VIRTUOSO TIMPANI CONCERTOS
André Philidor (c.1647-1730) and Jacques
Philidor (1657-1708): Marche de Timbales
Johann Carl Christian Fischer (1752-1807):
Symphony with Eight Obbligato Timpani
Johann Melchior Molter (1696-1765):
Sinfonia No. 99 in F major
Johann Christoph Graupner (1683-1760):
Sinfonia
Georg Druschetzky (1745-1819): Concerto for
Six Timpani and Orchestra • Partita in C major
The earliest references in European literature to
kettledrums appear in accounts of the crusaders
confronting Moslem armies. For example, in his Life of
Saint Louis, Jean de Joinville describes meeting the
armies of the Sultan of Cairo at the Egyptian coastal city
of Damietta in the spring of 1248: “It was a sight to
enchant the eye, for the sultan’s arms were all of gold,
and where the sun caught them they shone resplendent.
The din this army made with its kettledrums and
Saracen horns was terrifying to hear” (Joinville &
Villehardouin, Chronicles of the Crusades, trans. M. R.
B. Shaw [Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1963], 201).
The persistent conflicts between the Ottoman
empire and western Europeans led to the adoption of
large Turkish-style kettledrums (kus) into western
military music. Large kettledrums were the prerogatives
of the Ottoman sultan’s elite military or Janissary guard.
In battle, capturing the Turkish kettledrums was a
source of pride. By the early fifteenth century western
nobles were entitled to employ military kettledrums and
trumpets. Even cities could obtain this right. For
example, in 1426 the Emperor Sigismund established
the privilege of having town city trumpeters and kettle
drummers in Augsburg.
The musicians had to be guild members and served
apprenticeships of up to six years. These guilds
persisted well into the late eighteenth century. Johann
Ernst Altenberg’s Versuch einer Anleitung zur heroischmusikalischen
Trompeter- und Pauker- Kunst (Halle,
1795) details some practices. Instructive for the
timpanist is the last chapter in which he discusses some
Schlagmanieren or types of beatings required of the
military timpanist.
The pairing of the drums stems from their military
use as instruments played while mounted on horseback
and normally a noble might have but one pair. Altenberg
tells us that on festival or special occasions more than
the normal pair of timpani could be used. He says that
several timpani of varying sizes and pitches (he infers as
many as eight) could be placed in a semicircular
arrangement for more comfortable performance. He
cites Johann Reichardt’s 1786 Cantus lugubris in
orbitum Friderici Magni borussorum regis (Cantata on
the death of Frederick the Great) in which four timpani
are needed to play in quick succession the pitches G A
flat c and d flat. Earlier in the text when mentioning
famous contemporary trumpeters and timpanists, he
cites Georg Druschetzky, composer of two works
presented on this recording. The other works recorded
no doubt also have their origins in court ceremonies or
entertainments.
Virtuoso timpanists from the eighteenth century or
early nineteenth centuries are not easy to identify. Georg
Roth, a Nuremberg timpani virtuoso, gave a concert at
the Kärntnertor Theater in Vienna on 29th April 1798.
The concert advertisement shows him performing on
sixteen timpani with three sticks in each hand. In the
earliest timpani tutor, Georges Kastner’s 1845 Méthode
complète et raisonée de timbales he cites an early 19thcentury
timpanist from Berlin who played a concerto on
ten timpani and juggled his sticks in the air as he ran
from drum to drum. Kastner also says that “the German
timpanists were, overall, very famous” and draws
particular attention to a celebrated timpanist from
Strasbourg called Willig, who “had a superb costume
and a big salary.”
The works on this recording present some
interesting differences from the normal eighteenthcentury
usage of two timpani with two trumpets in
which the timpani play the tonic and dominant notes of
the key. These avant-garde attempts to use more than
two pitches to reinforce the harmonic or melodic
structure of the music are paralleled in more recent
works using pedal mechanisms developed in the midnineteenth
and twentieth centuries.
The timpani of the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries were much smaller in diameter than those in
normal use today. The typical pair often measured about
eighteen and twenty-one inches in diameter, with a
shallow depth of about twelve to fifteen inches. The
slackness of the thick calf or goat-skin heads played by
very hard sticks gave a different sound, less resonant
and generally softer in dynamic impact that what is
heard today. The larger size of our modern timpani (the
largest drums in common use measure 32 inches in
diameter) thus create some different problems for the
modern timpanist who attempts to play the multiple
timpani works. Alexander Peter performs on eighteenthcentury
style drums mounted with goat-skin heads and
played upon with wooden sticks. Note the varying tone
colours he produces within these simple parameters.
This recording presents several styles of music for
more than two timpani. The phrase “multiple timpani”
music aptly describes it. The duet by the Philidor
brothers typifies the older semi-improvised style used by
military drummers. The works by Molter and Graupner
are elegant symphonic examples of court music in which
the timpanist enhances the bass, Fischer continues in this
tradition but includes more soloistic passages, and
Druschetzky displays the virtuosic capabilities inferred
by Altenberg and articulated by Kastner.
