For some, it may be difficult to leave the holidays behind and face the prospect of a long, bleak winter. That would not be me.
But if it describes you, this week on “Sweetness and Light,” I’ll have some Victor Borge to brighten your day. “The Unmelancholy Dane” was born on this date in 1909.
Borge always proved to be quick on his feet, comfortable in his own skin, and unusually personable. Born into a family of Jewish musicians in Copenhagen (his birth name was Børge Rosenbaum), he was already before the public, giving recitals at the age of 8. He received a scholarship to the Royal Danish Academy of Music, and later studied with pupils of both Liszt (Frederic Lamond) and Busoni (Egon Petri).
After a few years of presenting straight classical concerts, he began to develop his act. His mix of music and comedy proved to be popular in Scandinavia, but some of his gibes didn’t exactly sit well with Hitler. When German forces occupied Denmark, Borge hopped a U.S. Army transport out of Finland – though he would return, not long after, disguised as a sailor, to visit his dying mother.
He arrived in the United States in 1940, with 20 dollars in his pocket and no understanding of English. But he was a fast learner, and he taught himself the language by going to American movies.
By 1941, he was already appearing with Rudy Valee and Bing Crosby, and adapting his jokes for U.S. audiences. In 1942, he was named “best new radio performer of the year.” By 1946, he had his own radio show and developed many of his signature routines.
He became a naturalized American citizen in 1948. His Broadway show, “Comedy in Music,” entered the Guinness Book for its unprecedented run, from 1953 to 1956. In the 1960s, he was one of the highest-paid entertainers in the world.
Borge continued to expand his popularity through appearances on television programs ranging from “What’s My Line?” to “The Muppet Show.” He continued to entertain to a ripe old age. He died in 2000, a few days shy of his 92nd birthday.
As he was fond of observing, “Laughter is the closest distance between two people.”
Join me for a selection of Borge at his improvisatory best, working the audience, as he grants requests, from a recording of his record-breaking Broadway show. The program will also include classic bits by Anna Russell and Peter Schickele (“discoverer” of P.D.Q. Bach) and a few more selections from the first of the notorious and uproarious Hoffnung Music Festival concerts.
Enter the new year laughing with an hour of musical humorists on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!
Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:
Tag: Peter Schickele
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Welcome 2026 with a Smile on “Sweetness and Light”
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Thurber’s Dogs on KWAX Dog Days Summer
Hopefully these storms that will be rolling through New Jersey this afternoon and tonight will cool things down a bit. As it stands, this week on “Sweetness and Light,” I’ll be lying by my water bowl. We’ll be going to the dogs for the dog days of summer. To get you in the mood, someone put together this animation inspired by humorist James Thurber’s dog cartoons and the music of Peter Schickele. Hear Schickele’s “Thurber’s Dogs” again this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT on “Sweetness and Light.” I’ll be panting right along with you on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon. And yes, the program will be available for streaming, wherever you are, at the times indicated, by following the link:
Enjoy the animated “Thurber’s Dogs” here:
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Remembering Peter Schickele PDQ Bach’s Genius
In the guise of a nutty, unkempt musicologist from the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople, Professor Peter Schickele brought delight to audiences around the world by deflating the stereotypes of “serious music.” He achieved this through a shrewdly-calibrated balancing act of sly wit, broad slapstick, and genuine musical know-how.
A master of freewheeling free-association, Schickele churned out musical dad jokes with titles such as “Fanfare for the Common Cold,” “The Short-Tempered Clavier,” and “Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice – An Opera in One Unnatural Act.” He introduced us to arcane instruments like the lasso d’amore, the dill piccolo, the pastaphone, and the tromboon. He made his entrance by bursting through the fire doors at a trot in his evening wear (tuxedo and work boots), or swinging to the stage on a rope from a balcony, or escorted by orderlies in a straightjacket.
Schickele’s manic tenure as the kapellmeister of classical music mayhem ended this past Tuesday with his death at the age of 88.
