Tanzende Faune

Tanzende Faune, a work written when Carl Orff was 18, is remarkably experimental and impressionistic, with its renunciation of low brass instruments and the use of two pianos, two harps and celesta in addition to a large string section, wood-wind instruments, horns and trumpets. The title is immediately reminiscent of Debussy’s L’Après-midi d’un faune, though the model is by no means referred to by compositional imitation but by the Bacchanalian atmosphere of the piece. Orff himself gave it the subtitle ‘Orchester-Spiel’ [orchestral play] and pointed out that Tanzende Faune was a ‘dance piece in disguise for the stage’.