I’m going to have to go with the first time I heard the 1712 Overture on the radio (and the first time I heard P.D.Q.). I was just driving along in my car, and hadn’t heard the introduction to the piece, so I was a bit confused. I knew after awhile that I was listening to a parody of the 1812 by Tchaikovsky. I couldn’t stop laughing once I heard how he changed to main theme into “Pop Goes the Weasel”.
Another of my favourites has got to be the Grand Serenade For an Awful Lot of Winds and Percussion- II: Simply Grand Minuet]. Makes me crack a smile just about every time.
I’ve got to go with New Horizons in Music Appreciation, which has a sports-type announcer and a color commentator talking over Beethoven’s 5th Symphony.
The Unbegun Symphony when the orchestra plays “The 1812 Overture” and “You Are my Sunshine” simultaneously and they blend perfectly.
I saw PS once on TV performing at the new-and-controversial Kennedy Center in DC. The commentator asked what he thought of it. “I like PDQ Bach,” he replied, “and I love this building!”
I saw Schickele live at Town Hall, oh, twenty years ago, doing an evening of PDQ. When the show ended there was a standing ovation. Schickele walked out on the stage and held out his hands for silence. Then he walked off.
Fifteen Iguana, just so you know, that’s his shtick. He does it every. single. show.
I’m not sure that I have a favorite moment, but I do love how we all hiss when the stage manager comes out. Every year I think how people who are seeing a PDQ Bach performance for the first time must be very confused.
Most of mine come from PDQ Bach on the Air, which is to me the high point of the series. I especially liked the call letters (“Double-U, Double-O, F—Hoople!” done by a heldentenor).
But my very favorite PDQ Bach moment occurs in the Concerto for Horn and Hardart. The orchestra winds up to a dramatic ending sequence, and the “hardartist” finishes it off by what sounds like blowing over the neck of a bottle. The note was perfect, but the sound was absolutely incongruous. The audience was in hysterics for what seemed like half an hour.
“I’m the village idiot, I don’t have anything to do with this pathetic little opera, I just felt like passing through!” - Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice
Oh, heavens, there are so many memorable moments. . . On the album that had Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice, I really liked the biographical information he gave on his accompanist, David Oei: Attended the University of Tokyo, where he earned a black belt in piano . . . later went on to play with many major orchestras, including the B-flat Major Orchestra of Medicine Hat, Wyoming.
It doesn’t really qualify as a favorite, per se, but I’m quite fond of it, and I’d hate to see it overlooked.
Oh, and drewbert thank you for recalling to me the Village Idiot’s Aria. I often perform the opera to myself when I’m sure no one is listening, and I had totally lost that portion. I am in your debt.
Oedipus Tex is a great album. I mean, Billy-Jocasta? “Don’t love your mother, pardner, save it for your horse!”
Classical Rap from that album was also hilarious, though it might be a bit dated now.
That said, I can’t disagree with any of the posts in the thread so far. It’s all good stuff. Oh, wait…I have to add “Bach Portrait” (I think that’s what it’s called). The one that’s a parody of the piece about Lincoln, where he reads passages from actual JS Bach letters, complaining about his low wages. Hysterical.
Smeghead, you beat me to it. Oedipus Tex makes me laugh every time I listen to it. Heck, even MrWhatsit likes it. I catch him humming, “Howdy there! I’m Oedipus Tex!” from time to time as he’s washing the dishes.
I also like the series of jokes (e.g. “What is the question to which the answer is…”) that showed up on one of the albums. Especially the one about transporting young gulls across the state lion for immoral porpoises. Comedy gold!
When I saw PS live, he did the opera in one unnatural act (based on Little Red Riding Hood, for those of you not in the know). The first verse as the wolf, he sang with this big paper-mache head on–no one could understand a word. The next verse starts with “You may have missed the first part of my song, but it really doesn’t matter…” I darn near died.
From memory, so may–indeed is likely to–be faulty.
“Each time we uncover a new PDQ Bach work in a monastary or, uh, attic, we are filled with this feeling of anticipation, a feeling of exultation, a feeling that… this new piece can’t possibly be as bad as the last one.”
