P.D.Q. Bach - Diverse Ayres on Sundrie Notions

P.D.Q. Bach - Diverse Ayres on Sundrie Notions (S. 99 44/100) (This version includes the "modulatory preludes" between songs.) 0:00 - Sinfonia 1:02 - "Do you suffer" 4:08 - "Hear me through" 7:06 - "If you have never" John Ferrante, bargain countertenor Professor Peter Schickele, worm & snake I Virtousi di Hoople (Gerald Tarack, violin - Jacob Glick, viola - Charles McCraken, cello - Gerald Ranck, harpsichord) Although Prince Fred did commission P.D.Q. every now and then to write a work to celebrate some family occasion such as one of his sons losing a tooth, or even some municipal occasion such as the opening of the Brewery of the Madonna, these commissions were certainly insufficient to support P.D.Q.; gradually he began to realize that he would have to find some extramusical way of supplementing his income. Surprisingly enough, the method he chose turned out to be highly successful; in the spring of 1795 the P.D.Q. Bach Traveling Medicine Show left Wein-am-Rhein, and by the time it returned eight months later, P.D.Q. was a wealthy man. One of the main ingredients of his success was undoubtedly the fact that he employed a singer named Ernico Carouso, for whom he composed a series of Diverse Ayres, as he called them, which were actually singing commercials - perhaps the first singing commercials in history. They were originally scored only for singer and drum (the latter presumably played by P.D.Q. himself), and it was not until he went to Baden-Baden-Baden that P.D.Q., for some unknown reason probably having something to do with greed, wrote the arrangements that have survived. DISCLAIMER: I do not own the rights to this music/song. All rights belong to the owner. No Copyright Infringement Intended.