Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanish legend about a libertine as told by playwright Tirso de Molina in his 1630 play El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra. It is a dramma giocoso blending comedy, melodrama and supernatural elements. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the National Theater, now called the Estates Theatre, on 29 October 1787. Don Giovanni is regarded as one of the greatest operas of all time and has proved a fruitful subject for commentary in its own right; critic Fiona Maddocks has described it as one of Mozart's "trio of masterpieces with librettos by Da Ponte".
Peter Schickele was an American composer, musical educator and parodist, best known for comedy albums featuring his music, which he presented as being composed by the fictional P.D.Q. Bach. He also hosted a long-running weekly radio program called Schickele Mix.
The Stoned Guest is a "half-act opera" by Peter Schickele in the satirical persona of P. D. Q. Bach. The title is a play on the "stone guest" character in Don Giovanni by Mozart, as well as the opera The Stone Guest by Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomïzhsky after the play by Pushkin. The work is a parody of classical opera. The opera appears on the 1970 album of the same name.
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.
Recitative is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms and delivery of ordinary speech. Recitative does not repeat lines as formally composed songs do. It resembles sung ordinary speech more than a formal musical composition.
P. D. Q. Bach is a fictional composer created by the American composer and musical satirist Peter Schickele for a five-decade career performing the "discovered" works of the "last and the least" 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 St Matthew Passion, BWV 244, is a Passion, a sacred oratorio written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1727 for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra, with libretto by Picander. It sets the 26th and 27th chapters of the Gospel of Matthew to music, with interspersed chorales and arias. It is widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of Baroque sacred music. The original Latin title Passio Domini nostri J.C. secundum Evangelistam Matthæum translates to "The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the Evangelist Matthew".
The Baroque Beatles Book is a record album by the American keyboardist and conductor Joshua Rifkin. Released by Elektra/Nonesuch in 1965, it takes musical themes of The Beatles and reworks them into Baroque style. The artwork on the cover, signed by illustrator Roger Hane, depicts classical composers reviewing the music to "I Want to Hold Your Hand," one of whom sports a Beatles t-shirt.
Milton John Cross was an American radio announcer famous for his work on the NBC and ABC radio networks.
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.
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 1973. 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 1901 painting Kreutzer Sonata by René-Xavier Prinet.
Black Forest Bluegrass is a recording of the music of Peter Schickele under his comic pseudonym of P. D. Q. Bach, featuring the composer and "a bluegrass band with a Baroque orchestra, a wind octet with toys, a commercial with a snake — this album has it all!" The album was released on Vanguard Records in 1979.
A Little Nightmare Music is an opera in "one irrevocable act" by Peter Schickele under the pseudonym he uses for parodies and comical works P. D. Q. Bach. The title of the work refers to the English translation of Mozart's famous Eine kleine Nachtmusik. The opera is described as being "based on a dream he had December 4, 1791, the night that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died and Antonio Salieri didn't." The opera was "newly exhumed" at Carnegie Hall on December 27, 1982. It was later recorded with the premiere cast and released on CD by Vanguard Records in 1983. The album also includes two other works by P. D. Q. Bach: an octet and a parody of Handel's Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks, Royal Firewater Musick.
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'.
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: Peter Schickele Presents 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.
The Dreaded P. D. Q. Bach Collection is a collection of works by Peter Schickele under the pseudonym of P. D. Q. Bach originally recorded on the Vanguard Records label by the composer. It includes the complete contents of the first five P. D. Q. Bach albums, plus the never-before-released "Sanka" Cantata.
Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 61, in Weimar for the first Sunday in Advent, the Sunday which begins the liturgical year, and first performed it on 2 December 1714.
The Stone Guest may refer to:
Leichtgesinnte Flattergeister, BWV 181, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Leipzig for Sexagesima and first performed it on 13 February 1724.
