"Professor" Peter Schickele is an American composer, musical educator, and parodist, best known for comedy albums featuring his music, but which he presents as being composed by the fictional P. D. Q. Bach. He also hosted a long-running weekly radio program called Schickele Mix.
The Abduction of Figaro is a comic opera in three acts, described as "A Simply Grand Opera by P. D. Q. Bach", by Peter Schickele. It is a parody of opera in general, and the title is a play on two operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Abduction from the Seraglio, K. 384, and The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492. Those two operas, as well as Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni, and Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance are among the core inspirations for the piece. The Abduction of Figaro is numbered S. 384, 492 in Schickele's catalogue of works.
P. D. Q. Bach is a fictional composer invented by the American musical satirist Peter Schickele, who developed a five-decade-long career performing the "discovered" works of the "only forgotten son" of the Bach family. Schickele's music combines parodies of musicological scholarship, the conventions of Baroque and Classical music, and slapstick comedy. The name "P. D. Q." is a parody of the three-part names given to some members of the Bach family that are commonly reduced to initials, such as C. P. E., for Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach; PDQ is an initialism for "pretty damned quick".
"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love", known for its first line "Come live with me and be my love", is a poem written by the English poet Christopher Marlowe.
David Oei is a Hong Kong-born American classical pianist.
The Concerto for Horn and Hardart, S. 27, is a work of Peter Schickele composing under the pseudonym P. D. Q. Bach. The work is a parody of the classical double concerto but where one instrument, the hardart, uses different devices, such as plucked strings, blown whistles and popped balloons, to produce each note in its range. The name "hardart" and the name of the concerto is a play on the name of proprietors Horn & Hardart, who pioneered the North American use of the automat. Like the automat, the hardart had small windows in the front where the musician had to insert coins to remove implements needed to strike or otherwise play the devices that produced the notes. The composer Philip Glass, a classmate of Schickele's, helped build the actual instrument; Glass and the others tasked with building the hardart made it a transposing instrument without telling Schickele. Although a parody, the work is a well-written example of a classical concerto and could stand as a serious piece of music with a few changes.
Oedipus Tex is a satirical Western-themed oratorio by P. D. Q. Bach that follows the adventures of Oedipus Tex in Thebes Gulch. It was released on the album, Oedipus Tex and Other Choral Calamities in 1990.
Report from Hoople: P. D. Q. Bach on the Air was released on Vanguard Records in 1967. It is set up as a radio broadcast of the music of P. D. Q. Bach with Professor Peter Schickele as the DJ.
Portrait of P. D. Q. Bach was released in 1977 on Vanguard Records. The album features mostly the work of Peter Schickele writing as P. D. Q. Bach, with one contribution under his own name.
The Ill-Conceived P. D. Q. Bach Anthology is a collection of works by Peter Schickele writing as P. D. Q. Bach originally recorded on the Telarc label by the composer.
Peter Schickele Presents an Evening with P. D. Q. Bach (1807–1742)? was the first concert of and the first release of the music of Peter Schickele under his comical pseudonym of P. D. Q. Bach by Vanguard Records. The chamber orchestra was conducted by Jorge Mester. The album consists of musical parodies with commentaries by the composer.
An Hysteric Return: P.D.Q. Bach at Carnegie Hall is live recording of a P. D. Q. Bach concert in Carnegie Hall and was released on Vanguard Records in 1966.
The Intimate P. D. Q. Bach is "a live recording of The Intimate P.D.Q. Bach stage show, featuring Professor Peter Schickele and the Semi-Pro Musica Antiqua" and was released on Vanguard Records in 1974. Many of the performer credits are humorous, and as with all P.D.Q. Bach recordings, the "S" numbers are fictitious and humorous. The cover art is a parody of the painting Kreutzer Sonata.
Oedipus Tex and Other Choral Calamities was released in 1990 by Telarc Records. The album contains works by Peter Schickele under his alter-ego of P. D. Q. Bach and won a 1990 Grammy Award for 'Best Comedy Performance'.
WTWP Classical Talkity-Talk Radio was released in 1991 by Telarc Records. The album contains the "last hour of the broadcast from station WTWP in Hoople on May 5, 1991, the 184th anniversary of the death of P. D. Q. Bach." The station name WTWP means "Wall to Wall Pachelbel" in which some unusual instruments play his Canon in D.
The Wurst of P. D. Q. Bach is a collection of works by Peter Schickele under his comic pseudonym of P. D. Q. Bach originally recorded on the Vanguard Records label by the composer. It includes "lowlights" from four different Vanguard albums: An Evening with P. D. Q. Bach (1807–1742)?, An Hysteric Return: P.D.Q. Bach at Carnegie Hall, Report from Hoople: P. D. Q. Bach on the Air, and P. D. Q. Bach's half-act opera The Stoned Guest. Wurst is the German word for sausage, with the album cover photograph set in a sausage shop.
P.D.Q. Bach in Houston: We Have a Problem! is a live performance celebrating 40 years of P. D. Q. Bach. This performance features Professor Peter Schickele with Orchestra X conducted by Peter Jacoby. It includes never-before-recorded performances of "Trumpet Involuntary" movement of Iphigenia in Brooklyn, and also the rounds Odden und Enden.
P.D.Q. Bach & Peter Schickele: The Jekyll & Hyde Tour was released in 2007 by Telarc Records. The album contains works by Peter Schickele, sometimes as his alter-ego P.D.Q. Bach, including a collection of vocal works and a string quartet. It is a live recording of the "Jekyll & Hyde" Tour.
Joseph Wilson Baber Jr. was an American composer, violist, and composition teacher living in Lexington, Kentucky.
