Classics, The

Horner, James: The Classics
Label: Sony, 2018.
Reviewed by Gary Lemco. 6-09-2020.

James Horner (1953-2015) was a prolific Hollywood film composer. Field of Dreams, Braveheart, and Titanic stood out as among his most renowned film scores. “My job — and it’s something I discuss with Jim Cameron all the time — is to make sure at every turn of the film it’s something the audience can feel with their heart,” Horner said in  a 2009 interview with the Los Angeles Times. “When we lose a character, when somebody wins, when somebody loses, when someone disappears — at all times I’m keeping track, constantly, 
of what the heart is supposed to be feeling. That is my primary role.” His score for Titanic sold 27 million copies worldwide.

Once dubbed “the Mozart of movies” by a British newspaper, Mr. Horner 
had been one of Hollywood’s most prolific composers since 1980, writing 
the scores of more than 100 films. “Ideally, the music shouldn’t be noticed 
at all,” Mr. Horner told Time magazine in 1995. “It should just manipulate 
the hell out of an audience. Music shoves the emotions around, and it has 
to be done skillfully and elegantly.”


With over 100 projects to his name, and work with people such as 
George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Oliver Stone, and 
Ron Howard, Horner firmly established himself as a strong voice in
the world of film scoring. In addition, Horner composed a classical 
concert piece in the 1980s, called "Spectral Shimmers," which was 
world premiered by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Horner 
passed away in a plane crash on June 22, 2015, two months short 
of his 62nd birthday.