Hoffnung
Yesterday, I referenced the Bricklayer’s Story that Gerard Hoffnung did. Since I’m sure there are many who don’t know the story, and more who never heard of Gerard Hoffnung, I figured it might be appropriate to post it here.
Hoffnung was radio broadcaster, humorist, cartoonist and amateur musicians, and most famous in the late-1950s for two spoof-ish classical music concerts, often referred to as his Hoffnung Interplanetary Music Festivals at Royal Festival Hall in London. He’d write classical pieces for odd instruments like bicycle pumps. And offer Haydn’s Surprise Symphony with significant surprises. It's where I first became aware of Hoffnung, because growing up we had the first album. Later on, I tracked down the second. (A third "Astronautical" Music Festival was presented in 1961 as a memorial tribute, having passed away much too young, at age 34.)
Think of him sort of like Victor Borge on a slightly-more serious level and on a grander scale. If you know the work of Peter Schickele and his “P.D.Q. Bach” creation and albums (most famously his presentation of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony as if it was like a baseball game with announcers and analysts), that was even more in Hoffnung's vein, and I'm sure Schickele considers him an inspiration.
Plus, he was a masterful artist. Somewhat in the same whimsical and detailed style as another of my favorite British cartoonists who came later, Ronald Searle.
The Bricklayer Story was something he did separate of classical musical. It was part of a lecture he delivered at the Oxford Union in 1958, under the title "Life Begins at 38." To be clear, he did not write the Bricklayer piece. It was originally published in the Reader's Digest in 1940 as (apparently...) a real letter from a naval officer who had supposedly received it from an enlisted man explaining his late return from leave (though a version of the story can be traced back to 1926). Many years later, the Manchester Guardian wrote about in in 1957, and that's what Hoffnung read and used -- changing only the location.
It’s possible many people do know it – either from his original rendition, or from other people later presenting it. There even was an animated version made (though not with Hoffnung’s original audio). And the popular Irish group The Clancy Brothers adapted it into a folk song.
But Gerard Hoffnung’s 7-minute original stands out tall among all the other efforts. That's his magnificent delivery. Impeccable timing, appropriate pauses, and well-placed repetition, along with spot-on modulation of his voice to heighten the drama and comedy. It’s a masterclass in comedy.
(And it turns out that the quality of his presentation comes from perfecting it by repeated tellings. As host of a BBC Radio panel game show called One Minute, Please, Hoffnung would do the story to warm up the audience.)
Thanks to Tony Blumberg – who first heard this where I did, on classical music station WFMT in Chicago during their weekly Midnight Special show of folk music, odds-and-ends and comedy – from prompting me to post this.
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