ERIC HESSEL

Metonymy (2016)

Solo percussion (unpitched): f.cym., triangle, sus.cym., frying pan, four ceramic pots, four wooden slats, bongo, snare/tom; 14'.

Dedicated to Mai Tadokoro Hessel​.

The symbolic nature of a metonym is always outward and upward, the smallest parts or aspects representing the broader whole. So too with Metonymy for solo percussion (2016): The player commands four contrasting groups of instruments - metals, ceramics, woods, and skins; and the relationships between the groups become metonyms of the nature and society from which they come. The form of Metonymy is divided into five continuous sections (Prologue, Intralogue, Extralogue, Contralogue, and Epilogue), and creates a narrative of the growth and conflict of societies and nature. The motives and textures that are built up and explored in the first three sections come to a climax of conflict and are gradually unwound in the last two sections; and as the initial motives and sounds return at the end, the listener is left with a glimmer of hope fading into silence.

Performance History:

• recorded 18 February 2017, Texas Wesleyan University Martin Hall, Fort Worth, TX, Mai Tadokoro Hessel, percussion
• 21 February 2017, Texas Wesleyan University Martin Hall, Fort Worth, TX. Mai Tadokoro Hessel, percussion
  
• 5 November 2017, KU School of Music Swarthout Recital Hall, Lawrence, KS. Daichi Tadokoro, percussion