Favorite Orchestral Moments for Big Drums (Timpani and Bass Drum) - Part Three
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ก.ค. 2024
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Richard Atkinson continues to discuss his favorite orchestral moments for "big drums" (timpani and bass drum). This is a fair use educational commentary that uses excerpts from the following recordings/performances:
Wagner: “Das Rheingold”
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Georg Solti
Fasolt: Walter Kreppel
Fricka: Kirsten Flagstad
Wagner: “Siegfried”
Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele, Pierre Boulez
Siegfried: Manfred Jung
Fafner: Fritz Hübner
Bruckner: Symphony No. 8
hr-Sinfonieorchester, Eliahu Inbal
Strauss: “Also Sprach Zarathustra”
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Georg Solti
Strauss: “Don Quixote”
Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, George Pehlivanian
Mahler: Symphony No. 4 (another of my blasphemous edits)
SWR Symphonieorchester, Michael Gielen
(quiet first page and first two notes of outburst)
and
hr-Sinfonieorchester, Andrés Orozco-Estrada
(downbeat of outburst to the end)
00:00 - Richard Wagner
10:11 - Anton Bruckner
15:34 - Richard Strauss
30:01 - Gustav Mahler - เพลง
![If you can't hear this then you're not an audiophile [See description for link to followup video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/48PxwspDvrE/mqdefault.jpg)
There’s a terrifying timpani moment in Strauss’s Elektra. After Elektra is told (erroneously) that Orestes is dead, she tells her sister that they must do the murders themselves (“Nun muss es hier von uns geschehn”). Before that line, the timpani erupt out of nowhere. I love it!
It’s at 57:07 in this recording, if you’re curious:
th-cam.com/video/4cPJzgiwFMM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=WAHEaULNFD-RI0H-
@@matthewbbenton I didn’t remember that moment, but I thought about including the opening bars that include both bass drum and timpani.
@@Richard.AtkinsonMight I also suggest the Timpani roll on a pedal point F# in the moments following Elektra’s recognition of Orest? I know it’s just a roll, but there’s something about how it changes the harmony around it from total chaos to an ecstatic dominant pedal point that gets me every time.
And do not forget the final nerve-wrenching passage of Salomé, when Herod screams to his guard to kill "the monster", and there's a quick and horrible scene with brass chords and timpani strikes. First time I heard it, felt like my own body was crashed by the utter noise and dissonance.
Loved it.
Loved the change of timbre and tone in: "or more Patreon supporters..." 🤣
"Opera is when a character is stabbed and instead of immediately dying, sings for minutes at one end."
Fafner: "Ja, ich kann konfirm..."
I actually love this series, since while percussions are often overlooked the care and craft of a composer also can be seen by how s/he actually uses them. A very good compendium for students in Composition.
Edit: Yes, do the all-Mahler video!
"Pre-fight trash talk" are words I never knew I needed to hear from a serious musicologist, but here we are :p
OH THAT CLIFFHANGER AT THE END YOU DID US DIRTY
That Mahler excerpt made me really fancy some more content on his symphonies from you. Perhaps a full video on a single symphony? Either way, I'll watch anything you put out. Cheers!
This guy can tell which symphony is being played just by listening to 0.3s excerpt of music, i can bet Richard has at least 30 pages of notes ready for each mahler symphony - Im looking forward to those videos in the future!
@@dedikandrej At least 30 pages of mental notes for each symphony!
Anytime soon a video on Bruckner´s 7th, second movement? That part, after the colossal climax, where the flute answers alone is extremely touching.
The last Bruckner example made me think of the very end of Camille Saint-Saëns's 2nd movement of his 3rd symphony, where a timpani plays 3 tones C E G to hammer home the final C major chord.
Please we want a video for Mahler... I'm just discovering his music and I listen to the 6th last night, and I was struck by some timpani moments that are completly epic.
I've been teasing in the comments a ridiculously long video about the finale of his 6th for many years now. Maybe it's finally time?
Ah I too desperately need your 6th 4 mov. analysis!
Giuseppe verdi's dies irae also makes great use of the bass drum.
It might just be that I've been listening to it more recently, but when it came to timpani and Mahler, the first that came to mind for me was the finale of the 7th symphony.
This has convinced me I will definitely have to look more into Bruckner too.
