In the international telephone business in the 1970’s and 1980’s, it was a delight to visit correspondents in Montreal, London, Paris, Rome and even Johannesburg. Those were the easy ones with good airline connections, good hotels and food to please any palate. Among the tough ones were countries in Africa and the eastern European states generally called, “Behind the Iron Curtain.” They had to be visited and negotiated with also.
When dictators called the shots from Moscow and the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR) had dominance over Eastern European affairs, a visit to the Iron Curtain countries was marked by its joylessness. It more or less ranked with visits by white Americans (read heathens) to Saudi Arabia and the Moslem countries which look toward Mecca for their spiritual inspiration. The best that I could tell, the people in all those countries lived a life of drudgery except for the obscenely wealthy minority. Once inside those countries, I looked forward to the hour where a plane or a train would take me to Western Europe or back to the United States.
Behind the Iron Curtain, it seemed that people had lost their zest for living. They went through the motions but their hearts were not in it anymore. Before World War II, for example, products from Czechoslovakia were celebrated for the precision involved in their manufacture. In the visits to Prague in the 1970’s, the citizens didn’t seem to care anymore. Doors didn’t fit and paint was sort of slopped on walls in a “don’t care anymore” fashion. That sort of attitude seemed to prevail in Moscow, Bucharest, Sofia and Belgrade, for example, in addition to Prague.
There were two countries that seemed to defy the Soviet yoke. In Poland, we were told that Poles were like radishes: red on the outside but not on the inside. The women wore bright colors and dressed as if they cared. In Hungary, the Russians had never managed to suppress the music that seemed to go with dining in Budapest. As I have written before, Hungarian women were the most radiant of all the women in Europe. I will always remember the Poles and the Hungarians for their courage and their desire to enjoy life, regardless of what Ivan had in store for them.
I was most fortunate to know one of those Hungarians who enjoyed life himself and who caused others around him to enjoy their lives as well. That friend was George Feyer whom I have called probably the best entertainer ever to sit on a piano bench. I reached that conclusion after listening to George Feyer for the better part of 25 years in three different hotel settings.
George Feyer lived a long and productive life. It is hard to say how much happiness he brought to others who heard him in person or on his phonograph records. He died last October at the age of 93 years. The New York Times gave him two columns for his obituary. I hope that in his retirement before his death, he hummed or sang or played, “Plaisir d’Amour,” a song I must have asked him to play 50 times while he worked at the Carlyle, Stanhope and Waldorf-Astoria Hotels. After you read a summary of George’s life published by Space Age Musicmaker, I will tell you a little more about George and “Plaisir d’ Amour.”
Here is what the Space Age Musicmaker had to say when George Feyer died.

George Feyer
• Born 27 October 1908, Budapest, Hungary
• Died 21 October 2001, New York City, New York
George Feyer is best known as one of the archetypal cocktail pianists of the Manhattan nightclub scene. His apparently bottomless repertoire, light and appealing piano style, and charming cosmopolitan personality made him a staple at the Hotel Stanhope’s lounge for many years. He recorded a number of albums of Broadway and continental standards over the years, most notably a string of “Echoes of …” albums for Vox in the mid-1950s.
Feyer was a classically-trained pianist–trained in the toughest “old world” way. His mother tied his legs to the piano bench to force him to practice. Despite this negative reinforcement, he became a proficient student, and attended the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, where he studied alongside Georg Solti, who would become a world-famous conductor. He went on to the Budapest Conservatory, where he studied with the likes of Ernst von Dohanyi and Zoltan Kodaly.
Unlike Maestro Solti, however, after graduation Feyer didn’t head for the concert hall. Instead, one of his first jobs was as the accompanist to silent movies. He and his partner, a drummer, began getting jobs on the side as a combo, and before long, they were touring some of the best hotels and clubs in Europe.
Feyer returned to Hungary when World War Two broke out. After Germany established a puppet regime in Hungary, Feyer was put into a forced labor brigade. After being moved to various factories in Germany, he ended up in Bergen-Belsen when it was liberated by the Allies. He returned again to Hungary and married his first wife, but they soon left for Switzerland when the Soviets began setting up their own Communist puppets.
