P. D. Q. Bach: Difference between revisions
-circular link for Baden-Baden-Baden; +full DoB & DoD & in order (the years are only reversed on his grave); -stale merge proposal (Lasso d'amore). |
DavidWBrooks (talk | contribs) since the order of birth/death date has been a bone of contention in this article before (see Talk) and since it's irrelevant for a fictional character, I am removing it |
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'''P. D. Q. Bach''' |
'''P. D. Q. Bach''' is a fictitious composer invented by musical satirist "Professor" [[Peter Schickele]]. In a gag that Schickele has developed over a four-decade-long career, he performs "discovered" works of this forgotten member of the [[Bach family]]. Schickele's music combines [[Parody music|parodies]] of [[musicology|musicological]] scholarship, the conventions of [[Baroque music|Baroque]] and [[Classical period (music)|classical]] music, and [[slapstick]] comedy. |
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The name "P. D. Q." is a parody of the three-part names given to some members of the [[Bach family]] that are commonly reduced to initials, such as C. P. E., for [[Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach]]. ''PDQ'' is an [[initialism]] for "pretty damn (darn) quick". |
The name "P. D. Q." is a parody of the three-part names given to some members of the [[Bach family]] that are commonly reduced to initials, such as C. P. E., for [[Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach]]. ''PDQ'' is an [[initialism]] for "pretty damn (darn) quick". |
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Revision as of 16:23, 14 November 2010
P. D. Q. Bach is a fictitious composer invented by musical satirist "Professor" Peter Schickele. In a gag that Schickele has developed over a four-decade-long career, he performs "discovered" works of this forgotten member of the Bach family. Schickele's music combines parodies of musicological scholarship, the conventions of Baroque and classical music, and slapstick comedy.
The name "P. D. Q." is a parody of the three-part names given to some members of the Bach family that are commonly reduced to initials, such as C. P. E., for Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. PDQ is an initialism for "pretty damn (darn) quick".
Schickele regularly tours, and has recorded on Vanguard and Telarc labels.
Biography
Among the many incontestable facts about the composer's life in Schickele's biography of the composer, [1] are the following:
- P. D. Q. Bach was born in Leipzig on April 1, 1742[2], the son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Anna Magdalena Bach; the twenty first of Johann's twenty children.[1] According to Schickele, Bach's parents did not bother to give their youngest son a real name, and settled on "P. D. Q." instead. The only earthly possession Johann Sebastian Bach willed to his son was a kazoo.
- In 1755, P. D. Q. Bach was an apprentice of the inventor of the musical saw, Ludwig Zahnstocher (German for "toothpick"). In 1756, P. D. Q. Bach met Leopold Mozart and advised him to teach his son Wolfgang Amadeus how to play billiards. Later on, P. D. Q. Bach went to St. Petersburg to visit his distant cousin Leonhard Sigismund Dietrich Bach (L.S.D. Bach), whose daughter Betty Sue bore P. D. Q. a child.
- Finally, in 1770, P. D. Q. Bach started to write music, mostly by stealing melodies from other composers.
- P. D. Q.'s final words, which were spoken to Betty-Sue Bach, were "Time, gentlemen." The time was exactly eleven o'clock on the evening of May 5, 1807[3] in Baden-Baden-Baden [sic], Germany.[1]
- P. D. Q. Bach's grave was marked "1807–1742". The reverse order of the dates has led to some controversy, but Prof. Schickele calls the theory that P. D. Q. Bach lived his life backwards, Merlin-like, "too fanciful to merit serious consideration" and insists that the marking on the grave was a "transparent attempt [by] the Bach family to make it appear that P. D. Q. could not possibly have been sired by Johann Sebastian, who died in 1750."[4] Nevertheless, when listing the dates in sheet music or program notes, he always includes a question mark: "(1807–1742)?"
- P. D. Q. Bach's Epitaph reads [as requested by his cousin Betty Sue Bach and written by the local doggerel catcher]:
- In the "original" German:
- Hier liegt ein Mann ganz ohnegleich;
- Im Leibe dick, an Sünden reich.
- Wir haben ihn in das Grab gesteckt,
- Weil es uns dünkt er sei verreckt.
- In the "original" German:
- Translated:
- Here lies a man with sundry flaws
- And numerous sins upon his head;
- We buried him today because
- As far as we can tell, he's dead.
- The translation above is provided by Schickele in the "biography". A more literal translation:
- Here lies a man entirely without equal,
- Fat in body, rich in sins.
- We've put him into the grave,
- as it seems to us he's kicked the bucket.
In preconcert lectures, Schickele has revealed that P. D. Q. Bach had a substantial influence on Beethoven's deafness: Beethoven came to dread P. D. Q. Bach and his music so greatly that Beethoven resorted to stuffing coffee grounds into his ears whenever he saw P. D. Q. Bach coming.
