Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Fehlstart, for flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, piano, drum kit, violin and cello (1999)
Ensemble Modern
Stefan Asbury
The basic formal idea of Fehlstart (Detail) is to construct a composition from detailed views of its own source material. The goal was to integrate these sharply differentiated details into a continuous process, thereby creating a balance between continuity and discontinuity as formal principles.
The piece is made up of 15 sections of gradually changing duration. Within these sections, the fundamental material—26 musical modules—is permuted in seven complete cycles. The permutations in the middle of the piece diverge furthest from the original order of modules, while the final section restores that original order.
Superimposed on this static structure is a linear process that realizes the core idea of the work: each recurrence of a module appears as a variant—an enlargement or magnification of detail. Each new version refers not to the original form but to the immediately preceding one, creating an effectively infinite sequence that could begin and end at any arbitrary point. In this sense, the existing movement represents only an excerpt from a continuous, potentially endless process.
As the module variants move progressively further away from their original form, static form and dynamic development eventually collide. When the modules reappear in their original order, the initial situation is nominally restored—yet the material is now completely transformed, and the “original” becomes unrecognizable.
The title Fehlstart (“False Start”) refers to False Start, a 1959 painting by Jasper Johns. The painting consists of fields of color applied in expressive brushstrokes, each labeled with stenciled color names. The catch is that the labels are consistently incorrect: for instance, “orange” might be written in white on a red field, or “white” in red on yellow. Similarly, at the end of Fehlstart (Detail), everything is back in its “correct” place—but nothing is as it was, since each component has changed along the way. --Sebastian Claren
Art by Jasper Johns
Fehlstart, for flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, piano, drum kit, violin and cello (1999)
Ensemble Modern
Stefan Asbury
The basic formal idea of Fehlstart (Detail) is to construct a composition from detailed views of its own source material. The goal was to integrate these sharply differentiated details into a continuous process, thereby creating a balance between continuity and discontinuity as formal principles.
The piece is made up of 15 sections of gradually changing duration. Within these sections, the fundamental material—26 musical modules—is permuted in seven complete cycles. The permutations in the middle of the piece diverge furthest from the original order of modules, while the final section restores that original order.
Superimposed on this static structure is a linear process that realizes the core idea of the work: each recurrence of a module appears as a variant—an enlargement or magnification of detail. Each new version refers not to the original form but to the immediately preceding one, creating an effectively infinite sequence that could begin and end at any arbitrary point. In this sense, the existing movement represents only an excerpt from a continuous, potentially endless process.
As the module variants move progressively further away from their original form, static form and dynamic development eventually collide. When the modules reappear in their original order, the initial situation is nominally restored—yet the material is now completely transformed, and the “original” becomes unrecognizable.
The title Fehlstart (“False Start”) refers to False Start, a 1959 painting by Jasper Johns. The painting consists of fields of color applied in expressive brushstrokes, each labeled with stenciled color names. The catch is that the labels are consistently incorrect: for instance, “orange” might be written in white on a red field, or “white” in red on yellow. Similarly, at the end of Fehlstart (Detail), everything is back in its “correct” place—but nothing is as it was, since each component has changed along the way. --Sebastian Claren
Art by Jasper Johns
