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I heard last night a favorite composer passed on.

I am sad.

I loved his work!! In college, my friends and I used to sit in an empty band room in the evenings and listen to his PDQ Bach records. Great stuff. Somewhere in my boxes of LP's, I have a few of them.
Too bad he's gone.

1712 overture.

Hard to get more epic than that

I saw him in person once; between high school and college I was in Saratoga Springs, NY, for the summer, at Congress of Strings. We got in free to all the concerts at Tanglewood. One of those was him -- and I had never heard of him before that. It was a great experience.

Sad day at Hoople.

My favorite was Bach Portrait, where the "letters from Bach" that were read were his writings to a friend about a gift of wine that had been received and damaged in transit..., and going on, and on, and on, and on about the taxes... endeding with "which for a gift, is really too expensive"

Even when I was like 8 years old when that cassette came out (in 1989), I thought that was ridiculously funny.

I assembled a tromboon to commemorate the sad occasion, and it was every bit as bad as I remembered from high school.

There's some nice tuba playing in this one that's not P.D.Q. Bach: https://youtu.be/gMTlRhuyd8g?si=Dmva0Xp1PAzjeOZV

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Being Dutch, having a spouse who plays bassoon I will be starting to study the Dutch suite again.

Here's another. One of my favorites

I always like Eine kleine nicht Musik.

But i bet i'll like the Chaconne from the album where the presentation is a voice answering service(as distinct from the voice message left on Oedipus Tex) too if i hear more of it.

And there's a certain joy to listening to a classical radio station and to hear something familiar from the Unbegun Symphony, and find out what it is from originally.

To my shame, i didn't hear about a lecture of his at my college until years later. Apparently it was under attended.

My screen name is a tribute to him and his many wonderful works. and quite fortunately, I have not been sued for using the name of one of his characters as my own screen name. Thank you Mr. Schickele for your many talents and the way you have blessed so many lives with them.

He inspired me to pursue studies in musical pathology.

For all the humor, he was also a brilliant composer. That’s obvious from the parody, which is no easy thing, but also from his serious works.

It’s hard to remember that he studied composition at Julliard under Persichetti, and was buddies (correct term) with his classmate Philip Glass. In fact, he met his wife while attending a concert with Glass—she was Glass’s date.

I’ve seen him four or five times over the years, but not more recently than about 25 years ago.

Rick “RIP” Denney

' have never been much of a fan of nerdy "classical music humor", but I greatly respect success - along with holding those in esteem who do no harm while making people smile...and (ok...) maybe I respect the way that his humor cleverly questioned the label, "classical" music, and - for just a moment - coaxed people into (simply) considering it to be "good" music.

I am sad too.

I've loved a lot of his schtick from over the years: Concerto for Horn and Hardart, Iphegenia in Brooklyn, My Bonny Lass She Smelleth, PDQ Bach on the Air, WTWP Talkity-talk Radio ("all Pachelbel, all the time"), and so on.

I saw him in the early 80s, along with the USC Symphony Orchestra, when I was working as an usher for concerts in Bovard Auditorium while a student at USC. I was ushering in the balcony for that particular concert, and to my surprise, shortly before the concert started, Peter Schikele, dressed as P.D.Q. Bach of course, came up to the balcony and stood beside me!

It turns out he had rigged a rope from the balcony to one of the main aisles below, and when he was introduced, he went bounding down the balcony aisle, tossed the rope down, and climbed down the rope, and then ran up onto the stage!

It was crystal clear at that point that we were in for a lot of craziness! I loved the concert, and afterward tracked down a number of his albums to enjoy. I started with "The Wurst of P.D.Q. Bach," with a photo of him playing a sausage like a flute on the cover!

Arriving late and climbing down a rope was a standard gag. It’s why he had his straight man working the audience before his arrival. (“You’re arriving late? And wearing THAT?” Woe to the front-row late arriver.)

I think he still did some shows just a couple of years ago, and everyone thought it was a gag when he arrived in a wheelchair. (It wasn’t, but he still made it funny.)

I agree with Joe. The genius was respecting classical music by poking fun at it.

Rick “many more gags” Denney

He wrote some nice light-hearted stuff for tuba! I'll always have fond memories of one playing one of his earlier pieces with my wife before we got hitched. It was pre PDQ Bach, a duet for clarinet and tuba called Little Suite for Winter.

It was really a sweet little piece, used both instruments to great comedic effect, had some real heartfelt moments, and was the perfect length and difficulty for the early undergrad music major / good amateur. The humor was there even before he was as well known!

I tracked down a copy of Silent Running, and watched the first half of it with a friend.