The Acrobat

The Acrobat is a virtuosic character piece, the first entry in my longstanding and inexplicable fascination with circus music. A parody of a fanfare announces the main theme, which flies through various keys and tempi as the acrobat somersaults through the air. They fall to the ground with a fortissimo chromatic scale and enter a dream state, an out-of-time B-section. Luckily, they slowly come to, and dazzle the audience with a heavily ornamented reprise and final flourish.