1 Photo
Virtually unknown and overlooked for the last 300 years, P.D.Q. Bach’s life and compositions have finally come to light. The neglected and unacknowledged 21st of Johann Sebastian Bach’s 20 children has Peter Schickele to thank for that.
Unlike Bach’s musically gifted brood, P.D.Q. Bach did not grow up in a warm German home, providing daily entertainment in the neighborhood. In fact, he was not even conceived on the European continent.
He is a figment of Mr. Schickele’s imagination—a character that conveniently fits both his sense of humor and his passion for piano.
On Saturday, he will kick off the Quogue Chamber Music series with a concert of music by Bach’s fictional late son—compositions widely attributed to Mr. Schickele himself, though he is reluctant to take credit. “That has been rumored, yeah,” he said of writing the pieces, nearly 100 in total.
But, eventually, Mr. Schickele did concede. He penned P.D.Q. Bach’s first piece during the late 1950s in his garage in Fargo, North Dakota, while on a break from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania with his brother, David, and their friend, Earnest Lloyd. They were recording a comical radio broadcast, when one of the three men—which it was remains a point of contention to this day—dubbed the composition by “P.D.Q. Bach,” named after the 1920s expression “pretty darned quick,” and for the piece’s similarities to styles utilized by Bach and Mozart.
P.D.Q. Bach remained an inside joke between the trio and close friends. It was in 1959 when Mr. Schickele realized that this alter ego was the key to their ideal concert—one half music, one half comedy.
While studying at The Juilliard School in Manhattan, they performed pieces they claimed were written by P.D.Q. Bach, the 21st of Bach’s 20 children, and it became a tradition until Mr. Schickele graduated in 1964.
It was never a career plan, he said. He intended to teach.
“But, in 1965, a friend asked if I [would start] doing this publicly,” he recalled. “So, in April of 1965, we put on the first public concert in New York City in Town Hall. I now do this instead of teaching, which is what I thought I’d do.
“I loved teaching, but I liked performing better,” he continued. “Also, I like the variety that my life has given me of doing different things. And, talking to my friends who have become college teachers, I don’t miss college politics.”
Mr. Schickele composed his first piece of music at age 13. By that time, he had five years of piano lessons under his belt—though he took a short hiatus midway through his studies.
At age 12, he formed “a band in the league of Spike Jones,” he said, and started writing pieces for piano and bassoon soon after.
“I play, seriously, bassoon and piano,” Mr. Schickele said. “My mother played clarinet in college, and I started playing it. But when I went to study clarinet, my teacher said, ‘You have so many bad habits, you should take a new instrument.’ So I took the bassoon.
“I don’t regret it, because the nice thing about bassoon is, I got a lot of opportunities to play that I wouldn’t have had with the clarinet,” he concluded. “Not a lot of people play the bassoon.”
Peter Schickele will kick off the Quogue Chamber Music series with “50 Years of P.D.Q. Bach: A Triumph of Incompetence” on Saturday, June 13, at 7:30 p.m. at Quogue Community Hall. Accompanying musicians include Michele Eaton, Brian Dougherty and Margaret Kampmeier. A reception will follow at the home of Mark Carbone. Tickets are $100 for the concert and reception, or $40 for the concert only, and $5 for students, concert only. For more information, visit quoguechambermusic.com.
on Jun 9, 2015