As a Liverpudlian teenager in the 1950s, when most concertgoers still wore suits, I was both amazed and amused, and my serious view of "classical" music forever overturned for the better by Fritz Spiegl's hilarious April Fool's Concerts with his Liverpool Music Group (Obituary, March 25). In 1956, one of the performers was Gerard Hoffnung, who copied Spiegl's concept at Royal Festival Hall with his Hoffnung music festival concerts. This was a much grander affair and Spiegl participated in the first.
Spiegl could always be relied upon for a surprise. In the concert of Liverpool music given by his group in 1957 to celebrate the 750th anniversary of the city's charter, the programme included everything from folksongs by AL Lloyd and Ewan MacColl, to what I, and many other less knowledgeable concertgoers, thought was another typical Spiegl joke, a performance of Donizetti's Emilia di Liverpool. Thank you, Fritz, for so much musical pleasure.
Malcolm Shifrin
Leatherhead, Surrey
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