RIP PDQ Bach Peter Schickele

[Gene_StL]

Peter Schickele, Composer and Gleeful Sire of P.D.Q. Bach, Dies at 88

He wrote more than 100 symphonic, choral, solo instrumental and chamber works. But he was better known, and celebrated, as a musical parodist. Who can forget the “Concerto for Horn and Hardart”?

www.nytimes.com

 

[Fran604g]

I had many memorable listening sessions at my best friend's house long ago. May he RIP.

 

[mhardy6647]

He's one of those people (there are too many of them) of whom one reads an obit and thinks: I didn't know he was still alive?!


I was just telling Mrs. H that, besides PDQ Bach, he was an active arranger BITD. E.g., he did the arrangements for Joan Baez's... umm... quirky Christmas album, Nöel. Quirky arrangements, too.

Anyway... very sorry to read that he's gone.

 

[Kpatch]

One of my true treats as a wide-eyed sprout living on Long Islad was going into the city to a Horn and Hardart automat for lunch. We were each given only so much money (.75) so we had to choose wisely and I would make sure to choose my dessert first, Lemon Meringue or Boston Cream pie. Pie was .25 and a club sandwich was .50. Yum! Schickele’s Concerto for Horn and Hardart still warms my heart.

“The title of this work refers to the now-defunct firm of Horn & Hardart, which pioneered Automat diners in North America. This double concerto uses a horn and a “hardart,” which operates like an automat in that the musician needs to keep putting coins in the machine and taking out implements used to play various instruments. The instrument was built by Peter Schickele and his classmate, Philip Glass. The piece is in three movements:

• Allegro con brillo
• Tema con variazione
• Menuetto con panna e zucchero”

 

[Kpatch]

And I especially like that sentence in the NYT obit “ … prodigious ability as a pasticheur“. Excellent.

 

[mhardy6647]

And I especially like that sentence in the NYT obit “ … prodigious ability as a pasticheur“. Excellent.

Sometimes, even nouning weirds language.
pastucheur -- yeah, I dig it! I don't even have to look it up.
Language. It's cool.

 

[mhardy6647]

Have to see what of PDQ Bach's canon* I have in the archives here. I know there's some.

____________
* or is that cannon?


Sorry for the rerun - I am over-caffeinated and under-creatively-motivated this morning.

 

[Thermionics]

I had the pleasure of seeing Peter Schickele in high school in the 1980s. As part of his schtick, it was announced he would not be able to make an appearance due to travel difficulties, at which point he swung down from the balcony of the Portland Civic Auditorium, ran down the center aisle, and belly-flopped onto the stage (wearing his customary Oshkosh overalls and black tie & tails), where he joined John Ferrante and David Oei.

Music was excellent - lots of unresolved progressions and odd instruments. If memory serves, they performed "Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice: An Opera in One Unnatural Act"