[11] Schickele, an accomplished bassoonist, was also a member of the chamber rock trio the Open Window, which wrote and performed music for the 1969 revue Oh!

[4] in 1959, while at Juilliard, Schickele teamed with conductor Jorge Mester to present a humorous concert, which became an annual event at the college.

[citation needed] In 1965, Schickele moved the concept to The Town Hall in New York City and invited the public to attend;[4] Vanguard Records released an album of that concert, and the character of "P.D.Q.

[4] Among the fictional composer's "forgotten" repertory are such farcical works as The Abduction of Figaro,[1] the "Unbegun" symphony,[1] "Pervertimento for Bagpipes, Bicycle and Balloons",[1] Canine Cantata: "Wachet Arf!

",[17] Good King Kong Looked Out,[18] the "Trite" Quintet,[17] "O Little Town of Hackensack",[1] A Little Nightmare Music,[19] the cantata Iphigenia in Brooklyn,[1] the Concerto for Horn and Hardart,[1] The Stoned Guest,[1] "Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice",[1] the Concerto for Two Pianos vs. Orchestra,[1] the dramatic oratorio Oedipus Tex[17][20] and Einstein on the Fritz, a parody of Schickele's Juilliard classmate Philip Glass.

[21] His fictitious "home establishment" is the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople, where he reports having tenure as "Very Full Professor" of "musicolology" and "musical pathology".

The most complicated of these is the Hardart, a tone-generating device mounted on the frame of an "automat", a coin-operated food dispenser.

[1] Schickele also invented the "dill piccolo" for playing sour notes, the "left-handed sewer flute", the "tromboon" ("a cross between a trombone and a bassoon, having all the disadvantages of both"), the "lasso d'amore", the double-reed slide music stand, the "tuba mirum" (a flexible tube filled with wine), and the "pastaphone" (an uncooked tube of pasta played as a horn).

[26] Schickele composed more than 100 original works for symphony orchestra, choral groups, chamber ensemble, voice, television and an animated adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are (which he also narrated).

His extensive body of work is marked by a distinctive style which integrates the European classical tradition with an unmistakable American idiom.

[36] Peter Schickele died at his home in Bearsville, New York, on January 16, 2024, at the age of 88, due to a series of infections that damaged his health.