THE Hof thes INTERPLANETARY MUSIC FESTI L “ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL, 21st @ 22 nab N.0 V oe ting pins Kg , 4 , ae od 2 MS Pl a a ath eae cae Oe Maes, * YS Es "atts Bs. U \( met Ay Mi | ip We gl Hof fneG INTERPLANETARY MUSIC FESTIVAL Presented by HAROLD HOLT LTD. at the ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL, 21st & 22nd NOVEMBER 1958 AN EXTRAVAGANT EVENING Introductory Music played in the Foyer OF SYMPHONIC CARICATURE DEVISED BY GERARD HOFFNUNG with JOHN AMIS * MALCOLM ARNOLD « FRANCIS Hoffnung Festival Overture BAINES * OWEN BRANNIGAN * APRIL CANTELO * EDITH COATES * JOHN DOBSON « DAME EDITH EVANS * EDGAR EVANS « P. RACINE FRICKER » Metamorphosis on aBed time Theme PETER GLOSSOP * GERARD HOFFNUNG * JOSEPH HOROVITZ * OTAKAR KRAUS * GLORIA LANE » ELIZABETH POSTON * SHEILA REX * DUNCAN ROBERTSON * LIONEL SALTER * MATYAS SEIBER Sugar Plums ¢ JAN WALLACE *« THE HOFFNUNG FESTIVAL OPERA COMPANY and CHORUS THE HOFFNUNG (alias MORLEY COLLEGE) SYMPHONY | ORCHESTRA (Leader: Michael Jones) Conductor: NORMAN DEL The Famous Tay Whale THE BAND AND TRUMPETERS OF THE ROYAL MILITARY SCHOOL OF MUSIC (by permission of the Commandant and Lt.-Col. David McBain, O.B.E.) THE DOLMETSCH ENSEMBLE Carl Dolmetsch + Cécile Dolmetsch + Nathalie Dolmetsch * Joseph Saxby * Layton Ring * Michael Walton Concerto for Conductor and Orchestra Festival Manager: JACK PHIPPS Producer: COLIN GRAHAM Notes: T. E. BEAN, C.B.E. Punkt Contrapunkt “Hoffnung, aided and abetted by his many gifted collaborators, has done it again, to the The United Nations delight of the 6000 odd music-lovers who at- tended the two performances, and to the envy of the many thousands unable to gain admis- Waltz for Restricted Orchestra sion...Dare we look forward to a third edi- tion? They say, after all, that Hoffnung springs eternal...” Thomas Heinitz, Saturday Review Let’s Fake an Opera io 35800 MERGING from the relative obscurity of the lower brass section of the but coughing and polite applause. Not only did music-lovers hear old favorites orchestra, Gerard Hoffnung has become more of a public figure than “upside down,” as it were, but new compositions were commissioned for the probably any other tuba player in musical history. The fun began express purpose of exciting laughter. The recording of this festival attracted when his devastating caricatures of musicians and singers first appeared in critical notice throughout the world; and (as expected) the response was tre- newspapers and magazines, and then in books. He dared to laugh at that mendous when the second, the Interplanetary Music Festival, was announced pompous figure, the orchestral player, as only a musician can; and his inven- a long two years later. tion sometimes, indeed, borders on madness. Hoffnung is a Fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists, and a serious In 1956 Hoffnung hurled a catastrophic bowling ball into the china shop graphic artist and painter. During the 1951 Festival of Britain his paintings of “serious” music, when he organized the first Hoffnung Festival. The comic were seen at the Festival Hall. spirit prevailed in the concert hall where for so long had been heard little HY INTERPLANETARY? asked a reporter at the press conference at reminiscent of Grand Guignol he hissed: “But can’t you tell him that they which the 1958 Hoffnung Festival was first announced to the stellar are being run on diluted cocoa?) When a professional tightrope-walker universe. “I’m glad you asked that question,” was Hoffnung’s reply, “because offered his services for the Interplanetary Festival life was made hectic for ... I don’i know!!” the back-stage and first-aid staff of the Festival Hall for several weeks while He may not have known, but everyone associated with the preparations our Leonardo was working out elaborate engineering devices for enabling for the event can make a shrewd guess. The truth is that Hoffnung revels in the second trombone in the United Nations fantasy to reach his place in the hyperbole. That is why he prefers the Tuba to the Recorder, the Alphorn orchestra by copper wire from Mars (alias the Grand Tier)... to the Piccolo... It may also explain why the first discussions about the 1958 Yet, though his whimsies are sometimes gargantuan in conception there Festival took place (I am not inventing this!) in the Hippopotamus House in is a nimbleness in their execution which keeps one in a state of mercurial the London Zoo with the chief occupant making waffling contributions which hilarity. He talks and thinks (as he gesticulates) at a thousand tangents. Hoffnung alone could interpret and communicate. Suggest the germ of an idea to him (it was probably his in the first place!) Indeed, this penchant for the elephantine runs like a silken thread (or and instantly he grasps its innate absurdity, translates it into something HEAR MUSIC FROM should one say a steel hawser?) through both the 1956 and the 1958 Festivals. strange and wonderful, blows it