Billy Mayerl, Vol. 1 (1925-1936)

Billy Mayerl was born in London and from 1926 ran his own School of Modern Syncopation in the cause of the style of piano-playing that he championed. Thanks to correspondence courses his 'teachings' spread worldwide, and he even counted the future King George VI as a pupil. Among the many pieces he composed and recorded, Marigold (1927), remains his signature tune and best-seller, with 150,000 copies of the sheet music sold in the first twenty years. Not surprisingly, he named his Hampstead home after it.

One of the finest of British composers of piano music, Billy Mayerl also, for a time, enjoyed unparalleled popularity as a performer. His most famous piece, Marigold, sold in excess of 250,000 copies (sheet music), while several of his other compositions notched up figures which must have been the envy of his colleagues. Yet for all this Mayerl is far from easy to play. Exceedingly well crafted for the piano, his music demands a certain technique to bring it off successfully. Many classical pianists I have met admit to finding the jumps and stretches required of the left hand extremely difficult to execute; it is a case of what my venerable friend Jack Wilson (born 1907), the dedicatee of "Nimble-Fingered Gentleman" (see Volume 2) calls "knowing your distance". And, since by general consensus nobody plays Mayerl better than Mayerl himself, these re-issues of his own recordings are all the more welcome.