He was innate inside Berlin and went to London in 1939 as a schoolboy refugee. Although he died at a early age of 34 years within 1959 (of a cerebral haemorrhage), he achieved in his short life plenty to fill a all series of life-time. Creative person, teacher, cartoonist, caricaturist, musician & bass horn streaming video player, broadcaster & anecdotist, a lot sought when speaker at the Oxford and Cambridge Unions and prison visitant, the Quaker - these were all facets of the originative personality.

Hoffnung published the series of books depicting conductors & orchestral musician. All a same, he is probably virtually all remembered for his ii Music Festivals held at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Each these featured humourous musical theater works licensed especially for the event & written per so contemporary composers of the day. A humour relies heavy in timing. The notable case is the 'Bricklayer's Lament' which was a portion of his 1958 Oxford Union Speech.