They spent three years in Switzerland, then emigrated to the U.S. in 1951, joining Feyer’s brother in New York. It didn’t take long for Feyer to break into the music business in New York–he was appearing at Gogi’s within a few months, and had a steady series of gigs at clubs such as Delmonico’s, before settling into a 13 year stint at the Hotel Carlyle in 1955.
Feyer and the Carlyle became closely linked in the public’s eye. The hotel set up a separate piano lounge for him, then hired a Hungarian decorator to do it up in Feyer’s native country’s style. Audiences loved his clever commentaries, nimble playing, and occasional cabaret-style singing. His success led to a contract with Vox Records, which released at least ten albums featuring Feyer and his combo. Unlike his live performances, though, these are pleasant but unexciting, lacking perhaps their variety and spontaneity.
Feyer never claimed to be a particularly original stylist. He once wrote,
If there is any originality in my arrangements, it lies in the fact that they do not try to be original. They are based on the eternal laws of music, which apply equally whether you play classical or popular, Mozart or Jerome Kern, Brahms or Johann Strauss.
Yet his musical style aside, there was something special about his performances. New York Times critic John S. Wilson wrote of him in 1980: “He literally plays his audience, which invariably includes longtime fans, fitting in a remark to a table on the left, acknowledgement of a request from a far corner, drawing his listeners in with an anecdote, a recollection, or an Ogden Nash poem, and creating an ambiance that is informal but delicately controlled.”
Feyer’s departure from the Carlyle is something of a legend in New York cabaret circles. He left for his usual summer vacation on Nantucket in August 1968. The Carlyle hired Bobby Short as a fill-in. When Feyer came back, the Carlyle’s new management curtly told him his services were no longer needed. “I took the most expensive vacation of them all,” he later commented. Bobby Short is still playing at the Carlyle today.
Feyer bounced back quickly, moving to the Stanhope’s lounge for twelve years, then spending his last few years of active performing at the Hideaway Room in the famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
Feyer retired in 1982 after his first wife’s death, though he appeared at private parties and rare hotel engagements, mostly as favors to friends. For many years, up to just weeks before his death, he put on a weekly show to entertain patients at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Recordings:
• An Evening at the Cafe Carlyle with George Feyer, Cadence CLP-3051/CLP-25051
• Echoes of Spain, Vox VX25070
• Echoes of Paris, Vox VX25200
• Echoes of Vienna, Vox VX25250
• Heavenly Echoes of My Fair Lady, Vox VX25340
• Echoes of Broadway, Vox VX25350
• Echoes of Latin America, Vox VX25370
• Echoes of Hollywood, Vox VX25400
• Echoes of Budapest, Vox VX25450
• Echoes of Italy, Vox VX25620
• Memories of Viennese Operettas, RCA Victor LSP1862
• Memories of Popular Operas, RCA Victor LSP1926
• Music for a Mellow Mood, RCA Record Club Exclusive RCACSP119
• Today’s Hits, Tomorrow’s Memories, RCA Victor LSP2051
• Echoes of Mr Fair Lady, Decca DL74041
• I Still Like to Play French Songs, Decca DL74333
• But Oh! Those Italian Melodies (I Still Like to Play French Songs the Best), Decca DL74411
• Latin Songs Everybody Knows, Decca DL74420
• Golden Waltzes Everybody Knows, Decca DL74455
• Nightcap with George Feyer, Decca DL74625
• Piano Magic: Hollywood, Decca DL74647
• New Echoes of Paris, Decca DL74808
• Echoes of Love, Decca DL74858
• Echoes of Romance, Decca DL74902
• Echoes of Childhood, Decca DL74907
• George Feyer Plays Jerome Kern, Omega OVC-6015 (reissued as The Essential Jerome Kern)
• George Feyer Plays Cole Porter, Omega OVC-6014 (reissued as The Essential Cole Porter)
(source: spaceagepop.com)

Somewhere in the late 1950’s, I had an arbitration case which was held in the Carlyle or a nearby hotel. Arbitration hearings are exhausting work as you appear before the arbitrator from say 9:30AM until 4:30 or 5PM in the afternoon. That’s only half the story. Getting ready to go back to subsequent hearings before the arbitrator involves extensive preparation which takes up the evening hours until 9PM or later. With much of this work falling on me, I elected to stay in New York rather than to take the 90 minute or two hour subway and train trip to suburban New Jersey.
