There’s always something a little bittersweet in retrospect about James Horner’s love of flying, given the tragic manner of his death. But outside of composing, it was the thing he most loved to do – and throughout his musical career, he was always particularly inspired by scenes of flying. I’ve come to consider that soaring end title piece from The Rocketeer as probably my single favourite thing he ever wrote, and there are countless other examples.
One of those other examples is the piece he wrote in 2010 for the aerobatic display team of which he was a part, the Flying Horsemen (the piece that went on to be named Flight) – a stunning piece of work, one of the composer’s most rousing, intended to be played to accompany those aerobatic displays and conveying all the thrills and excitement that you would expect.
He was actually commissioned to write another one, by the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, ultimately assumed to be unrealised – until years later a photo of him holding a piece of manuscript paper entitled “Thunderbirds” was uncovered – and a successful search for that music has ultimately led to this new piece, Skyward Spirit, completed by Horner’s long-time friend and recording engineer Simon Rhodes.
It’s a substantial, 13-minute piece and let’s not beat around the bush, it’s absolutely glorious. Robert Ziegler conducts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra who don’t half give it some welly. I suppose we’ll never really know just how substantial Horner’s sketch was and how much has been done by Rhodes but it doesn’t really matter – like the other Simon who was a key part of Horner’s music team for so long, Mr Franglen and his work on the Avatar sequels, what Mr Rhodes has crafted here is either the most loving tribute to the great composer you could imagine, or one last chance to hear “new” music by him – and either way, for any fan of James Horner it will send shivers down the spine and perhaps start a flood of tears flowing.
It is entirely like a companion piece to Flight (at one time also known as Write Your Soul), similar not just in spirit and in some ways structure but also sharing some of the same notes (particularly the ending) – a fact that will neither surprise nor displease any Horner devotees.
It opens with a soaring fanfare, the brass section put through its paces immediately, before a wonderful, stirring theme takes over on the strings. Hearing that trademark Horner sound, that wonderful melody, again after all these years is something else. The theme has such a stirring spirit, a joy and a zest for life – and where Skyward Spirit differs from Flight is that this one is not just all loud, all the time – after exploring the theme for a while, it actually becomes soft and pastoral, like one of Horner’s many musical portraits of the natural world. (And then it soars away and goes big, very big, once more.)
After about five minutes, that theme gives way to what is initially a more martial sound, snares and fluttering winds, before a strident return to the opening fanfare. Following the conclusion of that section, another significant theme is introduced, this one perhaps with a slightly more wistful air – it’s interesting how it is interspersed with brief flourishes of the fanfare theme, as if a sense of contemplation and dare I say it perhaps even remembrance is in some way doing battle with with exhilaration of flying. Then comes the piece’s biggest surprise, as that idea of remembrance is taken even further, an extended passage exploring yet another melody, the sadness now unquestionable (and there is even a repeated inclusion of a certain four-note phrase that will be familiar to anyone who has ever heard any music by James Horner).
Of course – that feeling is not the one that carries the piece home – and the fanfare returns, almost in phases, slowly building and building until it blasts triumphant to herald the return of the piece’s main theme, soaring away in absolute glory to lead us up to the rousing, stirring, sensational conclusion.
I can barely put into words how much joy this piece brings to me. I will not be alone. The great irony about a composer whose reputation for inspiration from the classical greats accompanied him throughout his career is that really, nobody else sounded like him. I suspect that Simon Rhodes has done an unbelievable job here of sounding like him, but whatever proportion of this was actually on that paper discovered in the photograph – goodness me, the spirit of James Horner is there all the way through it. What a magnificent surprise this is, a valentine to all the fans of this wonderful composer, a deeply moving piece of music that will surely be on constant rotation for an awful lot of people for many years to come. It is, in the most literal sense, truly joyful. Now excuse me, I think I have something in my eye…
Leave a Reply