Timpani
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“The other part of hislife is as a doctor in South Manchester, having also
studied in St Andrews. Whilst in Scotland he was lucky to find an enormous
number of playing opportunities with various University and public groups,
mainly sitting behind the timpani but also in the percussion section.
Highlights included Mahler 1 in Dundee, a thrilling Dvorak 9 and a Dream of
Gerontius on an utterly packed stage.
“He also took up conducting in St Andrews, mainly with the University Wind Band
and assisting with the Symphony Orchestra, having studied with Sian Edwards, a
truly wonderful teacher.
When not playing he spends a lot of time attending concerts. I have been
reviewing concerts for Bachtrack for several years, In that time he has been
privileged to cover many excellent events, including Daniel Barenboim’s Beethoven cycle at the Proms.
The notation of timpani parts is as delightfully ambiguous and confusing as is
the case for most other instruments of the orchestra. In the early days,
composers did not even feel it necessary to write out a part for the
unfortunate timpanist, requiring him to invent a part for himself as the
performance proceeded. In classical times, two timpani was the standard
complement, traditionally tuned to the tonic and dominant of the prevailing
tonality. Notes were written as C and G on the part, the actual tuning required
being indicated at the start of each movement thereby turning the timpani into
transposing instruments [see (a)]. But, confusingly, this was not the universal
practice: Bach, Mozart and Schubert (but only in his Second Symphony) used this
system, but Handel, Haydn and Beethoven did not. They preferred to shown the
notes at their actual pitch on the score [b].
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A further ambiguity relates to the matter of rolls: the rapid alternate use of
two sticks on a single drum to give a virtually continuous sound. Some
composers (for example, Mozart) indicate this on the timpani part as a trill
[c], despite the fact that for every other instrument such an instruction would
require two adjacent notes to be played in rapid succession. But to confuse the
issue, other composers (such as Haydn) prefer to show a roll as a sequence of
semiquavers, demisemiquavers or even hemidemisemiquavers, often with no
consistency even within a single work [d]. Beethoven even managed the rare feat
of using both notations within a single prestissimo bar at the end of his Fifth
Symphony [e]. Exactly what he had in mind is really anyone's guess. As might be
expected, Hector Berlioz (himself a timpanist) left nothing to chance,
specifying his requirements in absolute detail [f]. It is also typical of
Berlioz that he should hold the record for the greatest number of timpani in a
standard repertoire composition: eight pairs of timpani played by ten
timpanists in his Grande Messe des morts.
Before the introduction of pedal timpani, composers had to take care to allow a
timpanist time to retune if they wished to change key within a movement
(timpanists are adept at retuning their drums even while the orchestra is
playing at full volume all around them). But where this was inconvenient
musically, composers would often accept an out-of-tune timpani stroke rather
then having to manage with none at all; where such a situation is encountered
today, a pedal timpanist will invariably correct the note without the audience,
the orchestra or even the conductor being any the wiser.
For many years, the Alderley Edge Orchestra used timpani that were manufactured
in London around 1920 by Hawkes & Son, a company founded in 1865 by William Henry Hawkes. The company followed a
rival course to Boosey & Company, concentrating on band and orchestral music publishing, but also
diversifying into the manufacture of instruments, fittings and reeds. A merger
of the two companies, to form Boosey & Hawkes, took place in 1930. Although these venerable drums had acquired a few
understandable dents over the years, they had regularly been fitted with new
skins as required and sounded as good as when they left the Edmonton factory a
century ago.
Sadly, however, the orchestra has finally had to move with the times and change
to the pedal timpani shown in the photograph above. This change has been
brought about by the change in the orchestra's repertoire in recent years that
has resulted in the playing of larger scale works requiring more rapid retuning
of timpani than can be achieved by manual drums.
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