Peter Schickele (2024-1935)?

[cahn]

Peter Schickele died yesterday, at the age of 88. He was a composer in his own right, but I at least knew him primarily as the man behind P.D.Q. Bach, (1807–1742)? "the twenty-first of Johann [Sebastian Bach]'s twenty children," the composer of many hilarious musical parodies.

I was introduced to Peter Schickele / P.D.Q. Bach by the orchestra kids I hung out with freshman year of college (L, T, and F) -- it was L who made me sit down and listen to the 1712 Overture, clearly taking great delight in introducing a newbie to it. I went to listen to it tonight in honor of Peter Schickele and was so charmed to find that there is a live performance of the 1712 Overture on Youtube. (Non-Americans might benefit from listening to the tunes of Yankee Doodle and Pop Goes the Weasel first.) I also love Schickele's Eine Kleine Nichtmusik, which he did have under his own name.

I introduced D to P.D.Q. Bach when we were dating, and when I told him the news of his death, D said, "They should perform the Missa Hilarious at his funeral." RIP, you gave laughter to a lot of people. <3

Comments

[landofnowhere]

I grew up with his eclectic NPR radio show Schickele Mix (tagline, "if it sounds good, it is good"). Sad to hear of his passing, but good to know that I'm not grieving alone.

[cahn]

oh, I didn't grow up with this but I just spent a while listening to an episode online, this is great <3

[landofnowhere]

:-D I listened to a bunch of them some years ago, and while I don't enjoy the dad jokes as much as I did when I was 12, they still hold up pretty well! (There were a couple episodes on women and music that didn't hold up so much -- "Masculine/Feminine" ends with a rant about feminist musicology, while "Cherchez la Femme", though it features women composers, I mainly remember for the cameo with Bill Clinton playing the saxophone and the final gag about how Garrison Keillor is more popular than Schickele (this was made in 1996, I kinda want to know what Schickele was thinking?). I should listen to more sometime, I see there are more available online now than there used to be!

[cahn]

Haha, he sure does love his dad jokes. I bet I would have eaten that up when I was twelve, too. (Huh -- that makes me think I should listen to these with the resident 13- and 8-year-olds, who would probably be all over the jokes.) I will keep that in mind about the women-and-music episodes, thanks for the warning!