When music press releases reach Mel Brooks territory

Every so often a press release pops into my in-box which makes me chuckle at its sheer inappropriateness. The latest is this beauty. “Britten’s War Requiem for Sing-Along Concert” blazes the headline.

Now anyone familiar with the popular touring interactive cinema shows Sing-a-long-a Sound of Music or its younger cousin Sing-a-long-a Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat will know what to expect from this kind of line. Audiences will surely be encouraged to lustily belt out the Dies Irae and so on – and it doesn’t matter if you lose your place as there will no doubt be a little bobbing ball over the surtitles to tell you when to sing what. Riotous fun will be had by all. OK, so the War Requiem is supposed to be this big harrowing anti-war piece, but what’s wrong with using it for a sing-song? The event is, after all, taking place on the anniversary of VE Day, so there’s something to celebrate.

Of course it’s not that kind of thing at all, and with the estimable Simon Halsey “conducting 1250 performers from across Europe” (as the release goes on to say) alongside his Rundfunkchor Berlin I’m sure it will be quite an occasion in the right way and perhaps even a deeply moving one. But a little part of me is still in Mel Brooks Producers territory and half-longs for the travesty.

This press release caused much merriment in the Gramophone office. Other suggestions for innapropriate Sing-a-long-a’s came thick and fast. Sing-along-a Peter Grimes. Sing-along-a Winterreise. Sing-along-a Dialogues of the Carmelites (difficult, that one, the choral volunteers would have to remember to stop singing one by one at the end as the nuns are led to the guillotine). Finally, my favourite, Sing-along-a Wozzeck.