2004 Annual Concerts
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HEART-RENDING, EARTH-SHATTERING, WIND-BREAKING NEWS!

Yes, Virginia, there is a Christmas-time P.D.Q. Bach season this year!

  
P.D.Q. Bach playing one of his four posthumously-awarded Grammies
  When:     December 29 and 30, 2004 at 8 p.m.
       
  Where:   Peter Norton Symphony Space
2537 Broadway at 95th Street
       
  What:      P.D.Q. Bach: The Jekyll & Hyde Show
       
  Who:     
bulletIntellectual companion Prof. Peter Schickele
bulletoff-coloratura soprano Michèle Eaton
bullettenor profundo David Düsing
bulletthe Lark Quartet
bulletWilliam Walters, Manager of the Stage
       
  Why:      God only knows

Until recently it seemed as if this year the cupboard would be bare, annual-New-York-City-P.D.Q.-Bach-concert-wise speaking.  But now a deal has been struck, quite forcibly struck, whereby one of Manhattan’s most prestigious concert venues has agreed to lower its standards—for two nights only—so that no one who has a love-hate relationship with music will have to try to make it into the New Year without that calming fix of P.D.Q. Bach.

P.D.Q. Bach:  The Jekyll & Hyde Show is an up close and personal look at the composer the rest of the Bach family tried to hide in the attic, and at his aider, abetter and enabler, Professor Peter Schickele.  This is an intimate, orchestra-free program featuring chamber music and vocal works, including the New York premiere of the Professor’s Passacaglia in C Minus for string quartet, in which the musicians show their patriotism by giving themselves a standing ovation while they play.

The program begins with excerpts from P.D.Q. Bach’s notorious Little Notebook for “Piggy” Bach, including “The Dance of the Various Body Parts,” and ends with Schickele’s infamous and schlock-infected Songs from Shakespeare, as featured on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion.  In between, should you choose to attend, you will hear the mini-meister’s Four Next-to-Last Songs and Shepherd on the Rocks, with a Twist, in addition to rounds and songs by both P.D.Q. and the Prof.

Remember:  These are Professor Schickele’s only P.D.Q. Bach appearances in New York City this season, and seating is limited!  Act sooner rather than later!  Tickets are available only through the Symphony Space box office:  call 212-864-5400, or visit www.symphonyspace.org.

To find out even more about this fine concert, check out the audio clip below or read the complete list of works on the program. 

Songs From Shakespeare (excerpt) None of the pieces on this year’s concerts are available on recording, so the only audio sample that we can provide is part of Schickele’s Songs From Shakespeare from a long out-of-print tape of  Garrison Keillor’s radio program.  We thank A Prairie Home Companion for permission to use this clip.

Audio Samples can be played using the free RealAudio player. 

 

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