P. D. Q. Bach

P.D.Q. Bach is a fictional composer created by the American composer and musical satirist Peter Schickele for a five-decade career performing the "discovered" works of the "only forgotten son" of the Bach family. Schickele's music combines parodies of musicological scholarship, the conventions of Baroque and Classical music, and slapstick comedy. The name P.D.Q. is a parody of the three-part names given to some members of the Bach family that are commonly reduced to initials, such as C.P.E. for Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach; PDQ is an initialism for "pretty damned quick". Schickele began working on the character while studying at the Aspen Music Festival and School and Juilliard, and performed a variety of P.D.Q. Bach shows over many years. The Village Voice mentions the juxtaposition of collage, bitonality, musical satire, and orchestral surrealism in a "bizarre melodic stream of consciousness ... In P.D.Q. Bach he has single-handedly mapped a musical universe that everyone knew was there and no one else had the guts (not simply the bad taste) to explore." In 2012, Schickele reduced his touring due to age. On December 28 and 29, 2015, at The Town Hall in New York, he performed two concerts to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his first concert. Schickele died on January 16, 2024, aged 88.