Aquarium Suite
Class: Original Piano Solos
Published: 1937.
Comment: This one of Billy's most beautiful sets and also exists in a version for piano and orchestra. It contains four numbers.
Willow Moss has a fairly long intro. It opens with a beautifully harmonised series of chords, ending with a major seventh which gives its characteristic flavour to the main theme. A cadenza-like passage is followed by a syncopated version of the main melody.
Moorish Idol has a vaguely oriental atmosphere.
Fantail is more like one Billy's syncopated numbers.
Whirligig is also in the basic A-B-A shape of numbers 2 and 3 and provides a brilliant conclusion which is not as difficult as it sounds.
