It was with a lot of sadness that I woke to find two emails had come through in the night from my news updates. The first was “‘Titanic’ Composer James Horner Missing and Feared Dead in Plane Crash, Says Attorney” followed just over an hour later by “James Horner, Film Composer for ‘Titanic’ and ‘Braveheart,’ Dies in Plane Crash”

Aged 61, Oscar winning film composer James Horner died earlier this morning (UK time) in a plane crash near Santa Barbara, California. James was piloting the small aircraft which was registered to him.

His death was confirmed by Sylvia Patrycja, who is identified on James Horner’s film music page as his assistant.

“We have lost an amazing person with a huge heart and unbelievable talent,” Patrycja wrote on Facebook on Monday. “He died doing what he loved. Thank you for all your support and love and see you down the road.”

James Horner was a name that I became familiar with in the 1980s a time when I practically lived in movie theatres, with his musical film scores for films such as Gorky Park, Krull, and then some fantastic action film scores for films such as Commando (1986) and Red Heat (1988) where he used what became a very common element in James Horner scores first struck a chord with me. The use of steel drums. Right through the 80s you could tell a James Horner score instantly with the use of the steel drums and whilst many did say most of his scores sounded the same (they did in fact sound very similar) they were always fun to listen to and enhanced whichever film you were watching.

James Horner
‘Titanic 3D’ film premiere, Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain – 27 Mar 2012
(Rex Features via AP Images)

The next stage of James Horner scores for me came with the 1995 Braveheart when the pipe music came to be an instantly recognizable element of James’s work. Braveheart was a CD score that I listened to for hours and hours and still love it to this day. Listen to his beautiful score for the James Cameron film Titanic and then listen to Braveheart. Both similar but both very beautiful scores. It would be so easy to rattle through the films that James Horner has scored, but with 158 composer credits, this would be a very long and stunning list.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzati0Am5GE

But lets name a few films that you will have seen and were musically scored by the great man. Aliens, Bicentennial Man, A Beautiful Mind, Avatar, Titanic, Patriot Games, An American Tale, Willow, Apollo 13, The Amazing Spiderman, Deep Impact, The Mask of Zorro, Field Of Dreams, Cocoon, Batteries Not Included, Honey I Shrunk the Kids and many, many more.

If you aren’t familiar with listening to James’s music on CD. Do check out his scores for Braveheart and Titanic (which sold 27 millions copies). They work wonderfully as standalone pieces and are a great testament to him. It is such a sad day to have lost another talent in the world.

His final score is for the film Southpaw, which comes out later in the year.

Thank you for the music James Horner. You shall be missed, but not forgotten.