ACH!! I can't believe he stopped the video right before that chord!!!!!!
Y’all wait till next episode when he starts pulling out Shosty and Stravinsky
God, that Mahler 4 is so good
More Mahler please
This channel is a Paradise for classical music lovers. Greetings and congratulations from Argentina!
The enfant terrible is surely the Concerto for Two Timpani and Orchestra by Philip Glass.
I hope this doesn't disappoint you, but I will NOT be including that in part 4.
Noo the last few chords of the Mahler are missing, they are some of my favourite moments in this Symphony
Wow, you do such a good job at braking down Wagner, I could watch you go through the entire Ring! More pleeeease!!
Video has to be longer👀 I love this series
May I suggest an "analysis" of Leos Janacek "Sinfonietta"?
We need more pre or post fight trashtalks!
please the Mahler video; and love how you represent the leitmotifs alongside the score with the pictures
Speaking about Strauss and timpani the Burlesque for piano and orchestra is quite interesting.
Great video per usual! Can’t believe you didn’t play the rest of Mahler at the very end of the video!
The Wagner one sounds like the riff in Leader of the Pack
Have loved Mahler 4 since early teens - had never heard anything like it and was transfixed by all its movements. And yes the ending of slow movement is sublime. Good choice 👍. The coda of Brahms 1 mvt 4, I quite like the timpani in that too.
It seems that many themes in this video are close relatives of the main theme of Symphonie Fantastique :)
One moment of timpani usage I like is in Regers Chant of the Transfigured op. 71. Unfortunately it's super unknown. In the only recording there is its at ~11:50 where after the huge climax the timpani plays a triolic off-beat rhythm under the choir. I like to think that this is a naturalistic depiction of the heartbeat after some ... very human climax. 👀
In every case it fits the heartbeat of the audience experiencing this work.
Take a look at the Shostakovich's symphonies, if you did not. There is so many epic moments like that.
I thought this was one of your most fun videos. I can't believe how much work you put into these. Not just the music, but the graphics and the cartoon clips, etc. And THE MUSIC knowledge! Amazing!
Need your favorite trombone moments and your vocal impression of them yesterday.
Awesome stuff yet again. Your channel is nothing but net.
Good stuff. I hope at some point we see the timpani solo at the end of Shostakovich 8th, movement 3
You must be reading my mind 😮
Please, do make a video on Strauss's Don Quixote. That would be quite interesting to watch.
Missed the great death scene.
Noooo you cut off the Mahler right before that beautiful key change😭
This is so you’d go back and watch my old video again!
The section at 14:32 is completely botched by the conductor (or i guess my taste is just very different). When played much more slowly this sounds SO MUCH better, more like a giant march. when played this fast it completely loses that heavy marching quality.
I agree. Thielemann does this really well in my opinion.
YES!!!!!!!!! Now we can hang out again! Just started listening. Bravo again!
Yes! More Mahler please!
speaking of berlioz my favorite timpani moment in symphonie fantanstique is at the end of the 4th movement. the youth orchestra i was in played it some time ago and the last big G major chord after the guillotine chop contained a Bb from the timpani which i always thought was a cool attention to detail about how everyone is celebrating but our "hero" is dead but it turned out our timpanist was just bad and hadnt tuned the Bb up to a B😂
Thank you!
Such a great series!❤
Let’s go! Nice to have you back, man, your Bruckner analyses are longed for and always welcome. Thanks for the hard work, Richard!
Please a Mahler single video.
Yeah new badass timpani video I almost leaped for joy 🤩
Exactly how many of you have realised before that the 3rd movement of Beethoven's last quartet and the Last movement of Mahler's 3rd symphony open with essentially the same motif ?
More Mahler please!
Such a lovely row of video essays!
Though, I can't believe you haven't included Carl Nielsens 4th symphony, at least with the timpani-duet
It will be in part 4!
I would continue Wagner's brass/drum line with Walter Schumann's Dragnet theme:D
Seems plausible: leitmotifs of Giants, then the Dragon and later, Joe Friday😅
Seriously though, Wagner's experiments with low and pompous music for bad guys may be the roots of cinematic gumshoes and other tough reluctant heroes.
truly drumming
Some nice pictures.
The foot pedal was a wonderful invention.
Although I am only a want-to-be percussionist, I think nowadays you have to mention Elliot Carter and metric modulation when you talk about timpani.
