Howard PDX: "A Little Nightmare Music" and the forefathers of classical music comedy

I suspect that most people have watched "A Little Nightmare Music" on YouTube. Igudesman & Joo are very funny and I'm hoping that they will do a U.S. tour.

I'd like to give some credit to the forefathers of classical music comedy: Professor Peter Schickele and Victor Borge. I'm fairly certain that the name "A Little Nightmare Music" is an homage to Schickele's 1983 album of the same name.

I'm a big fan of the work of PDQ Bach, which Professor Peter Schickele has spent his life performing and teaching. He teaches at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople.

My wife and I went to a PDQ Bach concert when we started dating. Professor Schickele and company performed PDQ Bach's "Oedipus Tex" that night.

A little history on PDQ Bach:
P.D.Q. Bach was born in Leipzig on April 1, 1742, the son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Anna Magdalena Bach; the twenty first of Johann's twenty children. His work can be divided in three periods:
1. The Initial Plunge, which he spent in Vienna learning the basic rules of musical composition
2. The Soused or Brown Bag period which he spent forgetting the basic rules of musical composition.
3. The last period was Contrition, which he spent in the southern German town of Baden Baden Baden working off a monumental hangover.

Using the sophisticated "alcohol dating" technique, it has been estimated that PDQs last hangover has a half life of about 245 years. PDQ was an incorrigible plagiarist and was the only composer who worked on tracing paper.

Some of PDQ Bach's most important works were:
Concerto for Piano vs. Orchestra
Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice (an opera in one unnatural act)
The Seasonings
Fanfare for the Common Cold

PDQ Bach's biography
PDQ Bach, The Farmer on the Dole
"New horizons in music appreciation"

My late grandmother introduced me to Victor Borge. Of course, she wasn't dead at the time and I didn't actually meet Mr. Borge. She had a collection of Victor Borge videotapes that she would play whenever she visited. Borge introduced me to comedy and classical music. I've been friends with both of them ever since.

Victor Borge & Dean Martin