner's established styles (The Perfect Storm, Windtalkers, Iris), with the culmination of his early 2000's work for the Academy Award nominated score A Beautiful Mind in 2001. He also prefers, since 1997, to include a notable soloist in all of his recordings. Yet, as critics evaluate the first twenty years of his career, his early scores of Glory and Willow stand out as his finest work. In the years since, thoughout the love and hate relationship many film music fans have had with him, Horner has continued to produce effective and thematically provocative scores.