Peter Schickele, the parodist with endless musical cleverness and Grammy Award-winning American composer behind PDQ Bach, the "last and least" of JS Bach's twenty-odd children, passed away last Tuesday, Jan. 16 at his home in Bearsville. He was 88.
The satirist's passing was confirmed by his daughter, Karla Shickele, who said her father's health had been on a straight decline due to a string of infections since last fall, as reported by the Washington Post.
American composer and parodist Peter Schickele, who performs as P D Q Bach, poses at a Horn & Hardart coin-operated buffet after a concert at the Lincoln Centre, New York City, April 1966.
PDQ Bach, 50 Years of Bringing Chuckles to a Concert Hall
For over five decades, the genius musical parodist that is Schickele has been a prolific producer of more than 100 symphonic, solo, choral, instrumental, and chamber compositions. Most of these pieces were created under the composer's comedic persona, PDQ Bach.
Schichele brought laughter in an otherwise serious art form, which he has a deep-rooted respect for, through his works like "1712 Overture" and "The Musical Sacrifice."
His parody is often integrated with largely unusual and self-invented instruments like his tromboon, a combination of a trombone and a bassoon, alongside inside jokes that both casual enjoyers and seasoned maestros of classical music can enjoy and laugh at.
Many of Schichele's schticks involve nonsensical additions that do more than liven up the concert hall, whether it be through getting chased by a gorilla in the middle of performing or by combining a sports broadcast with Beethoven's Symphony No. 5.
From 1965, Schichele performed a slew of shows donning his alter ego PDQ Bach up until 2015, when he eventually retired from doing public performances.
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Schichele's Serious Love for Classical Music
Outside his comedic endeavors as Bach's "oddest child" out of his bunch, Schickele was a distinguished classical music composer in his own right. For one, his concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra scored him the incredibly elusive and prestigious Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1990.
He also contributed his expertise to several preeminent orchestras like the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Audubon and Lark String Quartets, and the Minnesota Opera, among others.
In addition to all this, Schickele also enjoyed a considerably long foray into film composition with his contributions to a total of four feature films. Among those are his works on the sci-fi drama "Silent Running" and the film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic "Where the Wild Things Are."
Of course, PDQ Bach is still his foremost project as it won him four Grammy Awards. However, it is worth mentioning that Schickele did earn one Grammy under his name for 2000's Best Classical Crossover Album.
Either way, his genius is apparent and his ever-gleeful antics will surely be celebrated by the masses for years to come.
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