P.D.Q. Bach in Houston - We Have a Problem!
P.D.Q. Bach can perhaps best be described as highbrow slapstick comedy for the musically minded.  A skilled composer with a healthy sense of humor and a bent toward the absurd, Professor Peter Schickele is a musical satirist who juxtaposes "serious" classical music with folk tunes, comedic visual cues, farce, and instrumentation ranging from standard orchestral instruments to toy slide whistles, brass-double reed hybrids, and instruments cobbled together from strange components like shower hoses and cardboard tubes. The resulting crowd pleasers keep audiences laughing and wondering what can possibly come next.  This 90-minute, live presentation features Peter Schickele and the "Orchestra X" chamber orchestra, is filmed in widescreen, and offers 2.0 stereo or 5.1 surround sound.  The program includes the "Desecration of the House Overture," of which the lead-in is by far the most climactic part, the "Schleptet in E-flat Major" which represents P.D.Q.'s "soused" period and is a true test of the wind section's fortitude, and "Iphigenia in Brooklyn" which features the double reeds (separate from the oboes and bassoons), the wine bottle played by Professor Schickele, and a "Bargain Counter Tenor" whose performance simply defies description.  The "Unbegun Symphony" is an exercise in manic plagiarism and provides an abundance of laughs for the musically literate while the "New Horizons in Music Appreciation" makes Beethoven's Fifth Symphony accessible to the most die-hard sports fan.  The "Fuga Meshuga" illustrates the art of the fugue in a whole new way and "The Seasonings" is a painfully funny demonstration of P.D.Q. Bach's original approach to instrumentation.  As Professor Schickele declares in the bonus KUHT interview, it is a sense of context that truly provides the humor in P.D.Q. Bach's works--viewers possessing a sense of humor and a familiarity with classical music will laugh their way through this presentation, others may simply scratch their heads.--Tami Horiuchi