Satie: Parade I. Prestidigitateur chinois - wind dectet/bass (with opt perc)

Arranged double wind quintet/bass and optional percussion.

Background info:

Parade is a ballet choreographed by Leonide Massine, with music by Erik Satie and a one-act scenario by Jean Cocteau. The ballet was composed in 1916–17 for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. The ballet premiered on Friday, May 18, 1917, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, with costumes and sets designed by Pablo Picasso, choreography by Léonide Massine (who danced), and the orchestra conducted by Ernest Ansermet.

The ballet was remarkable for several reasons. It was the first collaboration between Satie and Picasso, and also the first time either of them had worked on a ballet, thus making it the first time either collaborated with Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes.

The plot of Parade incorporated and was inspired by popular entertainments of the period, such as Parisian music-halls and American silent-films.Much of the settings used in Parade's plot occurred outside of the formal Parisian theater, depicting the streets of Paris.

The plot reproduces various elements of everyday life such as the music hall and fairground.

Before Parade, the use of popular entertainment materials was considered unsuitable for the elite world of the ballet.
The plot of Parade composed by Cocteau includes the failed attempt of a troupe of performers to attract audience members to view their show.
Some of Picasso's Cubist costumes were in solid cardboard, allowing the dancers only a minimum of movement.

The score contained several "noise-making" instruments (typewriter, foghorn, an assortment of bottles, pistol, and so on), which had been added by Cocteau (somewhat to the dismay of Satie).
It is supposedthat such additions by Cocteau showed his eagerness to create a succès de scandale, comparable to that of Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps which had been premiered by the Ballets Russes some years before, and caused no less scandal.

Although Parade was quite revolutionary, bringing common street entertainments to the elite, being scorned by audiences and being praised by critics,nonetheless many years later Stravinsky could still pride himself in never having been topped in the matter of succès de scandale.
The ragtime contained in Parade would later be adapted for piano solo and attained considerable success as a separate piano piece.

The finale is "a rapid ragtime dance in which the whole cast [makes] a last desperate attempt to lure the audience in to see their show"

The premiere of the ballet resulted in a number of scandals. One faction of the audience booed, hissed, and was very unruly, nearly causing a riot before they were drowned out by enthusiastic applause.Many of their objections were focused on Picasso's cubist design, which was met with cries of "sale boche."

Prestidigitateur chinois (Chinese Conjuror) is no 1 in the ballet, and includes some of the odd percussion : sirens in addition to normal orchestral perc.

The piece can be performed without percussion....but the percussion gives it an extra something!!