Meyer was born in Berlin. He received his first piano lessons at the age of six and started composing at eleven. After finishing school, he worked as an apprentice at a bank, and in 1926 he started the advanced study of music at
Heidelberg University, where in 1930 he completed his Ph.D. on the 17th-century chamber music of North German composers. He became a pupil of
Hanns Eisler and under his influence, joined the Communist Party. Being a Jew and the composer of militant protest songs, he emigrated to the
United Kingdom in 1933 to avoid detention by the
Nazi Party. There he eventually became a close friend of leftist composer
Alan Bush, who was also in contact with exiled composers Eisler and
Kurt Weill. In the UK, Meyer researched English chamber music of the 17th century, lectured for the Workers Educational Association and conducted the Labour Choral Union. In 1939 he began lecturing at
Bedford College, London; in 1945 he was given a guest professorship at
King's College, Cambridge. But unlike some of his fellow
émigré composers (such as
Hans May), Meyer only ever worked on the fringes of British cinema, for which he produced some scores for documentaries and instructional films. He did some unique work on the use of sound effects, dubbing and editing. Meyer returned to
East Germany (GDR) in 1948 and became one of the most influential figures of music culture there. He was active politically as a communist, and his works include choral, orchestral, and chamber music written to display commitment to Marxist–Leninist ideals. In 1982 the second edition of his book
Early English Chamber Music: The History of a Great Tradition from the Middle Ages to Purcell was published. Meyer was head of the German Society of Composers and Musicologists, professor of musicology at Berlin's
Humboldt University, chairman of the German Handel Society, and founder of the annual
Handel Festival, which is still celebrated in
Halle, Germany. ==Works==