During the evening after the arbitration hearing was finished for the day, I wandered into the Carlyle lounge and sat on a stool at the bar. Before long a very pleasant fellow came by and said “Hello.” There followed a general discussion in which my newfound friend said he had to leave to get back to work, which was playing the piano. Of course, my newly acquired acquaintance was George Feyer.
Feyer was so unassuming that he stopped to say hello to a stranger sitting at a bar in a lounge where he was working. I was impressed then and also when I read about his accomplishments as a musician.
When I had a crowd of people, say after an arbitration hearing or at the end of bargaining, I would always find a reason to take them to hear my Hungarian friend. George always had time to come to our table and was a gracious conversationalist. On other occasions when I was alone or with one other person, we would have longer talks, particularly when he learned that I had been to Budapest, his hometown.
George knew that sooner or later, I would ask him to play what I always thought was a French song, “Plaisir d’Amour.” When I got looking into that song, it appeared that lots of Europeans had tinkered with the lyrics. The song was written by Jean-Paul Egide Martini (1741 – 1816), an organist and composer from Germany. Right at the outset you can see the contradictions. The first two names of the composer are French. The third given name and the surname are Italian. And he is described as a “composer and organist from Germany.”
The song which celebrates the “Joy of Love” seems to have the composer Martini using French lyrics to his music. The original text in French means “Love’s pleasure lasts but a moment; love’s sorrow lasts all through life.” Those sentiments were quoted by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755-1794), a French writer of fables in his work, “Celestine.”
But then an Englishman Roy Jeffries got into the act and changed the lyrics to reflect a very sad song. Charlotte Church, another English speaking person, published her version which seems fairly close to the original lyrics, but Madame Church introduces an “ungrateful Silvie” to the verse. Where did this Sirvie come from? The Italians seem fairly content to change the spelling from “Amour” to “Amor” and let it go at that.
One night at the Stanhope Hotel, I had a chance to have a discussion with George Feyer about “Plasir d’Amour.” He told me the meaning is that, “The pleasure of love lasts for the moment; the sentiment of love lasts forever.” George spoke six or seven European languages. If he said that is what it means, it is good enough for me and I hope that English speaking people would kindly butt out.
George was a good man who had tasted what the Germans had to offer in the Bergen-Belsen prison. He found out what Russians had to offer when Hungary was forced to accept Soviet puppets. Feyer knew what slavery meant under those two systems. I am delighted that he was able to break free and come to freedom.
The last time I saw George was in May, 1982 when Judy and I had two Swedes we were entertaining. That was at the specially constructed Hideaway Room at the Waldorf-Astoria. The special construction was a small intimate room for George Feyer. He was charming to the Swedes as he had been to all my guests, foreign and domestic, and to my self.
Obviously, I think George was one of the great ones. To give you an idea of his consideration of others less fortunate than he, I call to mind his concerts at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. When his wife was diagnosed at that center in the late 1970’s, without any publicity George appeared each week at Sloan-Kettering to entertain patients. I saw George all the while he was going to Sloan-Kettering and I knew nothing about it. Even after his wife died, the concerts continued until a few weeks before his own death. The fact that he avoided publicity about these efforts is typical of the man George Feyer was.
George made at least 27 recordings. Some of them include his rendition of “Plaisir d’Amour.” We have a good number of those recordings. When I listen to them, it’s not the English or Italian or German lyrics I hear; it’s George’s thought that “the sentiment of love lasts forever.”
I was a very lucky man to know George Feyer. I believe he was probably the finest entertainer ever to sit on a piano bench.
E. E. CARR
July 4, 2002
~~~
I listened to quite a bit of George Feyer music before publishing this essay. I found this set of songs to make particularly good background listening. Reading these essays always makes me think I should spend far more time exploring my city than I do; after work I often head straight for home. Perhaps it’s time to stop and smell the roses — I’m sure there are just as many talented people in San Francisco now as there were in New York so many years ago.
