Peter Schickele died last week. I’ve seen him in person and was totally entertained. Since his death, I’ve watched some of his videos and read his book THE DEFINITIVE BIOGRAPHY OF PDQ BACH for the first time. My only complaint is that I wish I knew more about music.
The book is delightful and full of laughs that sneak up on you. For example, names of people and places and footnotes (do read them all). My husband, who is a musician, is sitting near me reading the book, cracking up at many of these passages. He’ll explain them to me when he finishes.
Some serious information explaining some of information does creep in but it is often an offshoot cloaked in humor such as defining terms like “What do you mean by form?”
Other examples of humor are found in chapter titles: Chapter 1 Early Infancy. 1742 to 1745. Chapter 2. Late Infancy 1745 to 1766.
“A man who triumphed over the most staggering obstacle ever place before a composer:: absolute and utter lack of talent.”
One sentence has 102 words and 27 commas.
There are descriptions and drawings of esoteric instruments as well as stories of his operas and compositions.
Schickele goes into detail analyzing the music. The more you know about the music, the funnier it will be.
At one point the author was trying to locate a person to get more information about P. D. Q. Bach. but the man was no longer at the monastery. “He had been exposed as a thief, and sent away with brand on his forehead signifying to all the world that he was a felonious monk.”
Unfortunately, I read an e-book version and the photography was blurry.
If you’re not familiar with PDQ Bach, go online and look at some of the videos. Here’s one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WR4CdKSeD-E ( )

I love PDQ!! ( )

The Mad Magazine of classical music. Humor in a jocular vein. ( )

Synopsis: The story of PDQ Bach's life.
Review: I have rarely been so bored. ( )

From the table of contents to the index, this book is absolutely hilarious. P.D.Q. Bach is the worst composer in the history of music (or would be if he hadn't been made up by Peter Schickele). In this book Schickele summarizes the scholarship available thus far on the life and music of Johann Sebastian Bach's youngest son, P.D.Q. (apparently Bach was so unimpressed with his youngest child that he didn't even bother to give him a name, just initials that may or may not stand for anything). P.D.Q.'s legacy of "originality through incompentency" is obvious in the unconventional instruments he wrote for including bicycle, balloon, tromboon (a trombone with a bassoon's mouthpiece), pandemonium, steam calliope, kazoo, and oscar mayer weiner whistle, among many others. From his beginnings as a composer (The Initial Plunge period), to midlife when he found his niche (The Soused Period), to his later years (The Contrition Period), P.D.Q.'s music is so bad it's sure to make anyone laugh. Schickele was also able to blackmail a recording studio into producing albums of P.D.Q.'s discovered works, which I highly recommend to anyone who is willing to listen. This was a great book. ( )