The Bicycle
Concert Band, Grade 5
Duration - 3’20”
Is it a march? Is it a polka? One thing’s for sure, it’s a gem! First strain, second strain, trio…this tune is a charmer all the way through. Audiences love the quirkiness of the bicycle bell combined with the tuneful melodies and bubbly clarinet obbligato. It’s a brand new, 100-year-old classic. It turns out they DO make them like this anymore!
Program Note | The Bicycle - Greg Schwaegler (b. 1983)
Ken Bartosz was a music educator, band leader, trumpeter and, above all, a dad. He was the kind of dad who would make up songs centered around seemingly random words, names, and ideas, much to the bemusement of his seven children. Within this whimsical catalog of homebrewed nonsense songs was a wailing lament on the word “Bicicleta” - the Spanish word for bicycle. It became a recurring favorite of the household, and the children could expect to hear their father giving ad lib performances of “Bicicleta” whenever the mood struck him just so.
As it happened, Ken’s oldest daughter was Susan Bartosz, who grew up to attend Northwestern University where she met fellow music education major Steven Schwaegler and, after college, the two married and had a son, Greg Schwaegler, who, under the influence of all these familial music teachers, majored in music himself. It was during a family gathering at Christmas that Greg was at the piano performing “Bicicleta” in various musical styles as called out by his grandfather. Most memorable was the polka variation, which tapped into the family’s Polish heritage, and it was this variant of the original tune that ultimately became the melody of the trio section in “The Bicycle.”
With regards to musical form, “The Bicycle” is laid out as a traditional American march, though the yodeling phrases of the second strain exhibit something of a Bavarian influence. Other notable features include the solo clarinet obbligato during the second trio, the slow accelerando in the final trio, and, of course, the bicycle bell that appears with the combined spirit of Sousa’s Liberty Bell and any of the special percussion effects employed by Leroy Anderson.
Fittingly, the world premiere of “The Bicycle” was given by the Quad City Wind Ensemble, of which Steve and Sue Schwaegler are founding members.
Concert Band, Grade 5
Duration - 3’20”
Is it a march? Is it a polka? One thing’s for sure, it’s a gem! First strain, second strain, trio…this tune is a charmer all the way through. Audiences love the quirkiness of the bicycle bell combined with the tuneful melodies and bubbly clarinet obbligato. It’s a brand new, 100-year-old classic. It turns out they DO make them like this anymore!
Program Note | The Bicycle - Greg Schwaegler (b. 1983)
Ken Bartosz was a music educator, band leader, trumpeter and, above all, a dad. He was the kind of dad who would make up songs centered around seemingly random words, names, and ideas, much to the bemusement of his seven children. Within this whimsical catalog of homebrewed nonsense songs was a wailing lament on the word “Bicicleta” - the Spanish word for bicycle. It became a recurring favorite of the household, and the children could expect to hear their father giving ad lib performances of “Bicicleta” whenever the mood struck him just so.
As it happened, Ken’s oldest daughter was Susan Bartosz, who grew up to attend Northwestern University where she met fellow music education major Steven Schwaegler and, after college, the two married and had a son, Greg Schwaegler, who, under the influence of all these familial music teachers, majored in music himself. It was during a family gathering at Christmas that Greg was at the piano performing “Bicicleta” in various musical styles as called out by his grandfather. Most memorable was the polka variation, which tapped into the family’s Polish heritage, and it was this variant of the original tune that ultimately became the melody of the trio section in “The Bicycle.”
With regards to musical form, “The Bicycle” is laid out as a traditional American march, though the yodeling phrases of the second strain exhibit something of a Bavarian influence. Other notable features include the solo clarinet obbligato during the second trio, the slow accelerando in the final trio, and, of course, the bicycle bell that appears with the combined spirit of Sousa’s Liberty Bell and any of the special percussion effects employed by Leroy Anderson.
Fittingly, the world premiere of “The Bicycle” was given by the Quad City Wind Ensemble, of which Steve and Sue Schwaegler are founding members.
Concert Band, Grade 5
Duration - 3’20”
Is it a march? Is it a polka? One thing’s for sure, it’s a gem! First strain, second strain, trio…this tune is a charmer all the way through. Audiences love the quirkiness of the bicycle bell combined with the tuneful melodies and bubbly clarinet obbligato. It’s a brand new, 100-year-old classic. It turns out they DO make them like this anymore!
Program Note | The Bicycle - Greg Schwaegler (b. 1983)
Ken Bartosz was a music educator, band leader, trumpeter and, above all, a dad. He was the kind of dad who would make up songs centered around seemingly random words, names, and ideas, much to the bemusement of his seven children. Within this whimsical catalog of homebrewed nonsense songs was a wailing lament on the word “Bicicleta” - the Spanish word for bicycle. It became a recurring favorite of the household, and the children could expect to hear their father giving ad lib performances of “Bicicleta” whenever the mood struck him just so.
As it happened, Ken’s oldest daughter was Susan Bartosz, who grew up to attend Northwestern University where she met fellow music education major Steven Schwaegler and, after college, the two married and had a son, Greg Schwaegler, who, under the influence of all these familial music teachers, majored in music himself. It was during a family gathering at Christmas that Greg was at the piano performing “Bicicleta” in various musical styles as called out by his grandfather. Most memorable was the polka variation, which tapped into the family’s Polish heritage, and it was this variant of the original tune that ultimately became the melody of the trio section in “The Bicycle.”
With regards to musical form, “The Bicycle” is laid out as a traditional American march, though the yodeling phrases of the second strain exhibit something of a Bavarian influence. Other notable features include the solo clarinet obbligato during the second trio, the slow accelerando in the final trio, and, of course, the bicycle bell that appears with the combined spirit of Sousa’s Liberty Bell and any of the special percussion effects employed by Leroy Anderson.
Fittingly, the world premiere of “The Bicycle” was given by the Quad City Wind Ensemble, of which Steve and Sue Schwaegler are founding members.