He and the composer had met through Drewry when Berkeley was on the staff of the BBC, for which Horsley made his first broadcast in When he later went to HMV to record works by Sergei Prokofiev and Karel Szymanowski on 78s, the producer was delighted and asked Horsley if he happened to have anything else. So he pulled Berkeley's Six Preludes out of his case; they recorded them; and apparently that 78 sold best of all.
Horsley's recordings show that he had an impeccable finger technique and complete command of Berkeley's invariably pianistic but sometimes taxing passage-work. In the concert hall Horsley clocked up some 90 performances of the Preludes. He was appointed OBE in In he retired to the Isle of Man , where his grandfather had been born, and was still playing into his 80s. He is survived by several nieces and nephews. Colin Horsley obituary. One of Britain's leading pianists after the second world war.
Photograph: Telegraph. His attitude to music is still somewhat detached …" Maybe, but Horsley's objectivity was an asset when he dedicated himself to the performance of contemporary works. Reuse this content. He also gave the first performance of his fellow-countryman Douglas Lilburn's Sonatina at the Wigmore Hall in November and three years later he played Reger's then rarely heard Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Bach, music demanding prodigious virtuosity.
Prokofiev, Szymanowski and Medtner particularly the latter's Third Piano Concerto, which he played in London at Medtner's memorial concert in were composers who featured in his recital programmes. In addition to recordings already mentioned, with Max Rostal in Horsley recorded Delius's Violin Sonata — a performance which in Alec Robertson's view would please those "who dislike the repetitious nature of Delius's chamber music, its incessant flow and lack of contrast and tension": shaping of phrases, the distribution of light and shade, and the capturing of the elusive spirit of the music resulted in an enchanting performance.
Two years later came Stravinsky's Duo Concertant, then sonatas by Schubert, Schumann, Debussy, Elgar, Prokofiev and Walton the latter only five years after its composition and recordings of solo pieces by Chopin, Liszt, Franck and Rachmaninov. Horsley retired to the Isle of Man, from where his grandfather had emigrated in to New Zealand, where Horsley was born to Robert Bramwell and Beatrice Dorothy Horsley, parents whose singing and piano-playing were the background to his childhood.
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