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Wednesday January 03, 2007

P. D. Q. Bach

Just like last year I had a musical DVD in my Christmas stash this year. It was the work of P.D.Q. Bach as performed by Prof. Peter Schickle of the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople and OrchestraX

I've got 3-4 of P.D.Q. Bach's CD's, but it was nice to see some of the visuals from a theatre production, that you can't appreciate with just an audio rendition.

For those who have not heard of P.D.Q. Bach, he was the youngest son of the more famous Johann Sebastian Bach, and perhaps the least known twig in the Bach family tree. No one is quite sure what initials P.D.Q. stand for. By the time he came along, the parents had run out of names for their children. His work can be divided into three periods: the Initial Plunge, the Soused Period (most of his life) and finally Contrition. For more details, I suggest consulting the Wikipedia entry or the The Definitive Biography of P.D.Q. Bach.

The whole DVD (which was released in October last year), is wonderful, but my two favourite pieces are

Beethoven Symphony No. 5 Sportscast: New Horizons in Music Appreciation.
The orchestra vs the conductor with commentary by Prof. Peter Schickle and color commentary by Giff Nielsen.
The "Unbegun" Symphony by Prof. Peter Schickle. To quote one of the Amazon reviewers:

"Prof. Schickele readily admits that, under PDQ's influence, he's written a piece without an original note in it. This is hardly so shameful as he seems to suggest. This is an old and venerable form, the Quodlibet ... known to American bands as the "Switch". John Philip Sousa wrote a number of these. The idea is to write a piece that does nothing but quote other composers. Schickele does this superbly."

Indeed. One of the extras on the DVD is a complete theme identification for all the borrowed pieces, just in case you can't recognize them all.

If you are a P.D.Q. Bach fan, you should get this DVD. You won't be disappointed. If you are not, then you should become one. Also checkout the 2007 concert dates on their website.

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