Circus Dances

My dark and shadowy piano Intermezzi are followed by these Zirkustänze [circus dances]. They are naturally – on a superficial level – simpler, more cheerful, brighter and also more garish, drastic and playful than my previous composition, but my objective in these dances involving the protagonists of a circus is a simple but profound and omnipresent truth: there is a constant real danger that the tightrope walker will fall. On the subject of our childlike amazement as an observer: it is not our amazement which is false, but the fact that we adults think we are no longer allowed to feel this emotion! And although the tears of the sad clown are artificial, they are nevertheless highly realistic.

The Zirkustänze are conceived as a cycle, but individual movements can also be performed separately, for example as encore pieces. These dances are dedicated in friendship to András Schiff. Jörg Widmann