Before performing the Concerto for Horn and Hardart, Schickele stated, though no documentary evidence existed, that the dance music of P. D. Q. Bach generally suggested that one of P. D. Q. Bach's legs was shorter than the other; this distinguished him greatly from Mozart, of whom no such affliction is reported (see: Mozart and dance). Later, in Schickele's Music for an Awful Lot of Winds and Percussion album (in the introduction to the Six Contrary Dances), Schickele states that a recently discovered doctor's note proves that P. D. Q. Bach's hollow leg was considerably longer than the other one.
Music
Schickele describes P. D. Q. Bach as having "the originality of Johann Christian, the arrogance of Carl Philipp Emanuel, and the obscurity of Johann Christoph Friedrich." The most distinguishing feature of P. D. Q. Bach's music, in the words of Schickele, is "manic plagiarism".
P. D. Q. Bach seldom wrote original tunes; he stole melodies from other composers and rearranged them in often funny ways. P. D. Q. Bach's music uses instruments not often used in orchestras, such as the tromboon,[5] slide whistle, hardart, lasso d'amore,[6] left-handed sewer flute and kazoo, as well as items not normally used as musical instruments, such as balloons, fog horns, and bicycles. His music also calls for unusual methods of playing traditional instruments, such as blowing through double reeds by themselves (that is, detached from the instruments) throughout Iphigenia in Brooklyn. His parts for vocalists include coughing, snoring, sobbing, laughing and yelling.
P. D. Q. Bach's work pokes fun at music including Baroque, Romantic, modern, country music (Oedipus Tex and Blaues Gras), and rap (Classical Rap). The "Schickele" or "S." numbers whimsically assigned to P. D. Q. Bach's works parody musicologists' catalogues of famous composers, such as the Köchel catalogue of Mozart's works.
There is often a startling juxtaposition of styles within a single P. D. Q. Bach piece. The Prelude to Einstein on the Fritz, which alludes to Philip Glass's opera Einstein on the Beach, provides an example. The underlying music is J.S. Bach's first prelude from The Well-Tempered Clavier, but with each phrase repeated interminably in a minimalist manner that parodies Glass's. On top of this mind-numbing structure is added everything from jazz phrases to snoring to the chanting of a meaningless phrase ("Koy Hotsy-Totsy," alluding to the art film Koyaanisqatsi for which Glass wrote the score). Through all these mutilations, the piece never deviates from Bach's original harmonic structure.
The humor in P. D. Q. Bach music often derives from violation of audience expectations, such as repeating a tune more than the usual number of times, resolving later than usual or not at all, unusual key changes, or sudden switches from high art to low art.[7]
Schickele divides P. D. Q. Bach's musical output into three periods: the Initial Plunge, the Soused Period, and Contrition.
During the Initial Plunge, P. D. Q. Bach wrote the Traumerai for solo piano, an Echo Sonata for "two unfriendly groups of instruments", and a Gross Concerto for Divers Flutes, two Trumpets, and Strings.
During the Soused (or Brown-Bag) Period, P. D. Q. Bach wrote a Concerto for Horn & Hardart, a Sinfonia Concertante, a Pervertimento for Bicycle, Bagpipes, and Balloons, a Serenude, a Perückenstück (literally German for "Hair-piece"), a Suite from The Civilian Barber (spoofing Rossini's The Barber of Seville), a Schleptet in E-flat major, the half-act opera The Stoned Guest (the character of "The Stone Guest" from Mozart's Don Giovanni), a Concerto for Piano vs. Orchestra, Erotica Variations (Beethoven's Eroica Variations), Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice, an opera in one unnatural act (Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel and the 1969 film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice), The Art of the Ground Round (Bach's The Art of Fugue), a Concerto for Bassoon vs. Orchestra, and a Grand Serenade for an Awful Lot of Winds and Percussion.
During the Contrition Period, P. D. Q. Bach wrote the cantata Iphigenia in Brooklyn (Gluck's Iphigenia in Aulis, etc.), the oratorio The Seasonings (Haydn's The Seasons), Diverse Ayres on Sundrie Notions, a Sonata for Viola for Four Hands, the chorale prelude Should, a Notebook for Betty Sue Bach (Bach's Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach and Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue"), the Toot Suite, the Grossest Fugue (Beethoven's Grosse Fuge), a Fanfare for the Common Cold (Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man), and the canine cantata Wachet Arf! (Bach's Wachet auf).
He composed the religious work Missa Hilarious (Schickele no. N2O, N2O being nitrous oxide or "laughing gas"), which was found along with documents pertaining to his excommunication.
