P. D. Q. Bach

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The only known portrait of P.D.Q. Bach.

P. D. Q. Bach is a fictional composer invented by musical satirist "Professor" Peter Schickele. In an extended joke that Schickele has utilized as part of a four-decade-long career, he performs the works of this forgotten member of the Bach family, whose works he purports to have discovered. He has recorded this music on the Vanguard and Telarc labels. Shickele's music combines parodies of musicological scholarship, the conventions of Baroque and Classical music, and elements of slapstick comedy.

The name "P. D. Q." is a parody of the three-part names given to many members of the Bach family that are commonly reduced to initials, such as C. P. E., or Carl Phillip Emmanuel. "P. D. Q." stands for "pretty damn quick" in vernacular English.

1 Biography
2 Music
3 Recordings
- 3.1 Albums
- 3.2 Compilations
4 Biography
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Biography

Among the many "facts" about the composer's life in Schickele's fictional biography of the composer,^[1] we find 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. According to Schickele, Bach's parents did not bother to give their youngest son a real name, and settled on "P. D. Q." instead. Johann Sebastian did not give any musical training to P. D. Q. After his death, 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. Bach died on May 5, 1807; however, his grave was marked "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 dunkt er sei verreckt.

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.

In his many preconcert lectures Peter Schickele has revealed other information about P. D. Q. Bach's life:

P. D. Q. Bach had a substantial influence on Beethoven's deafness. This is due to the latter's habit of stuffing coffee grounds into his ears whenever he saw P. D. Q. Bach coming.

P. D. Q. Bach is the INTERCAL (a parody of computer programming languages) of Baroque music.

[edit] 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; for the most part he stole melodies from other composers and rearranged them in often funny ways. Also, P. D. Q. Bach's music uses instruments not often used in orchestras, such as the tromboon, slide whistle, hardart, lasso d'amore and kazoo, as well as items not normally used as musical instruments, such as balloons and bicycle. 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, in addition to singing, also include coughing, snoring, sobbing, laughing and yelling.

P. D. Q. Bach's music pokes fun at many types of music, including Baroque, Romantic, modern, even 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. Through all these mutilations, the piece never deviates from Bach's original harmonic structure.

Schickele divides P. D. Q. Bach's musical output into three periods: the Initial Plunge, the Soused Period, and Contrition. (These periods have no relationship to the order in which Schickele actually wrote the pieces, but are simply another play on musical scholarship.)

During the Initial Plunge, P. D. Q. Bach wrote the Traumarei 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, a Serenude, a Perückenstück, a Suite from The Civilian Barber, a Schleptet in E-flat major, the half-act opera The Stoned Guest, a Concerto for Piano vs. Orchestra, Erotica Variations, Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice (an opera in one unnatural act), The Art of the Ground Round, a Concerto for Bassoon vs. Orchestra, and a Grand Serenade for an Awful Lot of Winds and Percussion.

During the Contrition, P. D. Q. Bach wrote the cantata Iphigenia in Brooklyn, the oratorio The Seasonings, Diverse Ayres on Sundrie Notions, a Sonata for Viola for Four Hands, the chorale prelude Should, a Notebook for Betty Sue Bach, the Toot Suite, the Grossest Fugue, a Fanfare for the Common Cold, and the canine cantata Wachet Arf!

He also composed the religious work "Missa Hilarious" (Schickele no. N₂O) - N₂O is "laughing gas" - which was found along with documents pertaining to his excommunication.

[edit] Recordings

[edit] Albums

Peter Schickele Presents An Evening with P. D. Q. Bach (1807-1742)? (Vanguard Records, 1965)
An Hysteric Return: P. D. Q. Bach at Carnegie Hall (Vanguard Records, 1966)
Report From Hoople: P. D. Q. Bach On The Air (Vanguard Records, 1967)
The Stoned Guest (Vanguard Records, 1970)
The Intimate P. D. Q. Bach (Vanguard Records, 1974)
Portrait of P. D. Q. Bach (Vanguard Records, 1977)
Black Forest Bluegrass (Vanguard Records, 1979)
Liebeslieder Polkas (Vanguard Records, 1980)
Music You Can’t Get Out Of Your Head (Vanguard Records, 1982)
A Little Nightmare Music (Vanguard Records, 1983)
1712 Overture and Other Musical Assaults (Telarc, 1989) [3]
Oedipus Tex and Other Choral Calamities (Telarc, 1990)
WTWP Classical Talkity-Talk Radio (Telarc, 1991)
Music For An Awful Lot Of Winds And Percussion (Telarc, 1992)
Two Pianos Are Better Than One (Telarc, 1994)
The Short-Tempered Clavier and other dysfunctional words for keyboard (Telarc, 1995)