‘Homecoming’ with Hammers & Horsehair
Church Street, Timaru, South Canterbury
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Light Classics with a Historical Twist
It’s pretty hard to beat a performance by three professional musicians with the music they enjoy and want to share. Hammers & Horsehair are on tour again and will be performing in Timaru on Friday 28 October with a programme of light classics typical of concerts 100 years ago.
The name of the group refers to the hammers in the piano played by Douglas Mews and the horsehair on the bow of Robert Ibell’s cello. The duo have been touring New Zealand for six years and this year they return with soprano and historian, Rowena Simpson. These highly experienced musicians love making great music, but they also love sharing stories about the music with their audiences.
The short pieces in their concert will include “Waiata Poi” by Alfred Hill, “Il Bacio” by Luigi Arditi, Rimsky Korsakov’s “Song of India”, Dvorak's “Humoresque” and Moskowski's “Guitarre”, and were all found in the touring programmes of Blenheim-born soprano Rosina Buckman who performed at the Theatre Royal in Timaru during 1922 and early 1923 with cellist Adelina Leon and pianist Percy Kahn.
“At the first Timaru concert in July, Rosina had just received the worst review of her tour from an Oamaru critic”, says Rowena. “but the Timaru reception was warm, despite bitterly cold weather, so the touring party returned there for a second concert in January, but Oamaru did not receive a return concert! The reviews of their concerts dedicated much more attention to the singer than the cellist and any mention of the long-suffering pianist was usually in praise of his unobtrusiveness. Our 2022 programme is more relaxed, like a salon concert, in which all performers share the limelight.”
The review of Hammers & Horsehair’s recent Tauranga performance concluded with: “The concert was drawn to an upbeat and lighthearted conclusion with a rollicking arrangement of Arditi’s Italian song ‘Il Bacio’ which provided Simpson one final moment to demonstrate not only her versatility as a soprano, but also her gifts as an engaging communicator, capable of holding her audience’s attention in the palm of her hand."
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