Colin Robert Horsley (23 April 1920 – 28 July 2012) was a
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
classical pianist and teacher who was based in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
all his working life. He had a significant artistic association with the composer Sir
Lennox Berkeley
Sir Lennox Randal Francis Berkeley (12 May 190326 December 1989) was an English composer.
Biography
Berkeley was born on 12 May 1903 in Oxford, England, the younger child and only son of Aline Carla (1863–1935), daughter of Sir James Char ...
.
Biography
Horsley was born in
Whanganui
Whanganui (; ), also spelled Wanganui, is a city in the Manawatū-Whanganui region of New Zealand. The city is located on the west coast of the North Island at the mouth of the Whanganui River, New Zealand's longest navigable waterway. Whangan ...
,
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
in 1920. From 1936 he studied at the
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in a ...
in London. There he studied with
Herbert Fryer
George Herbert Fryer (21 May 1877 – 7 February 1957) was an English pianist, teacher and composer.
Career
Fryer was born in Hampstead, London in 1877, the only son of three children. His father George Henry Fryer was an insurance broker. He wa ...
,
Angus Morrison,
Tobias Matthay
Tobias Augustus Matthay (19 February 185815 December 1945) was an English pianist, teacher, and composer.
Biography
Matthay was born in Clapham, Surrey, in 1858 to parents who had come from northern Germany and eventually became naturalised Brit ...
and
Irene Scharrer
Irene Scharrer (2 February 188811 January 1971) was an English classical pianist.
Early life and education
Irene Scharrer was born in London, the daughter of Herbert Tobias Scharrer and Ida Henrietta Samuel Scharrer. She studied at the Royal A ...
. His solo debut was in
Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one o ...
's
Piano Concerto No. 3.
In 1946 he premiered
Humphrey Searle
Humphrey Searle (26 August 1915 – 12 May 1982) was an English composer and writer on music. His music combines aspects of late Romanticism and modernist serialism, particularly reminiscent of his primary influences, Franz Liszt, Arnold Schoen ...
's Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 5.
Work with Lennox Berkeley
In 1948 Horsley gave the first performance of
Lennox Berkeley
Sir Lennox Randal Francis Berkeley (12 May 190326 December 1989) was an English composer.
Biography
Berkeley was born on 12 May 1903 in Oxford, England, the younger child and only son of Aline Carla (1863–1935), daughter of Sir James Char ...
's Piano Concerto, and he gave the first performances of some of Berkeley's piano works. He also commissioned a
Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano from Berkeley, and premiered it in March 1953 at the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
, with
Dennis Brain
Dennis Brain (17 May 19211 September 1957) was a British horn player. From a musical family – his father and grandfather were horn players – he attended the Royal Academy of Music in London. During the Second World War he served in the Roya ...
and
Manoug Parikian
Manoug Parikian (15 September 1920 - 24 December 1987) was a British concert violinist and violin professor.
Early life
Parikian was born in Mersin to Armenian parents. He studied in London.
Career
Parikian made his solo début in 1947 and led ...
. Berkeley's Piano Sonata, Op. 20, was written for and premiered by
Clifford Curzon
Sir Clifford Michael Curzon CBE (né Siegenberg; 18 May 19071 September 1982) was an English classical pianist.
Curzon studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and subsequently with Artur Schnabel in Berlin and Wanda Landowska and Nad ...
, but Colin Horsley gave many subsequent performances, and recorded the work in 1959, in close collaboration with the composer. Berkeley dedicated the Concert Study in E‑flat to Horsley, who also commissioned a ''Scherzo'' as an encore piece to be played after the ''Six Preludes''.
He performed the complete cycle of
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
violin sonatas with
Max Rostal
Max Rostal (7 July 1905 – 6 August 1991) was a violinist and a viola player. He was Austrian-born, but later took British citizenship.
Biography
Max Rostal was born in Cieszyn to a Jewish merchant family. As a child prodigy, he started studyin ...
.
[ He worked with Dennis Brain in playing and recording horn trios by Berkeley and ]Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with ...
.
He premiered Nikolai Medtner
Nikolai Karlovich Medtner (russian: Никола́й Ка́рлович Ме́тнер, ''Nikoláj Kárlovič Métner''; 13 November 1951) was a Russian composer and virtuoso pianist. After a period of comparative obscurity in the 25 years immedi ...
's Piano Quintet when the composer was unable to perform it personally, due to illness. After Medtner's death, his widow Anna asked Horsley to play the composer's Third Piano Concerto at
a memorial concert on 5 April 1952 in the Royal Festival Hall, conducted by Anatole Fistoulari
Anatole Fistoulari (20 August 1907 – 21 August 1995) was a Ukrainian conductor, who became a British citizen.Obituary – Anatole Fistoulari. ''Opera'', October 1995, Vol.46 No.10, p1172. A child prodigy, he later conducted around Europe and Amer ...
.
After a touring career, Horsley taught at the Royal Manchester College of Music
The Royal Manchester College of Music (RMCM) was a tertiary level conservatoire in Manchester, north-west England. It was founded in 1893 by the German-born conductor Sir Charles Hallé in 1893.
In 1972, the Royal Manchester College of Music ...
1964-80, and at the RCM in London 1955-90.[
Horsley was appointed an ]Officer of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
in the 1963 Queen's Birthday Honours.[ In retirement he lived on the ]Isle of Man
)
, anthem = "O Land of Our Birth"
, image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg
, image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg
, mapsize =
, map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe
, map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green)
in Europe ...
, close to where his grandfather was born. He was the Patron of the Isle of Man Symphony Orchestra. He died on 28 July 2012, aged 92.
Recordings
His currently available recordings include the Berkeley Horn Trio and Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...
works with the Dennis Brain Wind Ensemble; the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 14; the Piano Concerto in E-flat major by John Ireland
John Benjamin Ireland (January 30, 1914 – March 21, 1992) was a Canadian actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in ''All the King's Men'' (1949), making him the first Vancouver-born actor to receive an Oscar nomin ...
; and with the violinist Max Rostal there are works by Debussy
(Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the ...
, Delius
Delius, photographed in 1907
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius ( 29 January 1862 – 10 June 1934), originally Fritz Delius, was an English composer. Born in Bradford in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family, he resisted atte ...
, Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...
, Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
, Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
, Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
and Walton Walton may refer to:
People
* Walton (given name)
* Walton (surname)
* Susana, Lady Walton (1926–2010), Argentine writer
Places
Canada
* Walton, Nova Scotia, a community
** Walton River (Nova Scotia)
*Walton, Ontario, a hamlet
United Kingdo ...
.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Horsley, Colin
1920 births
2012 deaths
New Zealand classical pianists
Male classical pianists
British classical pianists
British music educators
New Zealand music teachers
Academics of the Royal College of Music
Piano pedagogues
Alumni of the Royal College of Music
New Zealand Officers of the Order of the British Empire
New Zealand emigrants to England
New Zealand expatriates in England
People from Whanganui
20th-century classical pianists
20th-century British musicians
20th-century British male musicians