Per Judy, Feyer’s obituary is below:
October 25, 2001
George Feyer, Cafe Pianist And Entertainer, Dies at 92
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
George Feyer, a gifted pianist and delightfully versatile entertainer who charmed Manhattan cafe society at the Carlyle, Stanhope and Waldorf-Astoria hotels for three decades, died on Sunday at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. He was 92 and lived in Manhattan.
Mr. Feyer mixed an education in classical music with a love of pop, then added a dash of his Maurice Chevalier singing voice and a spicy pinch of topical comment to concoct an entertainment cocktail to amuse his sophisticated audiences.
George Lang, the New York restaurateur and a Hungarian like Mr. Feyer, said Mr. Feyer fused “styles, periods, stories and humor” to create an effect not unlike that of Victor Borge. “He was the master of this,” he said. “There is no one like him anymore.”
In a review in The New York Times in 1980, John S. Wilson commented on Mr. Feyer’s intimate, polished style: “He literally plays his audience, which invariably includes longtime fans, fitting a remark to a table on the left, acknowledgement of a request from a far corner into his performance, drawing his listeners in with an anecdote, a recollection or an Ogden Nash poem and creating an ambience that is informal but delicately controlled.”
Among Mr. Feyer’s witty specialties was linking pop lyrics to classical tunes, mixing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” for example. But one of his worst experiences became a New York legend. When he took his usual vacation on Nantucket Island in 1968, Bobby Short replaced him, beginning a fabled, uninterrupted run at the Carlyle. The management had changed, and the move turned out to be permanent. “I took the most expensive vacation of them all,” Mr. Feyer said to Mr. Lang. However, his career continued at the Stanhope and Waldorf-Astoria.
Mr. Feyer was born in Budapest on Oct. 27, 1908. His mother, a piano teacher, tied his legs to the piano bench to force him to practice, Mr. Feyer’s son, Robert, said. Mr. Feyer nonetheless went on to become a brilliant student at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, where one of his classmates was Georg Solti, the conductor, who became a lifelong friend. He then disappointed teachers and others who expected him to follow a classical career by turning to pop music after his graduation in 1932. His son said his decision was treated as a minor scandal at the time.
One of his first jobs was playing the accompaniment for silent movies, but he soon graduated to nightclubs. He and his partner, a drummer, began working around Europe. In Paris one of their fans was the exiled Duke of Windsor; he liked accordion music, and the two drew straws to see who would learn to play the instrument. Mr. Feyer won; the drummer had to learn the accordion.
At the outbreak of World War II, Mr. Feyer returned to Hungary to be with his family. The Nazis put him on forced labor details, then imprisoned him in Bergen-Belsen for the final year of the war.
He returned to Budapest after the camp was liberated and married Judith Hoffman. He first played in an officers’ club of the Allied armies, but left for Switzerland as the Soviets gained control of Hungary, remaining there for three years.
After Hungary revoked the Feyers’ passports and Switzerland would not let them become permanent residents, the couple, who by then had a son, found themselves stateless. In 1951 they went to New York, where they joined Mr. Feyer’s brother, who had become a United States citizen.
Mr. Feyer’s first booking was at the celebrated Gogi’s La Rue, and he quickly moved on to Delmonico’s and other clubs. He spent 13 years at the Carlyle, which created a room for him, going so far as to hire a Hungarian decorator. He then spent 12 years at the Stanhope before going to the Waldorf-Astoria, where he played in a small, secluded, elegant room called the Hideaway.
He made many recordings, mainly on the Vox label in the mid-1950’s, his son said. His “Echoes” album series included “Echoes of Paris” and “Echoes of Broadway.”
“If there is any originality in my arrangements, it lies in the fact that they do not try to be original,” he wrote in an essay. “They are based on the eternal laws of music, which apply equally whether you play classical or popular, Mozart or Jerome Kern, Brahms or Johann Strauss.”
When his wife died in December 1982, Mr. Feyer stopped working full time. He continued to play at private parties and hotels and clubs in vacation spots, particularly in Palm Springs, Calif., where his second wife, the former Marta Kleyman, owned a home. In addition to her and his son, who lives in San Francisco, he is survived by three grandsons.
Almost until the time of his death, Mr. Feyer performed weekly for patients at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. His son said that after his dismissal from the Carlyle, he never set foot there again.