Gerard Hoffnung - The Comic Genius Of Gerard Hoffnung: Classic Albums 1956-61 / Gerard Hoffnung was an extraordinarily talented personality, an artist, cartoonist, musician, broadcaster, raconteur and impresario, born in Germany in 1925, but who moved to England just before WWII, and in the 1950s started appearing on the BBC and contributing to various humorous magazines. He devised the concept of spoof classical music concerts at London's famous Royal Festival Hall, where he and a number of respected musicians and ensembles performed elaborate parodies of various serious musical, choral and spoken pieces. This 3-CD collection comprises the complete content of four albums, all recorded 'live' at his different performances, some of which were not released until after his tragic and untimely death from a cerebral haemorrhage in 1959 at the age of 34. Those albums are "The Hoffnung Music Festival Concert", "The Hoffnung Interplanetary Music Festival", "The Hoffnung Astronomical Music Festival", and "Hoffnung At The Oxford Union". The Oxford Union album, featuring him in his solo role as a raconteur, includes his legendary "barrel of bricks" story, consistently in demand over the years on BBC radio record request programmes. It's a magnificently eccentric and entertaining memento of a unique and brilliant polymath.
4 Concerto for Hosepipe and Strings (3rd Movement)
5 Concerto Popolare (A Piano Concerto to End All Piano Concertos)
6 Symphony No. 94 in G 'The Surprise' - Andante
7 Speech By Gerard Hoffnung
8 Mazurka No. 49 in a Minor, Op. 68 No. 2
9 Lochinvar (For Speakers and Percussion)
10 Variations on Annie Laurie
- Disc 2 -
1 Introductory Music Played in the Foyer
2 Two Excerpts from 'A Hoffnung Festival Overture'
3 Metamorphosis on a Bed-Time Theme
4 Sugar Plums
5 The Famous Tay Whale
6 A Movement from Concerto for Conductor and Orchestra
7 Punkt Contrapunkt
8 Excerpts from the United Nations
9 Waltz for Restricted Orchestra
10 Let's Fake An Opera, or the Tales of Hoffnung
- Disc 3 -
1 Gerard Hoffnung at the Oxford Union Part 1
2 Gerard Hoffnung at the Oxford Union Part 2
3 Introductory Music Played in the Foyer - Rigmarole
4 Festival Anthem
5 Overture, Leonora No. 4
6 Duet from the Comic Opera "The Barber of Darmstadt"
7 Ballad of County Down, Mostly in D Major
8 Excerpt from "Belshazzar's Feast"
9 Horrortorio
10 Mobile for Seven Orchestras
Gerard Hoffnung - The Comic Genius Of Gerard Hoffnung: Classic Albums 1956-61 / Gerard Hoffnung was an extraordinarily talented personality, an artist, cartoonist, musician, broadcaster, raconteur and impresario, born in Germany in 1925, but who moved to England just before WWII, and in the 1950s started appearing on the BBC and contributing to various humorous magazines. He devised the concept of spoof classical music concerts at London's famous Royal Festival Hall, where he and a number of respected musicians and ensembles performed elaborate parodies of various serious musical, choral and spoken pieces. This 3-CD collection comprises the complete content of four albums, all recorded 'live' at his different performances, some of which were not released until after his tragic and untimely death from a cerebral haemorrhage in 1959 at the age of 34. Those albums are "The Hoffnung Music Festival Concert", "The Hoffnung Interplanetary Music Festival", "The Hoffnung Astronomical Music Festival", and "Hoffnung At The Oxford Union". The Oxford Union album, featuring him in his solo role as a raconteur, includes his legendary "barrel of bricks" story, consistently in demand over the years on BBC radio record request programmes. It's a magnificently eccentric and entertaining memento of a unique and brilliant polymath.
