10 Funniest Classical Music spoofs

[Don Petter]

... and if Shost writes rubbish, Michael can Tippett.

[ahinton]

... and if Shost writes rubbish, Michael can Tippett.

into the cart so that the Carter - a rough Diamond - can take it away? That said, if Shost wrote rubbish, he didn't do it as well as Edmund.

[salymap]

Not spoofs but things going the rounds years ago.

Britten can make it and Boosey can Hawke it [ref. 'Let's make an opera' for those who don'tknow it]

[umslopogaas]

Hi salymap, pedantic correction coming up, its lets Fake an opera, not Make one: from 'The Hoffnung Interplanetary Music Festival 1958' ...

... except that your quote isnt from that priceless item, its from 'Punkt Contrapunkt' on the same LP. See my post 15 and adopt same comic german accent:

"Ach, ve maik zer englisch yoke, nein?

In Yermany, ve laik zer gut englisch yoke.

In Yermany, ve zay, if Britten writes rubbish, Boosey's kan Hawke it.

Ant in Mainz ve zay, if Michael writes rubbish, Schotz kan Tippett.

{hysterical fit of the Hoffnung giggles} Enough of yokes. Ve must to serious matters analytical. ..."

I'm not sure I should have tried that, its very difficult to catch that sense of fun and buffoonery that made Hoffnung such a joy to hear. But if it persuades anyone to seek out the original recording, it will have been worth a go.

[salymap]

Oh sorry, that's how it reached me. Together with one even further off topic about a conductor.

Some conductors are born [Bourne] and others are Hollingsworth. Of course it probably means nothing to the young.

[Stanley Stewart]

My favourite spoof is an LP I picked-up in a remainder bin for 17/6d in the mid 60s. "The Best of Mike Nichols & Elaine May" in which some of the tracks were recorded during a Broadway performance of their "Evening With Nichols & May". They excelled as an Age of Anxiety couple and gradually developed the skill of an improvised on-the-spot with cues taken from Marty Rubenstein's background piano solos, viz, "Bach to Bach", a setting of a one- night stand and the hilarious cliches following, presumably, a post-coital conversation. A dental spoof, set to Rach's second piano concerto, but this is no brief encounter as the dentist ponders on how he will survive when his patient leaves for South Africa and his sense of malaise when he remembers her canal roots! Eight sketches and a couple of comic masterpieces. I haven't ever seen this LP subsequently and quickly transferred it to audio cassette in the 80s and recently produced an almost pristine copy on CD-R.

Joy, too, in transferring Florence Foster Jenkins; "The Glory (????) of the Human Voice and A Faust Travesty" to CD-R.

Fortunately, "Joyce Grenfell requests the pleasure of your company" at the Fortune Theatre, 1954, has been well remastered and the CD also includes several bonus tracks with Beatrice Lillie in fine form. Joyce Grenfell provides several treats including Maud - A Moment with Tennyson - in which she reminds a potential seducer that Maud will NOT be coming into the garden; Narcissus (The laughing record) including a sustained 'corpsing' session with Norman Wisdom (sic).

I'd also include Edward German's, "Merrie England" - the 1960 Sadlers Wells production, in particular, on CD. The lyrics are gloriously daft but the score still enchants,

Another spoof I often revisit is a Rodgers & Hammerstein celebration, on video, in which Judi Dench sends herself up something rotten as a rather mature Liesl singing 'When you're 16 going on 17' from "The Sound of Music". She never got more girlish than this!

[umslopogaas]

I ought to try and produce a top ten, this is a subject I love and the mere thought reduces me to fits of giggles. In no order of merit (and apologies that at least one has already been listed):

1. Tom Lehrer: ‘Clementine’ A classic ballad in the style of several famous classical composers. I particularly enjoy the idea of Stravinsky setting ‘In a cavern, in a canyon, excavating for a mine …’

2. Alan Sherman: ‘Hello mudder, hello fader, here I am at camp Granada …’ miserable child at summer camp, in letter home to his parents, sung to Ponchielli’s ‘Dance of the Hours.’

3. Tom Lehrer: ‘The Elements’ “This is simply the names of the chemical elements, set to a possibly recognisable tune (‘I am the very model of a modern major general’)”. Not sure if G & S is classical, but they are certainly classic. One of the most virtuosic memory feats I’ve ever encountered. “… There’s nickel, neodymium, lutecium, germanium, and also mendeleevium, ruthenium, uranium. There’s …” I probably haven’t got that right, but I once knew a chemist who had listened to it carefully and he reckoned Lehrer had got it spot on.

