D.Q. Bach, returned after a 13-year absence.
And he brought with him some charming ditties by P.D.Q.
, some works of his own and, as we noted, a wealth of facts previously unknown to his listeners. We had no idea, for example, what the Colorado Symphony unplugged sounded like. But, in a bold move, Schickele dramatically showed us, pulling the plug onstage.
And you know what? They all stopped playing! We'll have to remember that.
Another revelation: The professor told us that he and CSO are hitting the road: a tri-city tour, he ceremoniously announced, encompassing Denver, Rifle and Parachute. Chortles, guffaws and chuckles resounded at Boettcher throughout the night as Schickele and his two singing friends, Michele Eaton (off-coloratura soprano) and David Dusing (tenor profundo) joined him in performances of some oldies by P.D.
Q. (the 21st of J.S.
Bach's 20 children, we learned) and a few morsels by the professor himself. The music was fun, of course - how could it not be, with works such as the Cantata Thank God It's Friday and the knee-slapping cowboy oratorio Oedipus Tex on the agenda? Even the Schickele pieces made one smile: three Vocal Dealies that included a charming and clever "retrograde inversion canon" in which Schickele and Eaton sang through a right-side-up, upside-down tune about P.
D.Q.'s dad.
Well, you had to be there. Also very clever were his swingin', swayin' updatings of some of Shakespeare's most famous speeches. And a Bach Prelude that accompanied Stranger in Paradise.
Not to mention his magical transformation of a Steinway into a harpsichord. Our minds were boggled as well by a tenor solo titled Swing Sweet, Low Chariot, which matched the original spiritual in the orchestra with a lovingly sung rendition of Danny Boy - plus The Battle Hymn of the Republic inserted as a welcome respite. By the time Wagner's mysterious Tristan Chord appeared, everyone understood that a genius composer was in the house.
Not necessarily onstage Friday, but somewhere in the house. Schickele has plied his trade for decades now, poking much-needed fun at classical music in general and Baroque in particular. All these years later, he's lost little of his sharp wit.
Standing at the lectern (named in honor of the great fifth-century warrior - yes, it's the Hannibal Lectern), Schickele outlined the wine-drenched career of P.D.Q.
, before offering a set of rounds by this beloved composer, performed with his vocal cohorts. From first to last, this was a fun, if not side-splittingly funny, night at the symphony - starting with offstage instructions to turn off cell phones and pagers and, among many other instructions, to "always clean your lint filter after every load." Marc Shulgold is the music and dance writer.
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