Tromboon
The tromboon is a musical instrument made up of the reed and bocal of the bassoon attached to the body of a trombone in place of the trombone's leadpipe, combining the reed and the slide for a distinctive and unusual instrument. The name of the instrument is a portmanteau of "trombone" and "bassoon". The sound quality of the instrument is best described as comical and loud. Schickele called it, "a hybrid – that's the nicer word – constructed from the parts of a bassoon and a trombone; it has all the disadvantages of both."[8][9] This instrument is called for in the scores of P. D. Q. Bach's oratorio The Seasonings,[10] as well as the Serenude (for devious instruments).
Performances
Schickele currently performs P. D. Q. Bach in two touring programs, both accompanied by soprano Michèle Eaton and tenor David Düsing.
"P. D. Q. Bach: The Vegas Years" is performed with an orchestra, and includes Oedipus Tex, selections from Art of the Ground Round, and the cantata Gott sei dank, daß heute Freitag ist ("Thank God It’s Friday").
"P. D. Q. Bach & Peter Schickele: The Jekyll and Hyde Tour" is performed with piano accompaniment, and includes Four Next-to-Last Songs, Shepherd on the Rocks, With a Twist, and excerpts from Little Notebook for "Piggy" Bach.
One performance in San Francisco had an unusual sequel: at the end of the concert on May 29, 1979, the audience walked out of the concert hall straight into the White Night riots.
Recordings
| Title | Year |
|---|---|
| Peter Schickele Presents an Evening with P. D. Q. Bach (1807–1742?) | 1965 |
| An Hysteric Return: P.D.Q. Bach at Carnegie Hall | 1966 |
| Report from Hoople: P. D. Q. Bach on the Air | 1967 |
| The Stoned Guest | 1970 |
| The Intimate P. D. Q. Bach | 1974 |
| Portrait of P. D. Q. Bach | 1977 |
| Black Forest Bluegrass | 1979 |
| Liebeslieder Polkas | 1980 |
| Music You Can't Get Out of Your Head | 1982 |
| A Little Nightmare Music | 1983 |
| Title | Record company | Year |
|---|---|---|
| The Wurst of P. D. Q. Bach | Vanguard Records | 1978 |
| The Dreaded P. D. Q. Bach Collection | Vanguard Records | 1996 |
| The Ill-Conceived P. D. Q. Bach Anthology | Telarc Records | 1998 |
| Title | Year |
|---|---|
| The Abduction of Figaro | 1984 |
| P. D. Q. Bach in Houston: We Have a Problem! | 2006 |
| Title | Year |
|---|---|
| The Definitive Biography of P.D.Q. Bach | 1996 |
Awards
Four of the Telarc P. D. Q. Bach recordings received Grammy awards in the Best Comedy Recording category. These were the four albums released from 1989 until 1992.[11] Schickele also received a Grammy nomination in the Best Comedy Album category in 1996 for his abridged audiobook edition of The Definitive Biography of P. D. Q. Bach.[12]
Further reading
- Schickele, Peter. The Definitive Biography of P. D. Q. Bach, (1807–1742)?. New York: Random House, 1976. ISBN 0-394-73409-2
See also
References
- ^ a b c Schickele, Peter. The Definitive Biography of P. D. Q. Bach
- ^ Schickele, Peter. The Definitive Biography of P. D. Q. Bach, page 3: "the night of the 31st of March, 1742," "giving birth to his twenty-first child," "at one minute after midnight"
- ^ Schickele, Peter. The Definitive Biography of P. D. Q. Bach, page 110
- ^ Schickele, Peter. The Definitive Biography of P. D. Q. Bach, page xiii, "Introduction"
- ^ Tromboon at Dolmetsch Music Dictionary
- ^ Lasso d'amore at Dolmetsch Music Dictionary
- ^ David Huron (2004). "Music-engendered laughter: an analysis of humor devices in PDQ Bach" (PDF). Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Music. pp. 700–704.
{{cite conference}}: Unknown parameter|booktitle=ignored (|book-title=suggested) (help) - ^ "P. D. Q. Bach & Peter Schickele: The Jekyll and Hyde Tour". Retrieved 13 November 2008.
- ^ Dr David Shevin (5 August 2004). "A Viva For Elizabeth Lands". Retrieved 13 November 2008.
- ^ "The Seasonings, Oratorio for Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass Soloists, SATB Chorus, and Orchestra by P. D. Q. Bach [Peter Schickele]", in Notes, Second Series, Vol. 30, No. 4 (June 1974), pp. 863–864. Last accessed 7 June 2008 (subscription required)
- ^ Biography page for Peter Schickele on Theodore Press Company's website
- ^ Past Winners Database page for the 1996 Grammy award nominees and winners on the Los Angeles Times website