Timpani is often drowned out or is not loud enough in recordings. I would be nice if you could digitize a live performance to pre-set the sound levels of each instrument.
You provide nice imagery in your explanations sometimes: the Four Horsemen, swarming locusts, especially for someone with a short attention span. You also provide alot of unity between your videos.
Ya know one composer I never see you discuss on here is Schumann. He’s my absolute favorite composer and I’m wondering if you could make a video on something of his. Like your favorite Clara theme moments or something?
Yesssss
10:50 sounds like Batman
Modern film composers owe a lot to the composers in this video.
Queremos más videos!!!
I want that mahler tinpani moments video 😢
7 measures ago!
Thoughts on the tempo in the Bruckner finale? I like it a bit slower as in Celibidache's recordings... it always made me think of the Avengers or superheroes, not the four horsemen. But I can see that also!
looking forward to when you do a whole vid on timpani in stravinsky WITHOUT mentioning the Rite of Spring lol
Stravinsky has lots of great timpani and bass drum moments that are not in the Rite of Spring, but they might not make it into the video.
@@Richard.Atkinson you should do an all-atonal/serialist extravaganza for timpani
"SAAAAANFT SCHLOOOOOSS SHLAAAAAF DEIN AUUUG"
It's a tongue twister!
@@Richard.Atkinson It's hard not to shout whenever I enter a conversation... Cause, you know, they wouldn't understand.
I also couldn't help but wonder why Bruckner didn't replay that timpani moment in his 8th. Now I know...
Meaning you don't think it works?
@@Richard.Atkinson To my ear it lessens the impact and forcefulness of the next phrase, not substantially but it is definitely noticeable!
Since I've only listened to Celibidaches Bruckner 8, every other recording just seems way too fast. Especially in those moments you pointed out.
21:15 theme in the strings reminds me of the opening from Brahms’ first piano concerto in d minor, I have to wonder if Strauss didn’t inspire his theme from it🤔
Wow, I never noticed that before! Probably because my brain identifies that Strauss moment as a rhythmic distortion of the original theme, and the original theme doesn't sound as close to the Brahms theme?
@@Richard.Atkinson i love these ambiguities! Neither didn’t i think the original strauss theme sounded like brahms but especially seing it on score now rang a bell for me! How fascinating, i can’t unhear it from now on😅
@@shawnwilliamson9267 The incomplete one at 21:41 (bottom right corner) sounds even more like it. It's difficult to hear in this recording.
part 4 rite of spring?
In Das Rheingold Alberich transforms into a snake, not a dragon.
True! Though in mythology, “serpent” and “dragon” are often used interchangeably, and Wagner certainly used the same leitmotif for both.
It's called a "Wurm" in German which translates as worm or, archaically, snake or dragon. That is the word Wagner uses for the creatures in both Das Rheingold and Siegfried (though he mostly calls it "Schlange" - snake - in Rheingold). I did not spot the word "Drache" (dragon) in Wagner's text.
In NE England, we have a traditional comic song called "The Lambton Worm" based on a local legend from County Durham which tells how bold Sir John (Lambton) slew the worm. Clearly this wasn't an ordinary earthworm or snake: it was something much larger - a huge serpent or, as with the case of St George, whose myth it echoes, a dragon.
Chinese dragons at festivals often look like huge serpents rather than a creature with wings and four legs.
In Norse mythology, Midgard (the earth) was surrounded by a huge serpent, fire-breathing in some accounts.
The mighty sea serpent Leviathan of the Old Testament of the bible was also fire-breathing.
Dragons are cooler though
I want the Don Quixote analysis (iF yOu HaD mOrE pAtReOn SuPpOrTeRs)
7 minutes ago!
Just listen to the end of Mahlers 3rd Symphony conducted by Salonen who let play the final timpani bars very hard and at the very end he added the bass drum to overwhelming effect. th-cam.com/video/M622tyRUYKg/w-d-xo.htmlsi=QklDV8DItdyOT8ko
I greatly enjoy your work, but I always find myself wondering: you do realize that there has been music written by non-German composers... right?
Stay tuned for part 4 of this series - so far in my script, zero German composers! Also, only 2 of the 4 composers in this video were German.
7 seconds ago
Not including "Symphonic Metamorphosis" is timpaniphobic!!