The Great PDQ Bach has passed!

[2naSalit]

AKA Peter Schickele passed on 1/17/23 at 88 years of age.

Peter Schickele who has died aged 88, was better known as the fictional composer PDQ Bach, whose Victor Borge-style parodies delighted and entertained audiences; he was equally inventive with instruments, coming up with a trombone-bassoon combination known as the tromboon and the left-handed sewer flute.

A grizzly-bearded, Brahms-like figure, Schickele looked like a refugee from a psychedelic Sixties rock band. He claimed to be head of musical pathology at the non-existent University of Southern North Dakota in Hoople, where he was engaged in excavating the work of PDQ Bach, “history’s most justifiably neglected composer”.

His creation took on a life of its own, with a back story that cast a wickedly irreverent eye over the more pretentious aspects of musical scholarship. PDQ Bach (born 1807, died 1742) was the “last and least talented” of Johann Sebastian’s 20 sons and credited with composing anything that traditional musicologists loved to unearth in dusty archives: oratorios, cantatas, motets and madrigals.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/music/peter-schickele-composer-impish-parodist-and-discoverer-of-the-works-of-pdq-bach-obituary/ar-BB1gXupw

https://www.schickele.com/wp/p-d-q-bach/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schickele

https://www.schickele.com/wp/

[Blue Owl]

1. The Temporary Assistant Substitute Organist at St. Jezebel's

And his tenure at the University of Southern North Dakota, among his many accomplishments….

[2naSalit]

2. Yes, indeed!

I've been a fan for decades... first saw him on Johnny Carson and have been a fan since. His radio show ran on the stations around here, it was while I was engaged in the classical performance mode so it was definitely on my Saturday schedule.


He's definitely a musicians' comedian, the more you know about music the funnier he is. His snark also takes more than a few nips at academia as well. A joy of many sorts.

[ProfessorGAC]

3. The Snip Is Hilarious!

This wonderful nugget.

...excavating the work of PDQ Bach, “history’s most justifiably neglected composer”.

And this one,

PDQ Bach (born 1807, died 1742)

Guy was a hoot!

[2naSalit]

4. That piece makes me wonder...

What he really thought of Carmina Burana.

[DFW]

5. I saw him at Constitution Hall in Washington decades ago

He called it “Prostitution Hall” before “correcting” himself.

Great show, although you kinda had to know the material to appreciate the spoofs. My mom was a classical music major at the University of Chicago back in the day, and passed enough down to her children so we knew what was going on.

[2naSalit]

6. I was introduced to...

Classical music early on and began my training in Belle Canto at eight so when I first saw PDQ Bach I was hooked, I had never seen anyone spoof on Classical music in my life and it was so enlightening for a kid my age when all that stuff was seen as too serious to be silly about.

True, he was a musician's comic, you had to know some things about music to get most of the humor. But he was a master at it.

[bif]

7. I have a book he wrote about the life of PDQ Bach.

I'll have to look for it. I think I got about 1/3 of the way through it. What a genius