Towards the end of my undergraduate degree, I went through a phase of deriving titles from other languages as a genuine attempt to make my music appear more "worldly". This work is perhaps the best example of my naiveté and then thinking. It seemed slapping the working title into Google Translate and pasting the results in my score - regardless of if I could pronounce it - would elevate the piece's mystique. At that stage, my experience of the world was rather limited. The most exotic place I had been by myself was Nelson - it was the only time (other than a family holiday to Fiji as a toddler,) I had even left the North Island. And so the Mysterious Dance became Der Mysteriöse Tanz. This is one of those pieces where I am happy to let fizzle into obscurity. It seemed like a major milestone but now I barely even remember it exists. I must have been going through something when writing it, as in the original programme note, I boldly proclaimed this would be my final instrumental composition. Perhaps the process of writing for orchestra broke me... It is still my one-and-only orchestral work, which is odd given how orchestration was one of my stronger suites whilst studying. However, university orchestration classes usually focus on impressionist and romantic orchestration, a vastly different beast to "contemporary" orchestral writing. As it stands, it's one of those works I have very little interest in.

There are no plans to revise or get the piece performed.