''Pervertimento for Bagpipes, Bicycle and Balloons'' is a

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

work authored by Peter Schickele under the pseudonym P.D.Q. Bach, whose works and life Schickele purports to study. It is a

concerto A concerto (; plural ''concertos'', or ''concerti'' from the Italian plural) is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The typi ...

featuring the aforementioned

bagpipes Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, No ...

, bicycle and balloons as solo musical instruments accompanied by a string orchestra.

Description

In Schickele's own words during the introduction, "The title, ''Pervertimento'' is... not P.D.Q. Bach's own. As a matter of fact, it was not so much a title as an opinion of the people who first played it". The piece incorporates several unconventional instruments, and in some cases non-instruments. The bagpipes player uses three radically different incarnations of the instrument; first, the

chanter The chanter is the part of the bagpipe upon which the player creates the melody. It consists of a number of finger-holes, and in its simpler forms looks similar to a recorder. On more elaborate bagpipes, such as the Northumbrian bagpipes or the ...

is removed from the bagpipes and played similar to an oboe or

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

. "The tone, though jarring, is not altogether unexpected" in the words of the dust jacket for the original LP. In the subsequent movement, a "practice bagpipes" with the

drones Drone most commonly refers to: * Drone (bee), a male bee, from an unfertilized egg * Unmanned aerial vehicle * Unmanned surface vehicle, watercraft * Unmanned underwater vehicle or underwater drone Drone, drones or The Drones may also refer to: ...

removed and the chanter muffled is used. In the final movement, the full bagpipes are employed. Balloons are rubbed and popped through the majority of the piece. For the final chord, three helium balloons, attached to pitchpipes, are released from the percussion section behind the orchestra. The bicycle is "played" first as a percussion instrument using playing cards in the spokes, then by blowing through the handlebars similar to a trumpet, and finally using pedal power to drive a rotary whistle.

Recordings

The work was first performed at

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...

and recorded live on the album '' An Hysteric Return: P.D.Q. Bach at Carnegie Hall''. {{P.D.Q. Bach P. D. Q. Bach Musical parodies Experimental musical instruments