Farbkreis is the German term for Color Wheel. Johann W olfgang von Goethe, primarily known these days as a writer was in fact a polymath and he was an influential thinker in the development of the scientific theories around color theory . He was one of the first scientist to posit a color wheel, which became an integral part of how we think of colors even today. 

I wanted to honor Goethe's legacy in this piece and the title refers to more than the name of Goethe's color wheel. The piece also features just about all of the possible tone colors for strings from pizzicato, to sul ponticello, sul tasto, harmonics. The work is structured in the so-called " rotational form " as shown in the later symphonies of Jean Sibelius. Rotational form in this case refers to how there are basically two ideas in the piece that rotate: the first one is a driving, off-kilter opening texture with a longer melody weaving through the thicket, and the second one is a gentler section that features a falling melody in the first violin. These two sections alternate in " rotations," basically varied repetitions. As the material returns, each rotation changes and gets shorter and tighter.