P.D.Q. Bach and Norman Jewison

A Little Culture for Once!

Peter Schickele died last week, at the age of 88. He was the kind of genius satirist - and he was truly a comic genius - that I don’t think could thrive in the age of TikTok and other social media. We lack knowledge, patience, depth and attention spans. And, frequently, humour. He had all of the above.

Schickele is best known as the inventor and interpreter of “the profoundly shallow composer” P.D.Q. Bach, the fictional 21st and “oddest” of Johann Sebastian Bach’s 20 children. He called himself the “Professor of PDQ Bach Studies at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople” (an institution that does not exist) and famously said that PDQ was the only composer to have done most of his “composing” on tracing paper. I have one of my brothers to thank for introducing me to him when I was a teen and he became a real idol for me (Schickele, not my brother). I learned a lot about classical music by getting to know the music of P.D.Q. That might seem odd, but to satirize something properly, you have to a) know it, thoroughly and utterly, and b) have genuine affection and respect for it. Schickele knew classical music and loved classical music. (He also produced albums for, among others, Joan Baez.) That shone through in everything he did. He even wrote a biography of P.D.Q. Bach, which, nerd that I was, I ran out and bought and devoured.

He was responsible for some of the most delightful pastiches and hodgepodges of classical music ever put together - he would include snippets of Vivaldi, Mozart, Tchaikovsky and other lights of music history in P.D.Q.’s “original” compositions. My favourites are Fanfare for the Common Cold, The Seasonings and Iphigenia in Brooklyn, and, of course, the famous performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with the sportscasters narrating. He gave annual New Year’s Eve concerts at Carnegie Hall (which I recall watching on public television) and stars like Itzhak Perlman would perform with him. All of these works, and more, are available for free on YouTube. We are lucky. There’s a comparison to be made with Garrison Keillor here and, interestingly, both men are from the American heartland - Schickele from Iowa and Keillor from Minnesota - and from the same generation. (Technically, Minnesota isn’t considered heartland - perhaps I mean, “flyover country.”)

(Schickele said that one of his great influences as a child was Spike Jones - that is clear in the aforementioned Beethoven performance, among others. A propos, my dad used to sing Jones’ Der Fuehrer’s Face with all the sound effects. I loved it!)

I wrote above that I didn’t think someone like Schickele could gain popularity today. I hope I am wrong, but kids now are distracted and addicted to screens. They can’t sit and write cursive or daydream. (Yes, I am an old curmudgeon.) I mean, when I was a kid, I created two fictional royal families. I created their family trees and crests, going back generations. I gave everyone names. I had marriages and wars between the families. I even game them opposing armies with named generals and admirals! I did this with no prompting and my parents did not have a clue. It was just fun. Just saying. Could a kid do that if they were busy watching some moron online telling them they should listen to Osama bin Laden?

Norman Jewison also passed recently. He directed terrific films, including Fiddler on the Roof, And Justice for All, Moonstruck, The Statement. The list is impressive. But two I particularly love are The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming and In the Heat of the Night. The former contains one of the funniest movie scenes I can remember. Enjoy here:

[Makes one miss the relative innocence and lucidity of the Cold War.]

And the latter contains a final scene of such sensitivity, such quietness. Imagine the same film made in today’s climate – the ending would include either a groveling apology from Steiger about the wrongness of his ways, or an acknowledgement of his white privilege, or a hug between the two men, or all of the above. Instead, Jewison gives us that gentle “You take care. You hear?” The smiles from Poitier and Steiger. Real respect has developed. And so perfectly acted.

[A perfect goodbye and a film you should watch.]

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I hope you enjoyed today’s Culture Corner. And now, something of a PSA: I also post shorter items at my website. And, I’m pinning my piece about Holocaust Remembrance Day to the top of this Substack for the next little while. Saturday is the commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz and I’d like to say in advance that I will positively scream if I see one post or link about it from anyone who has been bellowing “From the river to the sea” or any other such nonsense. You cannot, in one breath, claim to care about the Holocaust and our duty to remember, and, in the next, say that Israel should not exist as the Jewish state.