Peter Pipes a Pickled Parody

THERE seems to be a widespread myth that contemporary music attracts only the serious listener. Yet not all of the contemporary music being composed today is geared exclusively for music majors. One need not know how to whistle in retrograde to appreciate the infectious parodies of that pied piper of contemporary music, composer Peter Schickele.

Ironically, Peter Schickele heralds from this intellectual school of musicmaking. Trained at Swarthmore and Juilliard, Schickele started out as a composer of serious music. It was an accident of fate that led Schickele to begin composing humorous works. While studying at Juilliard in 1965, Schickele got some friends together and bought out Town Hall to perform some of their more irreverent compositions. So successful was this concert that it has turned into an annual tradition selling out now for nearly 23 years.

Schickele is best known for his musical parodies. His work has strangely become synonymous with the humorous compositions of P.D.Q. Bach, the most deservedly forgotten son of Johann Sebastian Bach, whose works Schickele "discovered" nearly 20 years ago.

This Saturday night, Schickele will conduct the Harvard Wind Ensemble and Harvard Jazz Band in a program of both his humorous and serious material. The "Grand Serenade" and the "March of the Cute Little Wood Sprite" were works specifically commissioned by the Harvard Wind Ensemble. Schickele says he ordinarily would have declined writing works for band, citing his "not so pleasant association" of playing bassoon in his high school band. But upon the suggestion of his publisher, he finally decided to take up the task, he says.

Schickele maintains that no form is too sacred to be parodied. Schickele--er, P.D.Q. Bach--pokes fun at operatic, symphonic and vocal as well as lesser known musical forms, such as the art of performing on dried manicotti ("Four Folksong Upsettings"). Yet he counters that he is "not into a Lenny Bruce kind of humor." He claims he is not out "merely to shock or offend." Says Schickele, "I want my concerts to be friendly and melodious affairs."

The third work on the program will be the premiere of Schickele's jazz composition, "Harvard Fair," which was commissioned by the Harvard Jazz Band this year. "Harvard Fair" is what Schickele deadpans as being "a straight, as opposed to a gay, piece." Schickele contends that he "has always written serious music." He describes his style of jazz as being a "down home, post-bop funk that falls somewhere between free from and Dixieland."

Generally audiences have reacted favorably to Schickele's less than solemn style of composition. Schickele admits that some misinformed concertgoers will "come expecting a Bach concert" and will leave "giving walking ovations." But rarely do such occassions occur. Schickele recounts only one ironic incident from a concert in Massachusetts where one disturbed patron approached the symphony ushers at the end of the performance complaining: "Are you trying to put some kind of joke over the audience?"

Schickele says that today "a lot of contemporary music concerts are grim affairs." Rather than have his listeners sitting attentively with "knitted brow," Schickele says he hopes to leave his audiences in stitches.

Peter Schickele will perform with the Harvard Wind Ensemble and Harvard Jazz Band on Saturday, April 9, 8 p.m. in Sanders Theater.