One of the most intriguing composers of the 21st century, Jörg Widmann writes music that is both sophisticated and deeply moving. The highly talented and versatile virtuoso, Yubo Zhou, delves deep into Widmann's world of sound with these four stirring piano cycles, revealing a whole cosmos of allusions and associations.

Zirkustänze ("Circus Dances") is a fascinating kaleidoscope of emotions and parodies filled with a danger the tightrope-walker may fall. Zhou takes us through unexpected twists and turns with the necessary lyricism and irony whether fanfare, boogie-woogie, waltz or Venetian gondoliers' song. The finale makes a mockery of a parade-ground march whose weird distortions Zhou hurls at the audience with overwhelming virtuosity.

Elf Humoresken is a connotation-rich yet aesthetically self-contained transfer of Schumann's language into the musical idiom of the 21st century. Pieces such as "Fast zu ernst" ("Almost Too Serious"), "Lied im Traume" ("Song in a dream") or "Waldszene" ("Forest scene") echo Schumann's Kinderszenen and Waldszenen with an imaginative mix of ingenuity and melancholic irony.

Intermezzi is Widmann's tribute to his love of Brahms. By way of a familiar melodic flourish, harmonic sequence or a tiny fragment of a motif, the allusions are yet remote from the nineteenth century and expressed in a tonal language of their own. Idyll und Abgrund is a nod to Schubert, more reminiscence than pastiche, sometimes extremely vague, sometimes quite specific, and always distinguished by compositional and tonal extremes.