Peter Schickele was an American composer, musical educator and parodist, best known for comedy albums featuring his music, which he presented as being composed by the fictional P.D.Q. Bach. He also hosted a long-running weekly radio program called Schickele Mix.
Schickele in 2010
Schickele (rear) and others at Swarthmore College
Schickele in Milwaukee in 1981
Schickele seated barefoot atop a piano, c. 1980s
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 "last and the least" 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".
Portrait of P. D. Q. Bach album cover
Tromboon
Tromboon detail (bassoon reed on the left)