SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Cheltenham Music Festival 2009: The Humour of Gerard Hoffnung – an illustrated talk: Annetta Hoffnung, Cheltenham Music Festival, 19.7.2009 (RJ)


Picture a flute player with a piccolo player in his breast pocket, a lady flautist with washing hanging on her extended flute, or a trumpet turned into a shower. These cartoons by Gerard Hoffnung, who died 50 years ago, never fail to raise a smile, especially those which depict musicians and musical instruments.

This year the Cheltenham Music Festival mounted a large exhibition of Hoffnung's work and invited his sprightly 85 year old widow to talk about her late husband. Born in Germany in 1925 into a middle class Jewish family, Hoffnung came to London in 1938, and by the time he was 15 he was contributing cartoons to the magazine Lilliput.

Clearly his interest lay in drawing rather than normal school work, and juvenile sketches from this time - of the Devil tempting Christ and Adam and Eve - show that he already possessed a considerable talent for caricature. With such skills one might have expected him to be a prize winning student at art school, but he was very much an individualist and he managed to get himself expelled from Hornsey College of Art.

Apart from being one of the leading cartoonists of his day, Hoffnung was a great performer. "He always had a splendid rapport with his audience," Annetta commented and we can appreciate this from his recordings which have an impeccable sense of timing. It is more than regrettable that no film exists of his performances and film clips of his music festivals, such as the Interplanetary Music Festival with its motto "Per tuba ad astra", are extremely short.

The tuba was Hoffnung's instrument. He had given up the violin when a teenager and tried unsuccessfully to become a jazz drummer. But according to Annetta it had been his lifelong ambition to possess a tuba and he worked hard at mastering its intricacies. Eventually he reached a good enough standard to play in the Morley College Orchestra.

Hoffnung was obviously a great humorist, but Annetta was at pains to point out that he had a serious side. He became a prison visitor and a Quaker, and was opposed to nuclear weapons. He also did some serious drawings, including a landscape painting of Hampstead Heath near his home and a series of paintings depicting Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortileges, which was captioned by Colette.

If he were alive today, Hoffnung would doubtless have been amused by the unusual display of painted violins, violas and cellos organised by the Cheltenham Festival in the gallery next to his cartoons. One artist, P J Crook, had painted a whole quartet of instruments inspired by Haydn'sThe Seasons. Some artists offered abstract designs while one had painted a burnt out building to express the melancholy sound of stringed instruments. There was even a cello painted by the local MP.

Hoffnung’s cartoons and musical extravaganzas showed us what fun music and music making can be. His music festivals spawned many imitators and his cartoons - sometimes grotesque, always hilarious - continue to amuse a world-wide audience. In the 50th anniversary of his death we should raise our glasses - or our musical instruments - in honour of this remarkable man.

Roger Jones

More information on Hoffnung is available in the main body of  MusicWeb International.