Sonic and indeterminant approaches on the axis of percussion instruments: Betin Güneş Symphony no. 6 ?Aunt Hayriye?

Betin Gunes?s 6th Symphony, entitled ?Aunt Hayriye,? is a work that incorporates unusual practices and innovations in terms of the percussion instruments employed in the work?s instrumentation and the stylistic use of these instruments. In this work, which was composed after the death of Betin Gunes?s beloved aunt, Hayriye, the percussion section undertakes extremely important and uncommon tasks.The work accommodates a very large percussion section with approximately thirty different instruments. In addition to standardized instruments such as timpani, bass drum, snare drum and triangle; South America, Africa and Asia originated non-standardized percussions such as rainstick, slapstick, cowbell and ship-bell are used as well.Besides the variety in the instrumentation, absorption of major compositional trends like indeterminacy, graphic notation and free improvisation in the work and, in this context, the role of the percussion section places ?Aunt Hayriye? Symphony in a particular place within both percussion and symphony repertory of the late twentieth century.In the first and fifth movements, percussion instruments are used mainly for their sonic traits as well as for their function to highlight rhythmical accents, motioning freely and forming an independent layer against the string and wind instruments within the orchestral texture. In the fifth movement, which is the last one, the composer utilizes 20 gongs of small, medium and large sizes and gives them melodic tasks by generating diatonic and chromatic scales.The fourth movement of the 6th Symphony exhibits a practice virtually unknown to symphonic writing: performers of the string and wind sections turn into percussionists by using any object that has a percussive quality. Lid of a pot, any metal or sound-producing wooden object can be used by the performers for this purpose. In other words, the whole symphony orchestra grows to be a gigantic percussion ensemble. Due to the particular use of the percussion instruments as well as the dramatic increase of the work, the fourth movement becomes the focal point of the whole symphony.As a consequence, the percussion section in the 6th Symphony musically maintains a more central position comparing to other sections of the orchestra. Thanks to its extra-musical content and to the fact that the percussion instruments are treated as the work?s sonic departure point, this work, which was premiered ten years ago on March 27, 1999, has already begun to establish its unique place within the late 20th Century symphonic repertory.