Scattered throughout the seventeenth century are
references to the use of the timpani in military music,
but the most consistent use of the instruments in other
contexts dates from the latter part of that century in
manuscripts preserved in Germany and France. The
best-known of these documents are several manuscripts
copied by André and Jacques Philidor, musicians and
music librarians at the court of Louis XIV at Versailles.
The Philidor brothers wrote the Marche de
timballes 4 for Louis XIV’s 1685 carousel. The work is
a duet with two pairs of drums tuned G and c and e and
g respectively. An initial motive unifies the seventeen
couplets. Homorhythmic sections contrast with
syncopated and imitative passages. The final couplet is a
virtuosic tour de force. Alexander Peter adds again a
level of virtuosity to this work by performing both parts
simultaneously.
For nearly two hundred years the Symphonie mit
acht obligaten Pauken 5-7 was thought to be by
Johann Wilhelm Hertel (1727-1789) since it is bound
with his other symphonies. In his 1977 Ph.D.
dissertation at the Wilhelm-Pieck University in Rostock,
Studien über das Musikschaffen Johann Christian und
Johann Wilhelm Hertels, Reinhard Diekow conclusively
determined on stylistic grounds that the work is not by
Hertel but Johann Carl Christian Fischer (1752-1807), a
music copyist, musician, and theatre director at the
Ludwigslust Palace near Schwerin in the employ of
Herzog Friedrich Franz I. Most likely Fischer wrote the
Sinfonia that requires four pairs of timpani, two
trumpets, two oboes, and strings for an entertainment
held in the beautifully decorated main ballroom, der
goldene Saal, probably in the 1780s or before his
retirement in 1792. The music is in Fischer’s hand
notated on paper from the late eighteenth century; no
composer is indicated. The work in C major is the first
known concerto for the timpani and features a writtenout
cadenza at the end of the first movement. The eight
timpani are tuned G A B c d e f and g. Leipzig born,
Johann Georg Hoese (d. 1801), court timpanist and
musician at Ludwigslust (1747-1800), may be the
soloist for whom Fischer wrote this concerto.
The first movement, a loosely constructed concerto
form, contrasts florid solo timpani passages, often using
Alberti-bass patterns with tutti sections in which the
trumpets and drums sound the tonic and dominant notes.
Fischer also uses the timpani melodically, alone or
doubling the oboes. A short Adagio provides a link to
the Allegretto third movement, a rondo with contrasting
sections in Gypsy and military styles.
Johann Melchior Molter (1696-1765) had a long
career associated primarily with the court in Karlsruhe,
where he died in 1765. In 1742 he was given charge of
the court orchestra for which he wrote many works. In
1747 Margrave Carl Friedrich gave Molter
responsibility to reorganize the court’s music where he
had an orchestra of about 25 musicians. Influenced by
the Mannheim school, the orchestra performed a variety
of music. Molter wrote many works that featured the
virtuoso players of the ensemble. His symphonic music
exhibits an interest in sonority and acoustical and
technical possibilities. His Sinfonia No. 99 in F Major
8-12, written around 1750, uses five timpani (F G A B
flat and c), two flutes (originally in D, the so-called terz
or third flute), oboe, two clarini, strings, and cembalo.
Molter’s music abounds in colourful timbres. For
example, he contrasts the opening tutti with a soft
passage for flutes and timpani. The clarini add a noble
and majestic brilliance. The timpani generally reinforce
the bass line, but often add soloistic flourishes. The
Sinfonia begins with an Allegro movement in binary
form followed by four other similarly structured
movements: an Andante with solo flutes, timpani, and
strings, a Presto in the style of a bourée, a gigue-like
Allegro, and a concluding Minuet. Each of these
movements is full of unique and colourful passages.
Indeed, timbre becomes a structural element in his
music. Very few of Molter’s works are edited and
available for modern performance. He wrote some 170
sinfonias, many concertos for various instruments, much
chamber music, and several solos for wind instruments.
Another mid-eighteenth century work, also in F
major, using multiple timpani is Darmstadt court
composer Johann Christoph Graupner’s (1683-1760)
Sinfonia a 2 corni, timpani, 2 violini, viola, e cembalo
13-18 that was probably written in 1746 or 1747. In his
youth Graupner was a music copyist and his scores
evidence a clean appearance. Contemporaries
mentioned his manuscript as comparable to music
engraving in quality. His symphonic output is vast,
some 113 symphonies, over half being hybrid forms
between the symphony and suite. In fact, Graupner uses
four timpani in 35 of his symphonies and five in one
other. The work here recorded uses six and is more of a
suite. It begins, as does the one by Molter, with an
opening vivace movement in binary form in the French
style. Then follow five short movements also in binary
form: aria, minuet, bourée, aria, and gigue. Graupner
unifies the entire work by having each movement in the
same key: F major, appropriate to the pastoral effect that
the work evokes.