This morning on “Sweetness and Light,” I’ll do my best to honor his legacy with an assortment of his classic P.D.Q. Bach comedy bits, interspersed with selections from his more “serious” concert works. While there are no musical pratfalls in the latter, they’re still guaranteed to give you a lift with their ebullient and energetic abandon. Hopefully what you hear will encourage you to seek out more. His was a distinctive compositional voice, full of imagination and invention.
I invite you to join me for a Schickele mix on “Sweetness and Light,” music calculated to charm and to cheer, this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Stream it, wherever you are, at the link.
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PDQ Bach Tribute Airs on KWAX
What a mare’s nest! So many envelopes and crossfades in this session for tomorrow’s “Sweetness and Light,” a whirlwind tribute to Peter Schickele, who died on Tuesday at the age of 88. We’ll hear some of his classic PDQ Bach comedy skits interspersed with selections from his “serious music.” As always, the program is calculated to charm and to cheer. Stream it on Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon! https://kwax.uoregon.edu/
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Peter Schickele, P.D.Q. Bach Creator, Dies
Composer and parodist Peter Schickele has died.
Schickele was best known for his “discovery” of P.D.Q. Bach, whom he slyly promoted as the last and least of Johann Sebastian Bach’s progeny – “the 21st of Bach’s 20 children.” P.D.Q.’s manuscripts invariably turned up in the most undignified of places (leaky-ceilinged castles, the bottoms of bird cages, and as coffee maker filters). The music was introduced in performance and on record by “Professor” Peter Schickele, an equally amusing, unreliable source. The combination entertained for more than 50 years, a veritable automat of freewheeling parody, excruciating puns, and good old-fashioned, pie-in-the-face slapstick.
Some of the gags flirted with tedium, but there was always a diamond or two in the rough. If nothing else, you could always count on Schickele’s Jekyll-and-Hyde act to skewer the solemn conventions of classical music.
Frustratingly, his comic success undermined Schickele the “serious” composer. He studied with two of America’s most respected symphonists, Roy Harris and Vincent Persichetti. Under his own name, he produced over 100 works. These could be wildly pluralistic in nature, drawing on folk, jazz, blues, or rock influences. A number of his contemporaries pursued similar impulses (William Bolcom, for one, and it didn’t keep him from winning a Pulitzer), but Schickele never escaped the long shadow of low humor. Which is a shame, as his music is ceaselessly vital, conveying exuberance, invention, and a kind of genial wit.
Schickele also wrote scores for film (“Silent Running”) and songs for Broadway (“O Calcutta!”). For 15 years, he hosted his own syndicated radio show, “Schickele Mix.”
I interviewed him once and met him at a concert at the College of New Jersey in 2014. By that time, he was no longer swinging onto stage by a rope, as he did at Carnegie Hall. Instead, his comic creations were executed by others as he oversaw the shenanigans like something of a dignified lion – albeit a wry lion – providing commentary by way of brief and informal exchanges with Wayne Heisler, TCNJ Associate Professor of Historical and Cultural Studies in Music.
P.D.Q. was classical music’s most prolific dad joke, perpetrating groaners like “No-No Nonette,” “Unbegun Symphony,” and “Pervertimento for Bagpipe, Bicycle and Balloons.”
An obituary in the New York Times encapsulates it very well: “In creating P.D.Q.’s oeuvre and putting it onstage, Mr. Schickele cannily deconstructed the classical music of Mozart’s time and just as cannily reassembled it in precisely the wrong configuration.”
It was humor that could engage on two levels, appealing to anyone who ever laughed at someone slipping on banana peel, but also to those who understood the enormity of his musical crimes.
He was rewarded with five Grammy Awards (one for him, and four for P.D.Q.) and by audiences full of chortling fans for over five decades.
Schickele died on Tuesday at the age of 88 – coincidentally the number of keys on a short-tempered clavier.
R.I.P.
On “The Tonight Show”
With Itzhak Perlman and John Williams
Part 1
Part 2
In better definition, and still entering on a rope in Houston in his 70s
Playing it straight: Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello and Piano
String Quartet No. 1 “American Dreams,” etc.
Joan Baez sings Schickele in “Silent Running”
The composer interviewed by Bruce Duffie
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