4. Hoffnung: ‘Metamorphosis on a Bedtime Theme (Allegro Commerciale in Modo Televisione)’. An advert for Bournvita, run as a series of variations in the style of various classical composers.

5. Hoffnung: ‘Sugar Plums’. Tchaikovsky remodelled for recorder ensemble by the Dolmetsch’s.

6. Hoffnung: ‘Let’s Fake an Opera’. A cigarette factory in Old Nuremberg and Brunnhilde scampering around on a tricycle.

7. Hoffnung: ‘Concerto Popolare’. Orchestra and conductor determined to play Grieg’s pc, soloist equally determined to play Tchaikovsky no. 1.

8. An ancient LP called ‘The Organ In Sanity And Madness’. Almost any track.

9. Hoffnung: ‘Chopin’s Mazurka Op. 68 no. 2, arranged for tuba quartet.

10. Flanders and Swann: ‘Ill Wind’. Mozart’s Horn Conc. No. 4, last movement, with words by Flanders. Already had it, I know, but one of the funniest items ever recorded. Beloved of my parents, who weren’t otherwise great fans of comedy.

[salymap]

There are also some contenders by Franz Reizenstein and Malcolm Arnold whose titles I can't recall at the moment. A very eminent horn player, no longer on these boards, said he loves the Flanders and Swann Mozart.

I had a Hoffnung book signed by him after one of the concerts. I gave it to a friend for Christmas and have always regretted it.

And Danny Kaye sang a very funny song consisting entirely of names of Russian composers.

[Mary Chambers]

Hi salymap, pedantic correction coming up, its lets Fake an opera, not Make one: from 'The Hoffnung Interplanetary Music Festival 1958' ...

Except that Let's Fake an Opera was in itself a spoof title taken from Britten's Let's Make an Opera (1949). I'm not sure from the posts here whether people know that. Apologies if you do.

Salymap, I understand the Bourne and Hollingsworth joke!

[barber olly]

The recordings of the Portsmouth Sinfonia were dire enough to qualify for this thread.

[umslopogaas]

Post 24 Mary Chambers. Oh dear, many thanks for that, a niche of memory that was previously undiscovered. But I still think Gerard Hoffnung was one of the funniest people who ever lived, and his source was often classical music. Though not always: at the risk of censorship for going off message, would anyone else agree that 'The Bricklayer's Tale' is a classic?

"The bucket [comic pause] the bucket [another comic pause] came up

and I met the bucket coming down! [another comic pause]

At this point I must have lost my presence of mind, for I let go of the rope."

Now I admit that this has nothing to do with classical music, but it is very funny. Hoffnung was a comic master, and if you doubt that, just listen to 'The Bricklayer's Tale'. Dammit, I cant find the record, if I could I'd love to play it again ...

[Mr Pee]

The recordings of the Portsmouth Sinfonia were dire enough to qualify for this thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgKDKyl-EKE

[verismissimo]

Several already mentioned. One that hasn't is Peter Sellers's The Trumpet Volunteer.

[Bryn]

I notice that the Youtube item recently linked to carries a comment referring to Brian Eno's playing clarinet in the Portsmouth Sinfonia. I would add that this fine body of music enthusiasts also included Michael Nyman on French (or in his particular case, Chinese) Horn, and Gavin Bryars (who played cello - a bit of a cheat as his main instrument is the fairly closely related double bass).

[salymap]

Post 24 Mary Chambers. Oh dear, many thanks for that, a niche of memory that was previously undiscovered. But I still think Gerard Hoffnung was one of the funniest people who ever lived, and his source was often classical music. Though not always: at the risk of censorship for going off message, would anyone else agree that 'The Bricklayer's Tale' is a classic

"The bucket [comic pause] the bucket [another comic pause] came up

and I met the bucket coming down! [another comic pause]

At this point I must have lost my presence of mind, for I let go of the rope."

Now I admit that this has nothing to do with classical music, but it is very funny. Hoffnung was a comic master, and if you doubt that, just listen to 'The Bricklayer's Tale'. Dammit, I cant find the record, if I could I'd love to play it again ...

I got iton google and have put it on faves to show a young relative who shares my love of Hoffnung, Jpyce Grenfell, Anna Russell, Flanders and Swann etc.