Sunday, March 02, 2008

Professor Peter Schickele

Professor Peter Schickele (Chairman of the Department of Musical Mythology at the University of Southern North Dakota) has dedicated his life to the proposition that serious music need not be taken seriously.
I first saw him at New York’s Carnegie Hall way back in the late ‘70s. The stage was set up for an orchestra and the audience seated. Curtain time was to be 8:00 PM and it was now 8:05. We were getting restless when the lights dimmed and suddenly, swinging in from the a box on the right, came a bearded, somewhat chubby mad man swinging in on a rope. He smashed into the music stands and folding chairs on the stage creating one hell of a mess and a tumultuous racket. Dusting himself off, he turned to the audience and said something like, “I’m not late, am I?”

For the next two hours we were entertained by slapstick comedy and music of a surreal quality. Masterpieces of P.D.Q. Bach that had been unearthed by the good Professor (probably from where some wise dog had buried them!) were performed for the first before a live audience. (All other audiences having the good sense to die before listening to a P.D.Q. Bach composition.)

We heard “instruments” created from rubber hoses and slide whistles, the cardboard tubes from wrapping paper and carpet rolls, and many other unusual objects. And they all seemed to work when teamed with P.D.Q. Bach’s scores.

Now, those of you of a certain age will say that such musical comedy has been around for a long time. Danny Kaye did it. Victor Borge was a master of it. Spike Jones and the City Slickers may have thrust it into the foreground. But Professor Peter Schickele does it like no other.



PDQ Bach/Jekyll & Hyde tour/Making of a Live Concert

1 comment:

Erica said...

I was somehow never exposed to PDQ Bach, which is strange, considering my Dad's love of classical music, and his love of goofy stuff. He gave me his record of "Spike Jones is Murdering the Classics," which I still listen to at times, plus, when I used to live with them, we'd always make an evening out of a Victor Borge special on PBS, and even have one or two on tape somewhere.

Our absolute favorite was Allan Sherman - I have a bunch of his "My Son, the..." records, and my entire childhood was punctuated by my Dad singing these songs to me. On a separate, but related note...where does one find a recording of the Jimmy Durante song that goes something like "Go on home, ya muddah's callin', ya faddah just fell in da gahbage can..."?