The Baroque Beatles Book - Overview

Overview

Created at the height of Beatlemania in the 1960s, the works on the album share many characteristics with the music of Peter Schickele and his alter ego P.D.Q. Bach. These characteristics include parodies of stereotypical classical music conventions, anachronistic touches, and musical in-jokes that are apparent primarily to other musicians. Rifkin also shares with Schickele a penchant for unusual names and catalog numbers for the pieces.

Rifkin explained in the liner notes to the CD that the idea for adapting Beatles music to baroque styles came from Elektra's president, Jac Holzman, and that he had suggested Schickele's name to the Elektra boss. With Schickele under contract to another label, Rifkin volunteered to undertake the task of creating the arrangements.

Despite the primarily humorous nature of the compositions, Rifkin also indicates in the liner notes (signed "1684" and written as a parody of a 17th century composer attempting to curry favor and employment with a monarch) that one of his motivations was to demonstrate how the melodies of John Lennon and Paul McCartney can be favorably compared with those of the great Baroque masters.

The pieces on the album all call to mind similar works by Baroque composers. For example, the opening track The Royale Beatleworks Musique is, despite its name, an almost movement-for-movement parody not of Handel's Royal Fireworks Music, but of the Suite for Orchestra No. 4 in D by Johann Sebastian Bach, right down to the format and instrumentation. In addition to Bach, the notes make connections to Handel and to Georg Telemann.

Side one consists entirely of instrumental variations. The use of "MBE" to indicate the opus number naturally reminds Beatles fans of their having been made Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). On the second side, Rifkin connects the number 58,000 to a reference to the Beatles' concert at Shea Stadium, where reportedly 58,000 were in attendance. Of particular interest is the "Help!" aria, which begins with a recitative taken from John Lennon's two books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works. After three vocal selections, the album concludes with a sonata for oboe, thoroughbass, and violin.

The orchestra on the album is humorously credited as the "Baroque Ensemble of the Merseyside Kammermusickgesellschaft," though it was likely, in reality, an ad hoc group of session musicians.