Billy Mayerl died exactly fifty years ago; after a brief period in the wilderness, his works, largely for piano, have gathered a wide following, his renaissance beginning perhaps with a fine series of recordings made for Chandos by Eric Parkin.
Billy was born in London in 1902 and was a student at the Trinity College of Music, playing Grieg’s Piano Concerto at the Queen’s Hall in his early teens. He was a pianist for silent films and dance bands, getting a position with the Savoy Havana Band at the Savoy Hotel in the very early 1920s. In 1925 he gave the first British performance of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”. The following year he started the Billy Mayerl School offering a “Correspondence Course in Modern Syncopation” with branches eventually around the world with 30, 000 students. After the Second World War, his style of music began to go out of fashion and the school eventually closed in 1957.
Mayerl was rightly famous for his “nimble fingers” and his piece “Nimble Fingered Gentleman” is demanding for all but the most talented of players. In addition, he had some success in London’s West End contributing songs for revues and with his several musicals, mostly now nearly forgotten, but a fair success at the time. “Marigold” is perhaps his most famous piano piece, with several recordings by Mayerl himself in the catalogue. In addition to the syncopated works for which he most known, his other writing, including some fine works for orchestra, are excellent examples of British Light Music, and his transcriptions of other composers’ songs make rewarding listening.
BILLY MAYERL: “Nimble-Fingered Gentleman”: Piano recordings 1927-1948: Crystal Stream Audio IDCD152 [www.crystream.com.au]; 79:16 ****1/2:
This generous collection of Billy Mayerl playing his own music shows off his talents to a tee. Presented in chronological order this collection also contains some tracks of Mayerl playing with others. Medleys were at one time a popular form for presenting several songs from a musical or operetta and Mayerl’s take “The Desert Song” is airy and refreshing. His transcription of “Ten Cents a Dance” has all that magic coming from his unerring sense of rhythm.
“Over She Goes” was one of Mayerl’s musicals, the earliest being “Nippy” whose plot revolves around a Lyon’s Corner House waitress. “Over She Goes” was enough of a success to make the big screen, filmed with Stanley Lupino, Claire Luce, Laddie Cliff and Richard Murdoch in 1938.
Mayerl’s miniatures with names of flowers are represented by the delightful Jasmine and Misteltoe, Green tulips being a duet with Austin Croom-Johnson on the harpsichord. “Bats in the Belfry” appears in this form, too, as well as in part of “Billy Mayerl Memories” which involves BM and his Claviers, quite a sound!
The “Aquarium Suite” has four contrasting movements, not quite a small concerto, though Mayerl is accompanied here by his orchestra. His performance of “Nola” accompanied by his Rhythm Ensemble is quite superb.
The “Nimble Fingered Gentleman” makes an appearance, too, the epitome of Mayerl’s considerable and wide talent. This is a superb collection, very well mastered for CD release, and which has given me much pleasure over the last month.
TrackList:
1 The Desert Song – Medley
2 Lucky Girl
3 Wake Up and Dream
4 Sweet Nothings
5 Jasmine
6 Baby’s Birthday Party
7 Ten Cents a Dance
8 You Can’t Stop Me From Loving You
9 The Match Parade
10 Mistletoe
11 Nimble Fingered Gentleman
12 Bats in the Belfry
13 Green Tulips
14 Over She Goes – Selection
15-18 Aquarium Suite
19 Phil the Fluter’s Ball
20 Parade of the Sandwich-Board Men
21 Billy Mayerl Memories
22 Sweet William
23 Dusky Aristocrat
24 Nola
BILLY MAYERL: A Miscellany For Solo Piano – Leslie De’Ath (piano) – Dutton Vocalion CDLX 7211, 76:44 **** [Distr. by Harmonia mundi]:
The Canadian pianist Leslie De’Ath is already well known for his rendition of the complete works for piano by Cyril Scott, also on Dutton Epoch, in five volumes. Here he puts his fine technique to Mayerl’s works with great success.
There is quite a variety on display here, with a fair few pieces not including Mayerl’s trademark syncopation style; these salon pieces have much to recommend them, unpretentious, enjoyable light music every one. There are excerpts from the delightful suites based on the seasons, a great introduction for those wanting to start playing this music. The Insect Oddities are more demanding and call for tight rhythm, as does “Phil the Fluter” one of Mayerl’s transcriptions, where De’Ath’s playing compares very well to Mayerl’s own in the CD mentioned above.
The more bucolic pieces, Pastoral, Siberian Lament and Song of the Fir-Tree, based on a Swedish folk tune are particularly successful here. De’Ath treads that fine line between bringing out the music and over-egging the mixture perfectly, realising the success is in the simplicity.
The quick and demanding works are also as successful; I was fairly green with envy at De’Ath’s technique! He is given superb sonics in this production, intimate yet set in a comfortable concert hall acoustic, in this case the Maureen Forrester Recital Room at the Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, the sound of his Steinway captured very well indeed. De’Ath’s booklet essay is a model of its kind, too, extensive in its detail. “Jill All Alone” was one of Mayerl’s last pieces, written in 1955, by which time he was suffering from a heart condition to prove fatal. Dedicated to his wife, Jill, the piece’s title has a poignancy fifty years or more on. This is a first-class selection, highly recommended, which I hope one day will be followed up by a collection of Mayerl’s pieces for piano and orchestra.
