ERIC HESSEL

Poetic Episodes (2016)

Marimba. 1-6 movements. 3-12'.

Dedicated to Mai Tadokoro Hessel​.


​The six movements of Poetic Episodes strive to evoke a single idea, a single image of a lake in northern Germany which inspired their creation. They are at the same time details and partitions of that image as well as the different perspectives and moods of its onlooker.

in crystalline light
its muddied shore

a shadowed silence

the placid wake

embraces wholly

the feathered tide

There is no set order intended for the lines of this this stanza, and likewise there is no order intended for the movements. They are designed to work in as many ways as the performer can imagine. The order of movements in performance, whether complete or incomplete, belongs to the performer in creating an individual message. I advise that it never be played the same way twice. 




Performance History:

  • 13 March 2018, University of Kansas Swarthout Recital Hall, Lawrence, KS. Mai Tadokoro Hessel, marimba.