P. D. Q. Bach

P.D.Q. Bach is the pseudonym under which Professor Peter Schickele has written a substantial body of satirical music, recorded on nearly twenty compact discs on the Vanguard and Telarc labels.

Biography

Schickele has even written a fictional life story for P.D.Q. Bach, in the book The Definitive Biography of P.D.Q. Bach, published by Random House.

P.D.Q. Bach was born in Leipzig on March 31, 1742, the son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Anna Magdalena Bach. 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. 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, 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".

Music

Prof. 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." Schickele divides P.D.Q. Bach's musical output into three periods: the Initial Plunge, the Soused Period, and Contrition.

During the Initial Plunge, P.D.Q. Bach wrote Traumarei for solo piano, an Echo Sonata for "two unfriendly groups of instruments", a Gross Concerto for Divers' Flutes, two trumpets and Strings. During the Soused Period, P.D.Q. Bach wrote a Concerto for Horn and 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, the opera in one unnatural act Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice, 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 Four Hands, the chorale prelude Should, a Notebook for Betty Sue Bach, the Toot Suite, the Grossest Fugue, a Fanfare for the Common Cold, the canine cantata Wachet Arf!.