TrackList:
Leprechaun’s Leap (1940)
Meadowsweet from In My Garden: Summertime (1947)
Alpine Bluebell from In My Garden: Summertime (1947)
Amber Leaves from In My Garden: Autumntime (1946)
6am – The Milkman: Scherzo from Three Syncopated Rambles (1933)
Postman’s Knock (1951)
Ladybird Lullaby from Insect Oddities (1940)
Praying Mantis from Insect Oddities (1940)
Beguine Impromptu (1952)
Pastoral from Three Contrasts op.24 (1929)
Minuet for Pamela (1945)
April’s Fool (1945)
Weeping Willow: An Idylle (1932)
Antiquary from Piano Exaggerations (1926)
Siberian Lament (1934)
From a Spanish Lattice: A Southern Tone Picture (1938)
Clowning from The Big Top (1948)
Entrance of the Trick Cyclists from The Big Top (1948)
Trapeze from The Big Top (1948)
The Forgotten Forest: A Poem (1945)
The Cherry Dance from Three Japanese Pictures op.25 (1931)
Song of the Fir-tree: A Swedish Impression (1938)
Jill all Alone (1955)
Phil the Fluter’s Ball [W Percy French arr: Mayerl] (1938)
Recorded at Maureen Forrester Recital Hall, Faculty of Music, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 24 November & 9 December 2007.
ALEX HASSAN – Bugatti Step: Syncopated Piano Marvels: Shellwood Productions SWCD35 [www.shellwood.co.uk] 69:08 ****:
Billy Mayerl makes an appearance on this CD together with music by pianist/composers from Europe and the U.S., all from the time when Mayerl was at his height of popularity. Alex Hassan is very well known for his many performances around the world and for his recordings of syncopated music for piano. Also known as Novelty Piano, this music has gone down a treat at venues as far apart as the Smithsonian and the Aldeburgh Festival.
Hassan includes “Mistletoe” as did De’Ath and his performance is of an equal standard, the lightness of touch here evidence of the expertise. Raie da Costa, a South African pianist and pupil of Tobias Matthay, composed “At the Court of Old King Cole” not long before her untimely death at the early age of 29. Hassan achieves that loose open-air feeling this piece has so well.
Jaroslav Jezek, forced to leave Czechoslovakia after the Nazi invasion, went to New York, where he died in 1942 aged just 35 after many years of ill-health. A pupil of Josef Suk and Alois Haba, he was involved in a wide area of musical activities, including the theatre, dance bands and equally more serious works. “Bugatti Step” is a very fine piece of European Jazz- inspired music which Martinu, composer of that musical riot, “Le Jazz” must surely have enjoyed!
Roy Bargy’s “Jim Jams” is a fine early work, again demanding with its strict rhythm and complex right hand work – “Play at your own risk” says Alex – while Carroll Gibbons’ “Moonbeam Dance”, one of his signature melodies, arpeggios catch out all but the most proficient in this deceptively simple work.
The Frenchman Clement Doucet continued that French tradition started by Chabrier with his “Quadrille on themes from Tristan and Isolde” with his own “Isoldina” a similarly amusing concoction this time dating from the late 1920s. Delightful!
Alex Hassan’s own arrangements are also highly successful, Robin & Rainger and Gordon & Revel being given a new outing. Lastly on this interesting CD with many rarities from Alex’s enormous collection of sheet music comes the entirely striking “Four American Variations on a Theme by Paganini” a terrific piece by Lothar Perl. Perl was another who had to leave his homeland due to Nazi rule, and like Jezek, went to the U.S. where he gave concerts and composed, including the music for the 1943 film “This Land is Mine” starring Charles Laughton, Maureen O’Hara, George Sanders and Walter Slezack. The music was shown off to perfection for the time, as the film won an Academy Award for “Best Sound Recording” in 1944.
This is yet another highly-recommended anthology for those who want to dip their tapping toes into the world of syncopated piano music.
TrackList:
1 Bugatti Step1928 Jaroslav Jezek
2 Fingerprints 1936 Harry Engleman
3 Mistletoe 1935 Billy Mayerl
4 The Cop on the Beat… The Man In The Moon And Me 1932 Goodhart & Hoffman
5 At the Court of Old King Cole1934 Raie da Costa
6 Jim Jams 1922 Roy Bargy
7 Moonbeams Dance 1930 Carroll Gibbons
8 Mack Gordon & Harry Revel Selection 2007 arr. Hassan
9 Crazy Paving 1936 Ray Mellin (aka) Sidney Harrison
10 Brother Can You Spare A Dime 1932 Jay Gorney
11 Flying Fingers 1933 Lennie Hayton
12 Alone With You 1938 Lew Pollack
13 Isoldina 1928 Wagner / Clement Doucet
14 New Tales parts 1, 2 & 3 1931Rio Gebhardt
15 Humoresque 1937 Dvorak / Phil Saltman
16 Trouble In Paradise 1932 Frankie Harling
17 Quand Vous Verrais-Je (When Will I See You) 1927 Sylvian Hamy
18 Robin & Rainger Fantasy 2007 arr. Hassan
19 4 American Variations On A Theme By Paganini 1946 Lothar Perl
— All reviews: Peter Joelson
