Der Fehlredner (The Misspeaker) is the seventeenth in a series of short works for solo instrument based upon characters from Der Ohrenzeuge: Fünfzig Charaktere (Earwitness: Fifty Characters), written in 1974 by the Bulgarian-born British-Austrian novelist Elias Canetti (1905-1994). Canetti’s distinctive studies incorporate poetic imagery, singular insights, and unabashed wordplay to create fifty ironic paradigms of human behavior. This collection, begun in 1997, was inspired by the vividly surreal depictions of Canetti’s characters, and comprises twenty-two solo works to date—composed for familiar instruments such as violin, guitar, piano, and trombone, as well as less common instruments such as ocarina, cimbalom, glass harmonica, and carillon. In Canetti’s depiction of this character, the misspeaker “looks for people who do not know what he is talking about… stopping in front of this man or that man, throwing out a pointless lure, observing his effect, and it is only when perceiving the desired bafflement that he starts blazing away and is elevated to his chaos… he feels he can confuse everyone now, his mood heightens to the darkest inspiration, the atmosphere around him is alive with oracles.”

Der Fehlredner was composed in February and March of 2018 for percussionist Christopher Deane, who first performed the work on 11 April 2018 at Moody Performance Hall in Dallas, Texas.