Humor & Heart: P.D.Q. Bach Comes to Bristol

Combine the Three Stooges with classical music, and you have an idea of P.D.Q. Bach.
The King College music department will throttle the riotously funny music of Johannes Sebastian Bach’s 21st of 20 children on April 17-18 at the Memorial Chapel in Bristol, Tenn.
Proceeds from the show will help fund an endowed scholarship in the name of Evelyn Thomas, a music faculty member who died recently. So, call the show humor with heart.
Expect the unexpected. Oh yeah, and bring some Kleenex or mighty long shirtsleeves. Funny?
“They can look for wonderful humor,” said Pat Flannagan, King College professor of music and director of choral activities. He will also conduct one of two pieces during the shows.
Note to fans of classical music expecting J.S. Bach.
“Don’t expect J.S. Bach. You will be surprised,” Flannagan said with a laugh. “This is a wonderful and tasteful attempt to spoof classical music, to make fun at what he knows.”
He is Peter Schickele. See, P.D.Q. Bach never actually existed beyond the wickedly satiric and musical brain of Schickele, an accomplished and well-educated classical composer.
He created P.D.Q. Bach, gave him a fictional life and death and compositions, too. His more famous “father” willed P.D.Q. one possession, a kazoo.
In turn, P.D.Q. turned to music. His music pokes fun at Baroque and classical, and also rap and country. For example, one of two pieces in the King shows is titled “Oedipus Tex,” a spoof of country music.
“It’s ‘Oedipus Rex’ [an opera telling of the Greek tragedy ‘Oedipus’] set in the wild west,” Flannagan said. “Oedipus is a cowboy. The chorus has lots of comments on the action, just like a Greek chorus would.”
Imagine their comments as Oedipus sings some really funny lines. For example?
“In one of them Oedipus sings, ‘My heart is a hound and he’s baying for you,’ ” Flannagan said. “Then, his girlfriend Billie Joe replies, ‘My heart is a hen and it’s laying for you.’ It’s like a Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton duet.”
Now, that’s pretty obvious humor. However, much of the show’s humor leans toward inside jokes.
“That’s absolutely true,” Flannagan said. “The more you know about music, the more you will get it. Like in ‘Oedipus Tex’ the chorus sings: ‘The eyes of Texas are upon you.’ ”
Get it, from the Greek tragedy of Oedipus?
“Well, Oedipus had gouged his eyes out,” Flannagan said.
Hence the humor of P.D.Q. Bach.
“It’s so left of center that it’s almost right,” he said. “One of the jokes would definitely be considered politically incorrect. It would not be in our public schools today. Hey, if you can’t laugh at yourselves, then what can you laugh at?”
There, in part, lies the charm of Schickele’s P.D.Q. Bach. He takes extraordinary classical music, thrusts enormous amounts of humor into the mix, stirs it much as a mad scientist would and then appeals to firmly intact senses of humor.
“It would work on Jay Leno or David Letterman,” Flannagan said. “Last time I performed it, I laughed so hard I had a hard time performing. It’s really hilarious.”

TOM NETHERLAND is a freelance writer. He can be reached at .

IF YOU GO
What: King College Music Department presents P.D.Q. Bach’s “Knock, Knock” and “Oedipus Rex”
When: April 17 at 8 p.m. and April 18 at 2:30 p.m.
Where: King College Memorial Chapel, Bristol, Tenn.
Admission: $10 suggested donation
Info: (423) 968-1187 or (423) 652-4846
Web and audio: http://www.schickele.com