{"id":10851,"date":"2022-02-24T16:05:52","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T16:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/music-matters\/?p=10851"},"modified":"2022-02-24T19:04:08","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T19:04:08","slug":"a-moment-to-savour-the-nagging-timpanist-in-mendelssohns-first-symphony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/music-matters\/2022\/02\/24\/a-moment-to-savour-the-nagging-timpanist-in-mendelssohns-first-symphony\/","title":{"rendered":"A moment to savour: the nagging timpanist in Mendelssohn’s first symphony"},"content":{"rendered":"

Timpani<\/em> players can have a fairly perfunctory role to play in music from the Classical era, largely (though not always) confined to articulating cadential moments in a symphony, or underlining a moment punctuated by the brass. (I\u2019m aware this isn\u2019t always the case, before people start writing in about later works such as Beethoven 9 and Berlioz to start with; and then there’s Bartok in the twentieth century…!). Timpani<\/em> at the time were limited in pitch to a fourth or a fifth apart, tuned (until late in the nineteenth century) by a somewhat laborious method of \u2018taps\u2019 located around the head, which players had to turn by hand until the tension at the required pitch was uniform across the whole skin of the instrument.<\/p>\n

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Portrait of Mendelssohn Eduard Magnus (1846)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And then there\u2019s Mendelssohn\u2019s first symphony, and in particular, the third movement. In the Scherzo, Mendelssohn uses the timpani<\/em> in an understated dialogue with the strings (although \u2018nags the strings\u2019 might be a more apt description), gently cajoling them out of the central Trio section and encouraging them back to the reprise of the Minuet.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a striking moment; there\u2019s not much happening melodically, sustained chords high in the violins over gently undulating legato phrases rising and falling the lower strings; it\u2019s as though the timpanist thinks \u2018right, I\u2019ve had enough of this: time to get back to the start of the movement, folks!\u2019 and so insistently begins to play in a way that provokes a response from the strings, forcing them out of their lull and back to the urgent, insistent character of the opening. (The timpani<\/em> part is marked \u2018solo\u2019 at this point, so it\u2019s definitely intentional). It\u2019s ever so slightly menacing, at one point prodding the strings into an uncomfortable, diminished chord \u2013 and played with hard mallets rather than soft ones, it gives a wonderfully crisp, penetrating edge to the sound. It\u2019s only two notes, but boy, do they work\u2026<\/p>\n

Hear that moment for yourself 18 1\/2 minutes into the performance given here by Natalie Stutzman and the Orquestra Sinf\u00f4nica do Estado de S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 and then come and hear it live with us in Canterbury Cathedral<\/strong><\/a> on Saturday 12 March\u2026<\/p>\n