Schickele mixes it up for UM audience

ORONO – All the Peter Schickeles made an appearance at the Maine Center for the Arts Friday evening.

There was, of course, the rumpled, addled P.D.Q. Bach, “the 21st of the 20 children” of the 18th century German composer, Johann Sebastian Bach.

Among the silly creations of Schickele’s alter ego were the ear-pulling, raspberry-blowing “Dance of the Various Body Parts” and the questionably literary “Es war ein dark und shtormy Night.”

He ran out of fingers to play “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” but ably used his nose to play the melody – the type of fun that just wouldn’t translate over Maine Public Radio on his popular “Schickele Mix” program.

He punctuated the show with puns, winding up a song about the astrological sign Leo and the spilling of India ink, with a punch line about dying of “roar shock.”

Another Schickele was the devoted son who marked his mother’s birthdays with songs written for him to sing with his brother.

Taking the brother’s part during the University of Maine program was tenor David Dusing, who ably carried his portion in little pieces that showed Schickele’s impeccable sense of musical timing.

It’s impossible for Peter Schickele – himself a noted musician and composer whose collaborations range from “Sesame Street” to Joan Baez songs to music for the play “Oh, Calcutta” – to put on a show that doesn’t offer a good dollop of musical education.

Begin with his choice of singers for the evening, not only Dusing, but the exquisite soprano Michele Eaton. Where the trio truly shone was in performing the rounds Schickele has written – “one of many things I have in common with Mozart,” he said kiddingly.

But Schickele’s talent is no kidding matter.

His “Alleluia,” written in the style of the Renaissance era, was a tuneful delight. So was Eaton’s sweet rendition of the Elizabethan lyric, “Dear, If You Change.”

The audience jumped into the act, clapping along enthusiastically to the folk-country-gospel ditty, “One Road to Heaven, Many Roads to Hell.”

Also enjoyable were the bits of Shakespeare speeches set to music, sometimes paraphrased.

“Manana, manana, manana” wasn’t really the way the bard led off his “Stages of Man” speech in “Macbeth.” And certainly, the poet didn’t write Hamlet’s soliloquy to be sung with a Louis Armstrong growl. But it worked, as does just about everything Schickele pens.

Like the world of music itself, Peter Schickele’s talent is wonderfully diverse. Next month, he will premier a symphony with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in Minnesota, and also continue his P.D.Q. Bach performances in Buffalo.

If audiences in those cities are fortunate, the composer will share examples of the “retrograde inversion canon,” a type of music that originally involved two violinists playing the same sheet of music from opposing sides of the table.

The result is a sort of upside-down duet – two tunes that complement each other wonderfully.

On Friday, Schickele illustrated the method first with a canon sung by himself and Dusing, each holding one end of the sheet of paper.

Then he sat at the piano to accompany Dusing and Eaton in their performance of a spiritual piece he had written in the same style.

In heaven, the angels smiled. After all, if it sounds good, it is good.