Delightfully Naughty

Delightfully Naughty is a piccolo and piano showpiece with two very different personalities.

It begins wide-eyed, sweet, sparkly and almost impossibly optimistic. Then something starts to go wrong.

The piano begins grumbling somewhere in the bowels of the instrument, the piccolo starts desperately reaching for familiar orchestral excerpts as if they might somehow save the situation, and eventually the whole thing gives up any pretence of good behaviour.

Sweet becomes mischievous, mischievous becomes unruly, and by the end the piccolo is thoroughly enjoying itself.

Quick Details

• Instrumentation: Piccolo & Piano

• Duration: approximately 5½–6 minutes

• Advanced

• Suitable for advanced college/conservatoire and professional piccolo players

• Conceived as a recital and competition showpiece

• Commissioned by Peter Verhoyen

• Contrasting lyrical and virtuosic sections

• Lydian-mode opening

• Famous piccolo orchestral excerpts woven into the transition

• Extended techniques including Explosive Articulation and Residual Tone

• Includes a theatrical disagreement between piccolo and pianist

• World premiere: National Flute Association Convention, Portland, August 2026

Where Did the Title Come From?

The title actually existed several years before the piece.

I was guest artist at the 2023 Slippery Rock University Flute Choir Day, run by flute professor Cassandra Eisenreich, where we were also giving the premiere of Steel City.

While chatting in Cassie’s room at the university, I described something completely unrelated as being “delightfully naughty.”

I have noticed that when I’m in America, despite being Irish, my vocabulary sometimes becomes inexplicably more British. Perhaps it’s jet lag. Perhaps it’s a subconscious reaction to all the Americanness around me….

ANYWAY - Whatever the reason, Cassie immediately said:

“You should write a piece called that.”

And I immediately exclaimed: “yes. I absolutely should.”

The title already contained the whole musical idea. Delightful could be sweet, warm and beautiful; Naughty could be fast, furious, cheeky and slightly out of control.

Peter Verhoyen

The right opportunity arrived when I was working with Peter Verhoyen at the International Flute Seminar Bruges in 2025.

Peter had already been responsible for Pick Pic Picc, my theatrical trio for three piccolos, and then commissioned me to write a new work for piccolo and piano.

I told him I already had the title.

It suited the instrument perfectly, and frankly it suited Peter rather well too. He has a wonderfully impish, enthusiastically childlike quality in his playing and teaching, and Delightfully Naughty felt like exactly the right world for him.

Delightfully...

The opening is extremely sweet.

The principal theme is in the Lydian mode, which gives it that open, bright, wide-eyed quality. The music should feel optimistic, twinkly and rather adorable.

The tempo markings encourage this shamelessly. It begins Super Cute.

Later, naturally, it becomes Mega Cute.

There is also a more expansive moment where the piccolo stretches out over beautiful piano harmonies, almost like a miniature cadenza. For a while everything seems perfectly lovely.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Something Is Wrong…

Eventually the score announces:

Something Is Wrong…

The piano begins rumbling ominously in its lowest register, with dark, dissonant material gradually threatening everything that has come before.

Above it, the piccolo seems to panic.

It starts grasping at fragments of famous piccolo repertoire: Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G, Rossini’s Semiramide, Ravel’s Mother Goose and a glimpse of the slow movement of the Vivaldi Piccolo Concerto.

It feels like the player is desperately flicking through the collective memory of every piccolo player, hoping that one familiar excerpt might somehow restore order.

It doesn’t.

...Naughty

Eventually the piano brings down a huge cluster, black notes and white notes crunched together in a fairly uncompromising WHAP, and the other personality takes over.

The second half is fast, rhythmic, discordant and extremely cheeky.

There are little two-note “WRONG!” gestures, plenty of musical nyeh-nyeh-nyeh, deliberately puckish harmonies and repeated moments where the piano seems to be trying, with decreasing success, to keep the piccolo under control.

The delightful piccolo has very much left the building.

Piccolo Versus Pianist

Eventually the relationship between the two performers deteriorates completely.

The piccolo player becomes so frustrated with the pianist that they physically reach across and knock the pianist’s music onto the floor.

This begins the second cadenza.

The pianist, meanwhile, is instructed to wearily pick up the music while rolling their eyes at the piccolo player.

There is therefore a small theatrical element built into the piece, and I would encourage both performers to enjoy it. The joke works best when it feels completely natural rather than heavily acted.

By this stage, the pianist has every right to be annoyed.

Slightly Drunk

In that second cadenza - in the naughty half has rather less dignity than the first.

Extended techniques creep in, including Explosive Articulation and Residual Tone, and at one point the marking is simply: Slightly Drunk.

The piccolo hiccups and staggers around for a while before regaining enough composure to launch back into the main naughty material.

A Piccolo Showpiece

The shape of Delightfully Naughty follows a long tradition of flute showpieces: a beautiful, lyrical opening followed by something considerably faster and more virtuosic.

Pieces such as Fauré’s Fantaisie and Enesco’s Cantabile et Presto live in that same broad world of contrast, and I wanted to create something similar specifically for the piccolo.

It is an advanced, college-level showpiece, and I wrote it very much with recitals, auditions and piccolo competitions in mind.

The player needs a secure high register, fast technique, rhythmic confidence, flexibility of colour and enough theatrical instinct to move convincingly between the two personalities.

Most importantly, it needs character.

The Final NyEH-NyEH

Once the naughty section is underway, there is very little interest in becoming respectable again.

The momentum builds right through to the final bars, and the nyeh-nyeh gesture gets one last appearance in the penultimate bar before the final enormous, chaotic BAM.

I like audiences to know when they are allowed to applaud.

This one leaves zero room for doubt.

Premiere

Peter and I had the chance to work on the piece together at the International Flute Seminar Bruges in 2025, where I heard him play it before the official premiere. That was enormously useful for making final adjustments and hearing how the theatrical moments worked with an audience.

The world premiere followed at the 2026 National Flute Association Convention in Portland, with Peter as soloist and his amazing professional musician son Pieter-Jan Verhoyen on piano.

It went fabulously. Peter absolutely understood the character of the piece, the jokes landed, there were laughs in the right places and the performance received a wonderfully enthusiastic response.

For a piece called Delightfully Naughty, it very much felt like mission accomplished.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who commissioned Delightfully Naughty?
Peter Verhoyen, following our work together at the International Flute Seminar Bruges.

Where did the title come from?
A completely unrelated conversation with Cassandra Eisenreich at Slippery Rock University in 2023. I happened to describe something as “delightfully naughty”, and Cassie immediately told me it should be the title of a piece.

How difficult is it?
Advanced. It is aimed particularly at strong college/conservatoire and professional piccolo players.

Could it work as a competition piece?
Very much so. It was conceived as a substantial piccolo showpiece with lyrical playing, virtuosity, extended techniques and plenty of opportunity for character.

Are the orchestral excerpts part of the joke?
Yes. As the delightful world starts collapsing, the piccolo desperately reaches for fragments of familiar orchestral repertoire as if trying to restore some sense of normality.

Is there acting involved?
A little. The most obvious moment comes when the piccolo player knocks the pianist’s music onto the floor and the pianist has to retrieve it with weary disapproval.

Does the piece use extended techniques?
Yes, including Explosive Articulation and Residual Tone, particularly in the more mischievous second cadenza.

Does it finish delightfully or naughtily?
Naughtily. Very.