Quodlibet
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A quodlibet is a piece of music combining several different melodies in counterpoint, usually popular tunes, and often in a light-hearted manner. A famous example of a quodlibet is at the end of Bach's Goldberg Variations. Another example is Gallimathias Musicum, a 17 part quodlibet composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart when he was about 10 years old. A fine modern example is the 'Quodlibet on Welsh Nursery Rhymes' by the distinguished Welsh composer Alun Hoddinott.
More serious quodlibets are in the masses of Jacob Obrecht, which sometimes combine popular tunes, plainsong and original music.
A song for four soloists and basso continuo by J. S. Bach, called the "Wedding Quodlibet" or just "Quodlibet" (BWV 524), is not a quodlibet by the above definition, but a ten-minute procession of nonsense, dumb jokes, puns, obscure cultural references, word games, and parody of other songs. At points the music imitates a chaconne and a fugue, and the music sometimes deliberately "mixes up" the choral lines. It is unlike any of Bach's other works, and a few scholars doubt it was written by Bach. It is probably the only work by Bach to include a farting noise.
The Grateful Dead concert favorite The Other One is a medley that includes the song Quodlibet for Tenderfeet. (Deadheads will recognize the lyrics "The other day they waited...")
Peter Schickele's "Quodlibet for Small Orchestra" is an amusing example of this form, particularly for those slightly more versed in Western art music and jazz.
The word also refers to a mode of academic debate or oral examination (usually theological) in which any question could be posed extemporaneously. Quodlibet debates were popular in Western culture through the thirteenth century (1300s) and are still in use today in Tibetan Buddhist theological training.
The term is from the Latin meaning: "whatever" (literally a compound word of quod (what) libet (pleases)".
