Colin Horsley

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 812, 18 February 1955, Page 29

Colin Horsley

An Interview by

MARJORIE

PLUNKETT

"THE brilliant young New Zealand pianist Colin Horsley, who begins a six-week visit to his homeland at Wellington on April 23, has such catholic tastes in music that he sums up his musical philosophy in one sentence: "I like playing whatever work I'm playing at the moment!" His New Zealand visit will be in the interval between two concert tours for the Australian Broadcasting Commission. The. main work he will feature on both sides of the Tasman is the Second Rawsthorne Concerto, which he will perform at the Auckland Festival and at Christchurch. It is a composition which has already won him special favour with British critics, first when he played it at the famous "Prom" concerts under Sir Thomas Beecham, and later under Sir Adrian Boult. On the first |" occasion it was recorded and broadcast from London in the BBC’s Overseas | Service. | "This last music season (1954) has _been a terrific one for»me,’ Colin Hors/ley said, when I interviewed him at his beautifully furnished London home. He | said he had recently completed a tour of Britain with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of visiting Italian conductor Alceo Gallieri, during which he played Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto (the "Emperor"’). The tour also included a performance in the Royal Albert Hall, where the chosen works were Liszt’s Concerto in E Flat and Paganini’s Variations. But that tour accounted for only a small part of Colin’s "wonderful" season. Other highlights were: Eight appearances with the celebrated Hallé Orchestra under Sir John Barbirolli; giving the first public performance of a Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano, by Lennox Berkeley (composer of the new opera Nelson); giving recitals in France; making a tour of Sweden, where he was asked to stay and perform concertos with the Stockholm Symphony Orchestra. "Unfortunately, I couldn't acceptbecause although I didn’t realise the full significance of the injury when I left England for Sweden, I had badly torn a muscle in my thumb about a fortnight earlier-and I knew it wouldn’t stand up to concerto work at the time," he told me. The injury is now quite healed-but _ when Colin showed me his thumb, I understood what it might have meant to his career. It has left a (possibly permanent) "depression, in the base of the thumb, big enough to contain a full-size green pea. "It happened during London’s ‘big freeze’ last February, when snow lay on the ground for several days, and householders’ water-pipes froze hard," Colin

said. "I was scheduled to play the Grieg Piano Concerto at a London concert, but had no opportunity to ‘warm up’ my hands first. I went straight on to the platform and into the opening bars of the concerto. It must have made heavier demands on my stiff-with-cold hands than I realised, because the thumb injury was the eventual result. I had to have physio-therapy treatment for months afterwards." Features of Colin MHorsley’s studiostyle cottage in Kensington are an immense living-room with a lofty glassed. ceiling to admit every ray of natural light; and his magnificent collection of contemporary paintings. In a chair by the grand piano sits his favourite companion, an_ eight-year-old black cat called Twinkie, which weighs 19 Ib. ‘Like all celebrities, Colin Horsley has had amusing off-platform experiences. His best story is of a big charity concert, during the interval of which one of the organisers-an elderly dowagertalked almost incessantly to him. Horsley is a young man of impeccable manners, but his mind was on the concerto he was about to play. His attention wandered. . . He brought~himself back to the lady’s remarks with an apology... "I’m so sorry," he said, "but I’m afraid I was thinking about the concerto I’m to play." "Good gracious, Mr. Horsley!" exclaimed the dowager, "I didn’t realise that a pianist of your eminence had to think!" It’s just because Colin thinks-as well as his flying fingers-that he now enjovs a unique niche in British music. He’s no longer "one of the coming young pianists’"-he has arrived.