NIMBLE-FINGERED GENTLEMAN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 521, 17 June 1949, Page 12

NIMBLE-FINGERED GENTLEMAN

"s S, that’s true, I did play the whole of the Grieg Concerto at the Queen’s, Hall, London, when I was six, with the Trinity College Students’ Orchestra; but then, youth has no shame," said a dapper little man to The Listener when he was passing through Wellington the other day. He was the British pianist Billy Mayerl-A NimbleFingered Gentleman, to use the title of one of his own compositions. That, he said, was 40\years ago, and he recalled that to his young ears the orchestra sounded completely out of balance, as -if there were "about 90 fiddles, three horns and one double-bass," and his piano seemed to be a voice crying in — the wilderness. New Zealand radio listeners know ‘many of his compositions-Marigold, The Four Aces, Insect Oddities, and, of course, the Aquarium Suite, which most pianists may have tried out in their lighter moments. How he came to write that one is interesting. Billy Mayerl has always liked fish, as much for their fascinating movements in the water as for their flavour. Some years ago he constructed a pond in the garden of his home in Hampstead, England. It looked a bit bare, so he filled it with Prussian carp, tench, Moorish idols ("funny little fellows, these"), fantails, and shubunkins which will feed from the hand. "At first I knew nothing about freshwater fish; they caught: all sorts of diseases and died off one by one. Somebody told me there was not enough aeration in the water, so I bought an electric’ pump," he explained. "That didn’t do much good, so after a lot of experimenting, trial and error, I went in for glass tanks, and so cured the fish of all their ailments!" "And those tanks of fish suggested the Aquarium Suite?"

"In a way. Composers are always casting about to find new ideas and then to hit on good titles for their works. The aquariuni, with its willow-moss, other pretty vegetation, and highly mobile inhabitants suggested a subject to write music about, so away I went. I thought of calling the thing Fish, but it sounded a bit crude, so what better than Aquarium Suite?" Mayerl, who is, incidentally, a Fellow of the Royal Zoological Society, has been composing for nearly 40 years. His first recording was an old-timer which opened with the words, "Edison-Bell reccud," and scratched and wheezed its way round the cylinder. He has published more than 1000 compositions, including several musical comedy scores, music for 30 or so films and a number of orchestral suites. "Just now I’m well behind with my publishers. I haven’t written a thing for six months," he said. Asked if he had given a name to his special type of playing Mayerl said that many people had asked him that question. "I don’t know what you would call it. I was brought up in the highbrow school. In the early days jazz was a pretty low sort of thing from the musical point of view, so I thought that if I could combine the classical style of playing with a certain amount of syncopation, I might turn out some noises that would be pleasant to listen to. Boogie-woogie? No, I’m not interested. Bebop? Why, there’s nothing new about that. We did it when we were kids years ago, full of enthusiasm and not caring a hoot what tune the other chap was playing. The professionals of to-day do it better, that’s all." Recounting his worst moment during his 40 years as a pianist, Mr. Mayerl mentioned an incident which occurred during the war. "The BBC was dodging about all over the place to get out of (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) the way of Hitler’s bombs. We decided to broadcast from a tiny village in Wales, called Bangor. There was no proper theatre, only a mission hall-the Welsh are very religious. We dug up a carpenter to erect a platform. It had a bit of a slant, and in the middle of the show the grand piano started to slide towards the front. But when broadcasting, the show must go on regardless, so I tried to wedge it with one foot, playing all the time. It continued to slip down, and on the last of the three final crashing chords, it went over the edge into the auditorium and I went with it." Of music in Britain to-day Billy Mayer! said that an interesting phase was the revival of the ballad, helped a lot by the ballad sessions run by the BBC. The modern ballad was far more sophisticated than its forerunners and the music naturally fitted the lyrics. In the old days the composer wrote down to the public; the composer of to-day had to keep to a very high level. In his long experience Mr. Mayerl has taught many celebrities, among them the Duke of Kent, and he was the first pianist to play George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in England. While in Wellington he was interviewed by C. J. Cutler (Curator of the Wellington Zoo, and also a Fellow of the Royal Zoological Society) and Lyall Boyes, of the staff of 2ZB, largely on the subject of fish, and that interview was heard from 2ZB the other evening. ’