William Joseph Mayerl was an English pianist and composer who built a career in music hall and musical theatre and became an acknowledged master of light music. Best known for his syncopated novelty piano solos, he wrote over 300 piano pieces, many of which were named after flowers and trees, including his best-known composition, Marigold (1927). He also ran the successful School of Syncopation for whose members he published hundreds of his own arrangements of popular songs.
The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London, England. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. The Savoy was the first hotel in Britain to introduce electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as chef de cuisine; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners.
The Ritz London is a 5-star luxury hotel at 150 Piccadilly in London, England. A symbol of high society and luxury, the hotel is one of the world's most prestigious and best known. The Ritz has become so associated with luxury and elegance that the word "ritzy" has entered the English language to denote something that is ostentatiously stylish, fancy, or fashionable.
The Langham, London, is a 5-star hotel in London, England. It is situated in the district of Marylebone on Langham Place and faces up Portland Place towards Regent's Park.
A tea dance, also called a thé dansant, was a dance held in the summer or autumn from 4 to 7 p.m. In the English countryside, a garden party sometimes preceded the dance. The function grew out of the afternoon tea tradition, and J. Pettigrew traces its origin to the French colonization of Morocco.
George Melachrino was a musician, composer of film music, and musical director who was English born of Greek and Italian descent. He was an accomplished player of the violin, viola, oboe, clarinet and saxophone.
Sidney Torch MBE was a British pianist, cinema organist, conductor, orchestral arranger and a composer of light music.
Carroll Richard Gibbons was an American-born pianist, bandleader and popular composer who made his career primarily in England during the British dance band era.
Max Jaffa OBE was a British light orchestral violinist and bandleader. He is best remembered as the leader of the Palm Court Orchestra and trio, with Jack Byfield (piano) and Reginald Kilbey (cello), which broadcast on BBC Radio. His career lasted 70 years, before retiring in 1990.
Jean Pougnet was a Mauritian-born concert violinist and orchestra leader, of British nationality, who was highly regarded in both the lighter and more serious classical repertoire during the first half of the twentieth century. He was leader of the London Philharmonic Orchestra from 1942 to 1945.
La plus que lente, L. 121, is a waltz for solo piano written by Claude Debussy in 1910, shortly after his publication of the Préludes, Book I. The piece debuted at the New Carlton Hotel in Paris, where it was transcribed for strings and performed by the popular 'gipsy' violinist, Léoni, for whom Debussy wrote it.
The Savoy Orpheans is a British dance band currently led by Alex Mendham. They were resident at the Savoy Hotel, London.
The Savoy Havana Band was a British dance band of the 1920s. It was resident at the Savoy Hotel, London, between 1921 and 1927. The band made their first live outside broadcast on the British Broadcasting Corporation from the Savoy Hotel on 3 October, 1923.
Philip Green, sometimes credited as Harry Philip Green or Phil Green, was a British film and television composer and conductor, and also a pianist and accordion player. He made his name in the 1930s playing in and conducting dance bands, performed with leading classical musicians, scored up to 150 films, wrote radio and television theme tunes and library music, and finally turned to church music at the end of his life in Ireland, a song from which period proved so popular that it reached No. 3 on the Irish chart in 1973.
Reginald Somerville was an English composer and actor. He is known for writing many drawing-room ballads such as "God Sends the Night", "Yestereve", "Zaida: A Song of the Desert" and "The Lark and the Nightingale", as well as a handful of operas.
Waltz War is a 1933 German musical comedy film directed by Ludwig Berger and starring Renate Müller, Willy Fritsch and Paul Hörbiger. It is loosely based on the rivalry between waltz composers Joseph Lanner and Johann Strauss I, as well as the life of the Austrian ballet dancer Katti Lanner who eventually settled in Victorian Britain. It is also known by the alternative title of The Battle of the Walzes.
The Mandarin Oriental Ritz, Madrid is a historic five star Belle Époque hotel in Madrid, Spain at No. 5 in Retiro district, next to the Prado Museum. Opened in 1910, it is owned and managed by the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. The hotel's façade is a listed national monument.
Adalgiso Ferraris was an Italian-born British composer and pianist. Ferraris' arrangements and compositions were based on classical and popular genres, with a particular flavour of gypsy, Hungarian and Russian traditionals. Among his best known songs are the romantic Russian song "Dark Eyes", "Calinerie", "Souvenir d'Ukraine", "the Russian Pedlar", "Two guitars" and "A Balalaika"
Herbert Griffiths was a British cinema organist, conductor, composer and arranger of concert, theatre and film music.
Reginald Claude McMahon King was a British light music composer, pianist, conductor and broadcaster, the founder and leader of Reginald King and his Orchestra.
