Peter Schickele passes away at 88, a source of endless musical amusement and a serious composer.:
From New York Times obit:
He wrote more than 100 symphonic, choral, solo instrumental and chamber works. But he was better known, and celebrated, as a musical parodist. Who can forget the “Concerto for Horn and Hardart”?
Under his own name, Mr. Schickele (pronounced SHICK-uh-lee) composed more than 100 symphonic, choral, solo instrumental and chamber works, first heard on concert stages in the 1950s and later commissioned by some of the world’s leading orchestras, soloists and chamber ensembles. He also wrote film scores and musical numbers for Broadway.
His music was performed by the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Lark Quartet, the Minnesota Opera and other notable ensembles, as well as by the folk singers Joan Baez and Buffy Sainte-Marie, for whom he wrote arrangements.
But to his resigned chagrin, it was as a musical parodist in the tradition of Victor Borge, Anna Russell and Spike Jones — Mr. Schickele’s particular idol — that he remained best known.
For more than a half century, through live performances seemingly born of the marriage of Mozart, the Marx Brothers and Rube Goldberg; prizewinning recordings; and even a book-length biography, P.D.Q. Bach (“the only dead composer from whom one can commission,” Mr. Schickele liked to say) remained enduringly, fiendishly alive.
Leaping from Mr. Schickele’s pen in P.D.Q.’s name were compositions like the “No-No Nonette,” the cantata “Iphigenia in Brooklyn,” the “Unbegun” Symphony and “Pervertimento for Bagpipes, Bicycle and Balloons.”
With these and myriad other works, Mr. Schickele, who billed himself as P.D.Q.’s “discoverer,” gleefully punctured the reverent pomposity that can attend classical-music culture.
It was P.D.Q., after all, whose work won four Grammy Awards to Mr. Schickele’s one. It was P.D.Q. who packed some of New York’s foremost concert halls for decades of annual Christmastime concerts. And it was P.D.Q. who, unbidden, could rear his head insidiously at performances of Mr. Schickele’s serious music, with audience members who had come expecting belly laughs sometimes walking out in bewilderment.
From New York Times obit:
He wrote more than 100 symphonic, choral, solo instrumental and chamber works. But he was better known, and celebrated, as a musical parodist. Who can forget the “Concerto for Horn and Hardart”?
Under his own name, Mr. Schickele (pronounced SHICK-uh-lee) composed more than 100 symphonic, choral, solo instrumental and chamber works, first heard on concert stages in the 1950s and later commissioned by some of the world’s leading orchestras, soloists and chamber ensembles. He also wrote film scores and musical numbers for Broadway.
His music was performed by the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Lark Quartet, the Minnesota Opera and other notable ensembles, as well as by the folk singers Joan Baez and Buffy Sainte-Marie, for whom he wrote arrangements.
But to his resigned chagrin, it was as a musical parodist in the tradition of Victor Borge, Anna Russell and Spike Jones — Mr. Schickele’s particular idol — that he remained best known.
For more than a half century, through live performances seemingly born of the marriage of Mozart, the Marx Brothers and Rube Goldberg; prizewinning recordings; and even a book-length biography, P.D.Q. Bach (“the only dead composer from whom one can commission,” Mr. Schickele liked to say) remained enduringly, fiendishly alive.
Leaping from Mr. Schickele’s pen in P.D.Q.’s name were compositions like the “No-No Nonette,” the cantata “Iphigenia in Brooklyn,” the “Unbegun” Symphony and “Pervertimento for Bagpipes, Bicycle and Balloons.”
With these and myriad other works, Mr. Schickele, who billed himself as P.D.Q.’s “discoverer,” gleefully punctured the reverent pomposity that can attend classical-music culture.
It was P.D.Q., after all, whose work won four Grammy Awards to Mr. Schickele’s one. It was P.D.Q. who packed some of New York’s foremost concert halls for decades of annual Christmastime concerts. And it was P.D.Q. who, unbidden, could rear his head insidiously at performances of Mr. Schickele’s serious music, with audience members who had come expecting belly laughs sometimes walking out in bewilderment.
What a guy...I mean, the guy was a educated at Julliard and also wrote Joan Baez folk songs, film scores, and Broadway musicals (Oh, Calcutta for one...), as well as his own chamber music and symphonies. You really can't musically expand much farther than that. On top of all that, he was hilariously funny in dead pan (something that I have come to appreciate much more when enduring the modern stand-up comedian genre).
Perhaps his non-PDQ Bach compositions will be examined more closely now that his canon has closed. Let the musicologists start the examination of his life and his music. In his own way, he may just give Charles Ives a run for the money as America's esoteric composer of note.
Rest in peace, Johann Peter Schickele. Your music and humor live on.
Chris
Perhaps his non-PDQ Bach compositions will be examined more closely now that his canon has closed. Let the musicologists start the examination of his life and his music. In his own way, he may just give Charles Ives a run for the money as America's esoteric composer of note.
Rest in peace, Johann Peter Schickele. Your music and humor live on.
Chris
Wow. Seeing a mention of Peter Schickele (as well as Anna Russell) really takes me back to music school. My professor mentioned them a number of times, and when the PDQ Bach caravan came to town my friends and I bought tickets. At the beginning of the performance the lights came up on stage to a condutorless orchestra. Suddenly we hear someone shouting something from the first balcony and watched as Peter grabbed a rope and swung do to the stage like some medieval Tarzan. Hilarious. So much of the music was tongue-in-cheek, and most of my non-music friends were just puzzled. The Short-Tempered Clavier? What's that. LOL.
Thanks for all the laughs, Peter. I'll miss you.
Thanks for all the laughs, Peter. I'll miss you.