Les Idées fixes (1988)
(Rondo for orchestra)

It would have been more correct to state the subtitle of the work in the plural – Rondos instead of Rondo – because this is not one, but a sequence of five rondos of different character. However, the fear that people would always think that the s was a printing error that needed to be corrected led me to use the less precise singular.
Titles and subtitles are often an attempt to find an abbreviation to aptly convey the essence of the music and the form chosen for the piece. It is in the nature of things that this can only be approximately successful: fortunately, music cannot be made audible by either brief or generous descriptions, nor can it be brought to life approximately from the silence of the paper.

And at the same time, each rondo is the tonal document of an idée fixe, the recurrence of which serves almost incidentally to structure the sequence. When the formal structure is so exposed, every unintentional change, every inconspicuous repetition appears as carefully laid stones on a bright path. The listener's perception is sharpened as he seeks out the differences. The diverse aspects and polyphonic structures that can still be derived from an emphatically linear form such as the rondo have motivated me to continue increasing the meandering of refrains and couplets. And I was often busy during the composition as a chronicler, questioning all those transformations that I could not utilize as silent witnesses.

M.K.
(Translation by Edition Peters)