Spa season ends on zany note

by Edward French, The Knickerbocker News, September 16, 1974

A P.D.Q. BACH program with PROFESSOR SCHICKELE and the ALBANY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, JULIUS HEGYI conducting, at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Sunday afternoon

While this was billed as a concert, in reality it was an afternoon of broad comedy with the hilarity and zany buffoonery usually associated with the Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy at their peak.

Although much of the comedy can be enjoyed by anyone, some of it, to really get across, needs a musically sophisticated audience.

After a rather lengthy monologue by the good professor describing the merits of P.D.Q. Bach’s music (he was the youngest and least talented of the Bach progeny), we heard the “Schleptet in E flat,” a clever caricature of a baroque piece.

A “Gross Concerto” for flutes, two trumpets and strings was about as comical an exhibition of musical nonsense as has been heard since the baggy pants professor was in the area. He utilized such weird instruments (his own inventions) as a left-handed sewer flute, an “Oscar Meyer nose flute,’ which he carefully explained is virtually unplayable if the performer has a cold.

Schickele really lampooned soloist, conductor and orchestra in his Concerto for Piano versus Orchestra. During the lengthy opening tutti, a characteristic of the classical concerto, the professor seemed to derive great pleasure perusing the centerfold of a magazine on the piano. Then when he played, every element of the concerto was caricatured: cadenzas, sentimental passages and the fiery finale culminating in a real explosion. Hegyi and the orchestra were marvelous stooges in this effort.

Nevertheless, amid all the high jinks and confusion, it was evident that a clever and well-informed musical mind was responsible for P.D.Q. Bach’s music. Only someone with a thorough comprehension of Baroque and classical styles could create such devastating caricatures with a hint of authenticity.

It was a beautiful afternoon, and the 1,500 or so in the audience found the proceedings much to their pleasure, giving Professor Schickele a resounding ovation at the close. This event officially concluded the 1974 SPAC season.

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