Fictitious Composer Still Rocks Classical Music World

VOA 2016-01-05 13:29

分享到

 

Fictitious Composer Still Rocks Classical Music World

Get Flash Player

We have Professor Peter Schickele to thank for introducing the world to PDQ Bach, the '21st of Johann Sebastian Bach's 20 children.' Schickele has created an entire back-story around the 'forgotten son' of the Bach family, noting how amazing it is that PDQ produced any music at all, since he was lazy, and rarely sober.

"He did have a drinking problem," Schickele explained, then corrected himself. "Actually, it wasn't a problem because it didn't bother him. He just drank." As for PDQ's creative technique, "A lot of composers compose at the piano. Some composers compose away from the piano. He composed under the piano. And he was often at floor level."

PDQ Bach is, of course, the creation of Peter Schickele, who is himself a composer...and not a professor. Out of this persona came more than 100 compositions, 20 recordings and countless concerts, all poking fun at classical music. Schickele and his friends performed PDQ Bach's first concert at The Town Hall in New York City in 1965.

Continuing a comedic musical tradition

Schickele's inspiration for comedy came from his love for Spike Jones, the musician who added funny sound effects to popular songs in the 1940s. "He had a comedy band, he did take-offs on mostly pop songs of the day, but also on some classical stuff like Carmen and the Nutcracker Suite. And he had all sorts of weird instruments in his orchestra...like gun shots and sirens and things."

As a teenager, Schickele, his brother and a friend put together a band with traditional instruments used in untraditional arrangements.

"We had recorded the first movement of the second Brandenburg concerto of Bach with my brother playing the high string parts on violin and viola, and Ernie playing the low string parts on cello and me playing the wind parts on bassoon, two octaves lower which gives a nice muddy sound." He remembers they had a lot of fun doing that. "We thought let's do that again next week. We'd been listening to the "Coffee Cantata"—one of Bach's few humorous works and I came up with the "Sanka Cantata" which we recorded. And we made it in the form of a radio broadcast, so when we did that, we had to have a composer."

Hence, PDQ Bach was born.

One of his most popular pieces is a performance of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, with play-by-play commentary as if it was a baseball game. As the orchestra strikes up the familiar four note theme - da da da daaah - the sportscaster announces, "And they're off! With a four note theme... it's very exciting, the beginning of a symphony is always exciting." Later, when a horn player deliberately misses a note and is sent to the penalty chair for 30 bars, the commentator observes, "That was Bobby Kornoh, in the first chair, and that's the third major flub he's made this season." The audience loves it.

Room for comedy and serious art

Schickele is the composer behind all of PDQ Bach's works. He is also a respected composer of 'serious' music as well, including symphonies, string quartets, choral works and more.

"During my teenage years I got more and more interested in writing music just for writing music and not just for comedy," he explained. "By the time I went to college I knew I wanted to be a composer. And I've done both the comedy and the serious ever since."

Schickele feels there is room for both serious and funny music in the classical world. "I think a world without humor would be a sad one indeed. But in terms of sort of intellectual activity, as I say, being exposed to PDQ Bach exposes you to a lot of truths about Baroque music and music in general. So I think that's probably what's important."

In December, Schickele and friends celebrated the 50th anniversary of that very first PDQ Bach concert, with two return performances at The Town Hall in New York City.

Vocabulary

fictitious:虚构的;假想的

viola:中提琴

choral:合唱的

来源:VOA

编辑:丁一

上一篇 : Robotics Lead 2015 Tech Innovations
下一篇 :

 

分享到

中国日报网英语点津版权说明:凡注明来源为“中国日报网英语点津:XXX(署名)”的原创作品,除与中国日报网签署英语点津内容授权协议的网站外,其他任何网站或单位未经允许不得非法盗链、转载和使用,违者必究。如需使用,请与010-84883561联系;凡本网注明“来源:XXX(非英语点津)”的作品,均转载自其它媒体,目的在于传播更多信息,其他媒体如需转载,请与稿件来源方联系,如产生任何问题与本网无关;本网所发布的歌曲、电影片段,版权归原作者所有,仅供学习与研究,如果侵权,请提供版权证明,以便尽快删除。

中国日报网双语新闻

扫描左侧二维码

添加Chinadaily_Mobile
你想看的我们这儿都有!

中国日报双语手机报

点击左侧图标查看订阅方式

中国首份双语手机报
学英语看资讯一个都不能少!

关注和订阅

本文相关阅读
人气排行
热搜词
 
 
精华栏目
 

阅读

词汇

视听

翻译

口语

合作

 

关于我们 | 联系方式 | 招聘信息

Copyright by chinadaily.com.cn. All rights reserved. None of this material may be used for any commercial or public use. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. 版权声明:本网站所刊登的中国日报网英语点津内容,版权属中国日报网所有,未经协议授权,禁止下载使用。 欢迎愿意与本网站合作的单位或个人与我们联系。

电话:8610-84883645

传真:8610-84883500

Email: languagetips@chinadaily.com.cn