The timpani part generally ornaments the bass line.
The six drums are tuned to F G A B-flat c and d. The
smaller eighteenth-century styled drums and hard
wooden sticks achieve a clarity not so easily realised on
the larger modern timpani. Note particularly, however,
how the timpani effectively blend with the strings and
high horns, a different type of sonority than that of the
more usual trumpet and timpani timbre.
Of the virtuoso timpanists identified in the late
eighteenth century, the most important as a composer of
several works, perhaps written for himself as soloist, is
Georg Druschetzky (1745-1819). Druschetzky was a
military musician and timpanist in Linz (1775-1783).
After the military reforms of 1783, he moved to Vienna
and soon became a member of the Tonkünstler-Sozietät.
In 1786 or 1787 he left Vienna to enter the service of
Count Anton Grassalkovics in Pressburg (Bratislava)
until 1790. Between 1791 and 1800 he was in the
service of Cardinal József Batthyány, at first in
Pressburg, then in Pest. After the Cardinal’s death in
1800, Archduke Joseph Anton Johann employed
Druschetzky as an oboist and composer in Buda until
his death in 1819.
While working for Cardinal Batthyány at his
country palace in Rechnitz, Druschetzky wrote several
compositions that require six to eight timpani. A
surviving inventory of the Cardinal’s music and musical
instruments lists among many instruments, seven
timpani. Much of Druschetzky’s music is now in the
Hungarian National Library in Budapest and remains
unpublished. Extant from the 1790s are two concerti,
one for orchestra in C major: the other for winds or
Harmoniemusik in B flat major, and an orchestral
Partita in C in major, each work requires six
diatonically tuned timpani. Ungaria, a work for solo
violin and orchestra, dated in the score 1799, a
Polonaise with Variations, and a Grand Symphony in C
major, dated 1799, each call for seven timpani tuned G
A B c d e and f. Also an oboist, Druschetzky’s Concerto
per il oboa e timpano exhibits many difficult timpani
techniques (the work requires eight timpani tuned
similarly to the Fischer), including rolls, beating on two
drums simultaneously, and many cross stickings.
Characteristic of Druschetzky’s approach to writing
for multiple timpani is his consistent use of the timpani
primarily as a melodic instrument, often doubling the
woodwinds or high strings. His Concerto for Six
Timpani and Orchestra 1-3 nicely illustrates his style.
He wrote this C major work in the late1790s. It has the
usual three movements, but in making a modern
scholarly/performing edition several problems
confronted me: first, a score version exists in which the
first movement is contracted by eliminating echoing
passages for woodwinds and strings; second, a set of
parts for the first movement survives that was made in
1932 for a performance of this movement (a trumpet
part is dated November 1932); and third, a complete set
of original orchestral parts is preserved. I made the
edition used for this recording from the orchestral parts
because they were more consistent with Druschetzky’s
other works and because the expanded first movement is
more musically satisfying. Although the title page of the
timpani part indicates a concerto for timpani and
cimbalom, no cimbalom part is extant or indicated in
any of the scores. This movement also contains a
written-out cadenza, in fact two versions are extant
besides a modern one written in 1932. In this
performance Alexander Peter uses these materials as the
basis for his cadenza.
The second movement is a contrasting Andante with
the melody played in unison with the strings or
woodwinds. The third movement is a series of variations
in which the timpani play a highly ornamented melodic
part. When taken allegro the virtuosic nature of the part
is apparent. The rondo-like quality unifies the main
subject and the variations; note that the timpanist must
play almost continually throughout the movement.
Druschetzky’s delightful Partita in C major 19-22,
scored for flute, two oboes, two horns, two trumpets,
and strings, begins with a short orchestral introduction
based on the movement’s main melodic material, a
triplet figure. Within the limitations of the six notes (G
A B c d and e) Druschetzky holds the listener’s attention
in this Allegro con moto movement through timbral and
dynamic contrasts and solo flourishes. Note how the
timpani sounding two octaves below the flute and
violins articulate the primary tune. To enhance the
variety within the movement Druschetzky uses Albertibass
patterns, a brief shift to the A minor, the relative
minor key to C major, and in the concluding few
measures strong and simple harmonic emphasis, ending
with a virtuoso flourish. Next follows an elegant Minuet
and Trio. The regular phrasing, so typical of
Druschetzky’s style, allows for delicate contrasts
between the full ensemble and timpani and the solo
flute. In the Trio the flute and timpani double the
melody three octaves apart. The Adagio, a roundedbinary
structure influenced by the French overture style,
features staccato and embellished doubled-dotted
figures. The concluding rollicking Rondo: Allegro con
molto contains the stylistic traits already cited, note
especially the extended gypsy-influenced A minor
passage in which the timpani and flute and first violin
echo each other. Druschetzky also allows the timpanist
opportunity for two short cadenzas. Alexander Peter’s
virtuosic performance brings new life this and the other
works presented on this recording.
Harrison Powley