Rip processor Peter Schickle. The last time i saw him I had the pleasure of meeting him after a show and told him he was the Weird Al of classical music. He smiled and loved the compliment. The genius behind PDQ Bach passed away at age 88. May he rest in Peace 🙏
Attended a late 1960's concert at Washington D.C.'s Constitution Hall where a young Professor Schickele and his orchestra performed P.D.Q. Bach's Pervertimento For Bagpipes, Bicycle & Balloons, S. 66 among other "recently discovered compositions." A good time was had by all.
Once when I was a teenager I had arranged to meet him backstage after his concert when he was in town but he'd forgotten to put me on the list and the doorman wouldn't let me through. A couple of weeks later I got a letter in the mail apologizing, in the form of the 'I'm sorry oratorio', a piece of music written out on the stationery of the hotel he was staying at on tour. A very lovely man indeed.
How I wish I could have attended a concert which featured Peter Schickele. As a musician and teacher, I hope to always convey the joy that music brings, and his use of humor intertwined in his compositions and performances give us just that. Rest in peace sir!
The music teacher at the Rochester Institute of Technology was a fan of PDQ Bach. He played "New Horizons in Musical Appreciation" for us and led the university chorus in singing "My Bonnie Lass she Smelleth". That was enough to convince me to buy my first PDQ Bach Album, "The Wurst of PDQ Bach". He was brilliant.
I remember seeing this when it first aired. Johnny and the band were just cracking up and couldn't control their laughter. The audience was a bit befuddled. "Head of Musical Pathology" indeed!
We used to see Schickele and PDQ every Christmas season at Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center back in the 70s and early 80s. With a full Orchestra and choir, he was insanely funny and insanely brilliant. He once made his appearance on stage by sliding down a zipline from the balcony. Crazy man... brilliant musician. He also wrote the score to the Sci Fi classic Silent Running.
Schickele went to Juilliard with the head of my undergraduate music program, and he would come to visit on occasion. He came to our St. Cecilia Day one year, dressed as St. Cecilia, and led us students in a performance of the Schleptet, and some madrigals. Good times. ❤
Those were wonderful events. The NY concerts had their own performance practices by the audience, e.g. booing the stage manager, the Prof's musicological shaggy dog stories and of course his inevitable late, dramatic entrance. Nothing like it, so much fun.
Rip processor Peter Schickle. The last tine i saw him I had the pleasure of meeting him after a show and told him he was the Weird Al of classical music. He smiled and loved the compliment. The genius behind PDQ Bach passed away at age 88. May he rest in Peace 🙏
In the 1980's he performed at our university (WVU). He arrived slightly late, swung onto the stage using a rope, like Tarzan. If he did this in the 2020's, I think he might have been delivered to the stage by a large flying drone.
Schickele is an accomplished bassoonist, a proficient pianist, and has a Master's degree in composition from Juilliard. Like most composers, he has a methods (working) knowledge of all orchestral instruments. Schickele was one of the few guests on the Tonight Show (when Carson was hosting it) that got four full segments on the same show.
@@deejaykaydee They were uniquely hilarious. I think his "PDQ Bach on the Air" is one of the greatest comedy albums ever, ingenious. Especially if you're familiar with classical music or radio. You can hear it on RU-vid, ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bLwUr4ARfXg.htmlsi=jGinIU9mht0Eqo_w
I had a choir director in high school who "accidentally" left a copy of Art of the Ground Round on his desk one day. I obliged him by getting a quartet together to perform "Jane, my Jane" at our next talent show. Thank you for sharing this bit of the Prof's history. Sorry the audience was too dull to get it.
“Manic plagiarism” - hahahaha! I’ve seen this man “in concert” (if you can call his performances “concerts” 3 times. One of those times I was 8 3/4 months pregnant and I swear that all the laughing I did that night sent me into labor and I delivered my son about 24 hours after the last notes were played the night he appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in February 1990!
Please correct me if this memory is not accurate: In the final segment of another of Schickele's appearances on The Tonight Show when Johnny typically said good night to each of his guests, Carson explained to the audience, "You must understand. Peter Schickele actually did graduate from the Juilliard School." Looking directly into the camera, Schickele responded, "DUH, YEAH!" Carson fell out of his chair.
I first discovered his records in our local library when I was a teen in the '70s.....Really liked his take on football commentary with Beethoven's 5th.
I chuckled at Spike Jones. I laughed out loud at Victor Borge. Listening to and watching Peter Schickele / PDQ Bach at least weekly keeps me sane! Listen to his '1712 Overture' and tell me he didn't take the '1812' and turn it upside down while throwing in a little 'Pop Goes The Weasel'.
The first piece is published under the title Bachanale, under Peter Schickele’s own name. It’s on issuu. I think the Holy Grail of PDQ Bach media would be if they released the Concerto for Piano VS Orchestra from Evening at Pops. Years ago I heard it somewhere, but it’s gone and like the variations, much of it wouldn’t have made sense if I hadn’t read someone’s recap from a concert earlier this century.
I had the privilege of witnessing the Professor himself massacre the orchestra in the Concerto for Piano vs. Orchestra (S. 88). At the beginning of the piece the professor described a labor saving device that PDQ used, to wit: he would write one page of music, and before the ink dried he would fold the page to get another page free! Well, he actually does this, and I'm sure I was the only one in the Indianapolis audience that understood what was happening. I couldn't breathe.
Johnny completely missed his comment at 8:45 mark, about never growing up. About 10 years before this interview, Johnny had Dolly Parton on. She had started doing her variety show, and he asked about fan letters. She described one full of criticisms about her looks and her singing, then said, '...and I hadn't heard from Mama for months!' They went to break, and upon returning, we saw Johnny wiping his eyes and trying to stop laughing. She got him good!
That's one nutty professor I tell you... When's the last time a classical guy came on late night network television? J.S. Bach must be rolling over in his grave, these folks botched up his music so bad...
