Molto humoroso

Cartoonist and broadcaster Gerard Hoffnung lampooned the world of classical music with splendid affection and wit, writes Andrew Green

- Andrew Green

‘He is more serious than he was, but is not yet serious enough.’ Thank goodness Gerard Hoffnung didn’t take to heart that verdict from his Highgate School house tutor. And nothing better summed up the adult Hoffnung’s sense of humour than the Royal Festival Hall music festivals carrying his name, which he masterminded in 1956 and ’58. Musical luminaries joined in the fun. Peerless French horn player Dennis Brain agreed to play… a concerto for hosepipe. Malcolm Arnold wrote his Grand, Grand Overture featuring three vacuum cleaners and a floor polisher. Hoffnung played his ‘Stradivarius tuba’.

As Festival Hall general manager Ernest Bean put it, Hoffnung ‘didn’t visit the Festival Hall. He invaded it with gales of laughter.’ It seemed as if Hoffnung’s hugely popular cartoon caricatures of singers, instrumentalists and conductors had become flesh. On Desert Island Discs, he described the occasion as ‘the most terrific moment of my life’.

I have only to mention these festivals to Sheila Young – a Royal Academy of Music-trained pianist and regular 1950s concertgoer – and the giggles gurgle: ‘I was in fits of laughter watching well-known musicians doing such unexpected things. OK, there were serious types in the audience who’d mutter, “What utter nonsense”. But most people loved the chaos.’