Horner stated composers like Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Goldsmith, Henry Mancini, Buddy Baker, Bruce Broughton, Howard Shore, Leigh Harline, Max Steiner, Sergei Prokofiev, Ludwig Von Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Frank Churchill, Carl Stalling, Richard Straus, Gustav Holst, Bernard Herrmann, John Barry, Benjamin Britten, John Williams, Thomas Tallis, Maurice Jarre, Roger Sessions, Arnold Schoenberg, Giacomo Puccini, Aaron Copland, Dimitri Tiomkin, Bela Bartok, Richard Wagner, Jakob Gimpel, Hamilton Harty, Jan Kubelík, Carl Nielsen, Lalo Schifrin, Oliver Wallace, Frank Churchill, Alex North, Marty Paich, Leigh Harline, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Alfred Newman and Nino Rota as influences.