With P.D.Q. Bach and Schickele, the Laughs Never Stop

Revisiting the domain of the fictional composer P.D.Q. Bach, by way of, as usual, the furtive imagination of Peter Schickele, one finds the same familiar musical landscape from decades back. But even though Professor Schickele’s latest research concerning P.D.Q. and his most recently discovered compositions have hardened into ritual, they and Schickele are still funny.

And, as one found Friday night in a virtually jammed hall at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, an audience for the unforgotten faux-composer still exists.

That audience was mightily and consistently entertained at this performance, billed as “The Jekyll and Hyde Tour”--the program is devoted half to P.D.Q.’s music, half to Schickele’s. It is expertly executed by commentator-keyboardist-singer Schickele, still impersonating the unkempt professor, and assisted by two versatile singers, soprano Michele Eaton and tenor David Dusing.

One laughed long and hard at the Schubertian “Four Next-to-Last Songs” and at four excerpts from the witty and zodiacal “Twelve Quite Heavenly Songs.”

What was heartening here was not only the loyalty of the large and happy audience but also the fact that musical literacy and the ability to appreciate verbal humor, as shown by these observers, is not dead. References about, and to, such highbrowisms as Goethe, Heine, “Gotterdammerung” and the Ode to Joy were not lost, but embraced. Maybe there is hope. . . .

Comedy-wise, all three performers hit the mark throughout, and all used their several and legitimate musical abilities sharply.

For all its amusing moments, however, the presentation went on too long. The four-part first half proved overgenerous. And the Schickele second part, consisting largely of what the composer himself calls party songs, could have been paced more tightly; what can seem hilarious in a small gathering can grow tedious in a hall holding thousands.

Schickele’s good taste in his admired chamber music--none of which we heard here--would have served his program-making effectively, if applied. Nonetheless, the fun and inventiveness in the evening-closing “Songs From Shakespeare” sent one home smiling.