(pause, exisitely timed)
“But so far…”
I saw Shickelie live once upon a time. Here’s how it went:
The curtain comes up and everyone applauds.
And waits.
And waits.
Eventually the stage manager (William Walters, with a very dry wit and superb comic timing) comes out and announces that Shickelie is late. Apparently he is dining at (name of local strip joint) with a Miss Fifi Latour, an “old friend” who works there. “We’ll just have to wait a few minutes”.
And waits.
And waits. The stage manager looks scornfully at a late ariving couple: “If you can’t be on time, you should at least dress properly!”
And waits. Drumming his fingers on the rostrum.
Eventually, he announces that the concert will have to be canceled. At which point, there is a shout of “No, No!” from the back of the theater, and Shikelie runs down the aisle, dressed in a tuxedo (with the shirtail hanging out) and Tyrolian boots, heaves himself up onto the stage on his belly, and begins the show.
In his younger days, he’d swing down from the balcony on a rope.
I’ve been to a couple of his performances, and the best part is always the lecture/slide show on the musicologists’ revelation of the life of PDQ Bach. “Having uncovered the lost manuscript, we next did what scientists always do with artifacts: We measured it.” Put up a slide of a sloppily-written score with a tape measure over it.
Pity I never got to see the Okay Chorale perform live, though.
The good perfesser’s site. Also, check your local NPR station - he has a weekly show, or did, demonstrating the same kind of musical playfulness he does as PDQB.
His guest appearance during the Boston Pops concert that featured Itzak Pearlman (sp?) as the soloist had me crying with laughter. I don’t remember the details well enough to provide a decent description, but I would love to have a copy of that broadcast.
When I saw PDQ in December, Schickele’s entrance included him carrying a ladder that he propped up against the stage and used to climb up. He’s gettin old!
I think my favorite parts of the shows are the terrible puns in Shickele’s monologues. Best from this year: “Mediterranean flute fry.”
The young blond girl who brings out the music and puts it on the stand…that’s Walters’ granddaughter, right? And I think she’s on “The Bonnie Hunt Show” if I’m not mistaken.
Saw him do the same thing as the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. In that case, though, there was an orchestra pit in front of the stage. Schickele vaults over the bar and vanishes for several seconds before clambering up onto the stage.
Perlman can be almost as funny as Schikele. I once saw him hold an audience in stitches telling the worst jokes on the face of the Earth. He was also great when I saw him play the Mikado at his summer camp.
Slightly on-topic story, here. The music history class I had in college had a “fine arts attendance” requirement (we all had to attend a concert or two and turn in our ticket stubs). Many of us attended a show at the music school during which performance there was a comedic break where a soprano and pianist rose from the level below while singing an aria or some such. Not being well-versed in classical music or opera, the joke was completely lost on me and most of my class mates in attendance. Our teacher explained the joke at the next class, but I still didn’t think it that funny.
Which brings me to my point: PDQ Bach is perhaps best enjoyed by people “in the know”, but his comedy is broad enough that a layman can laugh too, but perhaps not as hard as a more knowledgeable patron. I remember seeing him on Johnny Carson and laughing, but I wondered what else I was missing.
Fuge for Colliope 4 hands
The Madrigals
“On the Air”
The Art of the Ground Round
The Unbegun Symphony (including the introduction)
Things that still make me laugh after 20 years:
“And lo, she found herself in a marketplace, and she spoke not, saying,” from Iphagenia in Brooklyn
“Beg your pardon let me have my say, I thought she was a man, she talked that way, bearded girls don’t get proposed to everyday, O Lord have mercy on my so-o-o-o-lo” from Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice
“I am the quaint old innkeeper, do you remember me? Has anything been happening since I stepped out to pee, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ho ho hee.” ibid
New Horizons in Musical Appreciation: particularly the horn player getting traded to another orchestra.
Bill Macy as the opera expert.
When “Look her face could launch a thousand ships” collides with “She’s up dressing”
“Her breath is like downwind of a compost heap on fire”