Spike for Highbrows

For one of his concert engagements, he arranged to be carried down the aisle of Manhattan's Philharmonic Hall on a stretcher borne by two men in white coats. His compositions include the "Unbegun" Symphony, which has only a third and fourth movement. As a concert commentator, he is the leading exponent of the sportscaster style ("The brasses are taking the theme and running ahead! Folks, this piece is definitely going to go into over time!"). His great contribution to musicology is the "discovery" of P.D.Q. Bach (1807-1742)?, the last and oddest of Johann Sebastian's 20-odd offspring. As countless amused concertgoers and record buyers know, P.D.Q. is the perpetrator of such neglected works as Concerto for Horn and Hardart, Pervertimento for Bagpipes, Bicycle and Balloons, and the oratorio The Seasonings ("Bide thy thyme, now thy subscription's through").

The man responsible for this repertory of parody is Peter Schickele, a chubby, flop-haired imp of 32, who has done for classical music what Spike Jones did for pop. Since Schickele started his P.D.Q. Bach concerts in New York City three years ago, the baroque revival has never been the same. What makes his satire so devastating is that even his broadest buffoonery is backed by thorough knowledge and fine musicianship; he is an experienced "serious" composer who took a degree at Juilliard and studied with Roy Harris and Darius Milhaud.

Quirky Kaleidoscope. In fact, for several years Schickele was part of the claustrophobic avant-garde composing scene, filling out his career in cramped cacophony, two-inch newspaper reviews and tiny auditoriums. Yet he rebelled at the snobbish solemnity of it all, not to mention the coldish obscurity. The problem, he decided, was how to model a contemporary career on the standards of the 18th century--when art ists were also entertainers, composers were also performers, and music was written to please people on specific occasions.

One solution was to lampoon 17th and 18th century composers. Schickele avoided trying to spoof modern music, which he thinks is beyond satire; parodies of contemporary pieces "sound just like good contemporary pieces." Another solution was to write music for films (Crazy Quilt) and record al bums (Joan Baez, Buffy Sainte-Marie). An enemy of the idea that every piece has to be "a big deal," he composed deliberately casual chamber works for parties and coffeehouses. Mostly for his own amusement, he wrote ragtime piano pieces and rock 'n' roll songs.

Last week, at Manhattan's Town Hall, Schickele presented his latest and most adventurous departure--a chamber-rock-jazz trio called The Open Window, made up of Schickele and Fellow Composers Robert Dennis and Stanley Walden. The group sang and played such instruments as electric piano, organ, bass clarinet and tambourine in a quirky kaleidoscope of their own songs (sample title: 4 a.m. June; The Sky Was Green). The result was a little like spinning a radio dial rapidly over stations that are broadcasting Glenn Gould, Oscar Peterson and the Beatles: fascinating but somewhat dizzying. Though it has not yet achieved a seamless texture, the trio seems well on the way to Schickele's goal of "putting the good stuff from the avant-garde in a less antiseptic context."

Serious Jokes. Such improbable eclecticism comes naturally to Schickele. As a boy in Washington, D.C., where his father was an agricultural economist, he composed and played pieces for household theatricals. After the family moved to Fargo, N. Dak., Peter became Fargo's best (and only) bassoonist, and doubled on string bass in dance bands. He would soon go on to become Swarthmore College's most gifted (and only) music major, but meantime another direction of his budding career was also determined: he composed his first P.D.Q. Bach work, the "Sanka" Cantata, which skewered Fargo's musical and social elite ("Praise be to the Lloyd . . . Isabella, Heavenly Hostess").

Now that Schickele's versatility has brought him to the point where his serious music is amusing and his musical jokes are serious, some listeners are suspicious of him. More than one highbrow has complained: "You make fun of things that some of us hold sacred." Says Schickele: "That's true. I make fun of things that I hold sacred. Mine is a satire of love as much as of disgust."

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