P.D.Q. Bach: The Jekyll & Hyde Tour / Peter Schickele

If nothing else, P.D.Q. Bach's alleged music is proof that at least some people still get jokes about art music. This 2007 Telarc disc recorded live at the Garden Center in Owings Mills, MA, features performances by off-coloratura soprano Michele Eaton, tenor profundo David Dusing, and the Armadillo Quartet with baritone, pianist and agent provocateur Peter Schickele. Schickele, of course, is the mastermind behind P.D.Q. Bach's fictitious music, and this disc includes some doozies: his pseudo-Schubert Four Next-To-Last Songs, his seasick Beethoven String Quartet in F major called "The Moose," and his vulgar but hilarious Two Rounds: "The Mule" and "O Serpent." As an added treat, Telarc has included two works by Schickele himself: Two Rounds and Five Songs from Shakespeare. Both are distinctly Schickelian in style: though their humor is still old-school, their manner is more up-to-date. But both are clearly the product of the same oxymoronic musical mind: the tell-tale country & western twang of "Juliet's Soliloquy" only matched by the bebop lilt of the "Funeral Oration" from Julius Caesar. Enthusiastically performed by all involved and cleanly recorded in all-too-live digital sound, this disc belongs on the shelves of record collectors with a discriminating sense of humor.