up to ludicrous proportions until, even- In “‘Let’s Fake an Opera” he demanded that the Valkyries should arrive on tually, it explodes into another Hoffnung Festival, a new volume of musical THE 1956 HOFFNONG the scene mounted on Lambrettas, not, let me hasten to add, because he was caricature, or a stitch in the side... MUSIC FESTIVAL particularly impressed by their size (he would have preferred a division of It has, of course, sadly to be admitted that musical caricature is not to heavily armoured tanks!) but because they enriched the counterpoint with such everybody’s taste or stomach. “‘Let’s Fake an Opera” had to be pruned of CONCERT a heavenly ground bass. (When, incidentally, it was pointed out to him that many an affectionate dig at Thingumajig and You-know-who because the the Lord Chamberlain expressly forbade the importation of inflammable publishers of their scores feared that the Masters would lose face if David ANGEL 35500 fuel into a place of public entertainment his contempt for chicken-livered and his fellow-apprentices were permitted to parody their stately measure. officialdom became itself highly inflammable and in a conspiratorial whisper What these guardians of the seemly and the straightfaced failed to appreciate The drawings in this booklet and on the cover have been reproduced from The Maestro, The Hoffnung Symphony Orchestra, The Hoffnung Companion to Music, The Hoffnung Music Festival, and Hoffnung’s Musical Chairs by kind permission of the publishers, Messrs. Dobson Books Ltd., and Messrs. Putnam & Co., Ltd. A movement from Concerto for Conductor and Orchestra (Francis Chagrin) The Maestro (Gerard Hoffnung) with the Hoffnung Symphony Orchestra. A Concerto in which the soloist, although silent, makes his personality strongly felt is the subject of this extract. Punkt Contrapunkt (Bruno Heinz Jaja). The performance of this work is preceded by a discussion and analysis of it by Dr. Klaus Domgraf-Fassbaender and Prof. von der Vogel- weide. The work is played by the Hoffnung Symphony Orchestra conducted by Norman Del Mar. Script by John Amis. Music by Humphrey Searle. Punkt Contrapunkt, since it is accompanied by an illuminating disserta- tion on some of the more obscure aspects of the twelve-tone row— by two distinguished teutonic musicodologists, needs no further description. was that parody can be a far healthier and no less sincere form of flattery Ian Wallace, bass-baritone; Lionel Salter, harpsichord. The Hoffnung Symphony Orchestra than imitation. You can’t make vital parody of something that is itself lacking conducted by the composer. in vitality: and this is true whether you are parodying the ineffably bad or In Metamorphosis on a Bed-time Theme (‘Sleep sweeter Bourn-vita’), the superlatively good work of art!... Joseph Horovitz presents the ghosts of the Great Masters as they might be Besides, it is a mistake to imagine that Hoffnung and his fellow con- resuscitated for Independent Television in England or for Madison Avenue spirators are concerned primarily with taking the mickey out of the masters. in America. The work is exquisitely scored for soprano, bass-baritone, harpsi- Much, indeed the greater part, of the fun of the two Festivals has consisted of chord and orchestra, and. is full of cunning mis-quotations — reminiscent of original music which serious composers have been encouraged, stimulated, Bach, Mozart, Verdi, Schoenberg and Stravinsky. xz Gos i prodded, bludgeoned, bribed, flattered — or, to use an omnibus verb, hoff- Sugar Plums (realized by Elizabeth Poston). The Dolmetsch Ensemble with Elizabeth Cp, ed HON ae ~= won~ ¢ a aN ia a CT. nungized — into writing: thereby enriching the orchestral repertoire with a Poston, organ, Felix Aprahamian, percussion. Battérie: Lionel Salter, Eric Thompson, Peter = Hemmings, Robert Ponsonby. 4 new vein of musical humor. None of these willing collaborators has any patience with that obnoxious form of philistinism which guffaws at what it In Sugar Plums the famous Dolmetsch Ensemble bursts with unsuspected have been the preserve of the larger orchestras. To hear the great moments cannot appreciate. That their satire is appreciative, their sky-larking positive, virtuosity into the wide realms of symphonic music which for far too long in Tchaikovsky through what, until now, have been regarded as the wrong the works here recorded will gaily testify. end of the telescope adds a new perspective to one’s appreciation of the composer’s genius. SIDE ONE “The Famous Tay Whale” (a dramatic poem by William McGonagall, poet and trage- dian. Set to music by Matyas Seiber). Declaimed by Edith Evans with the Hoffnung Symphony SIDE TWO Introductory Music played in the Foyer (Francis Chagrin) Drum and Fife Band of Orchestra conducted by the composer. Fog-horn by Annetta Hoffnung. the Royal Military School of Music conducted by the composer. To a composer less versatile than Matyas Seiber, and to an actress less Excerpts from The United Nations (Malcolm Arnold).