# Rachmaninov Symphony no.2 - end of 1st movement timpani



## nobleturtle

My Google searches haven't been helpful with this question so I thought I'd post it here and maybe someone knows.

As many of you here know, the final chord at the end of the first movement of Rachmaninov Symphony no.2 is an emphatic sforzando E played in unison by cello and bass. However, in about half (maybe slightly more than half) the recordings I hear, there is the addition of timpani. Does anyone know how this practice was started and on what basis? The score I have from IMSLP shows no timpani on the final chord.

Personally, I like it much more without the timpani. There's something about that clean deep unison attack pulled from the string that's very special and pleasing to me. The addition of timpani makes the ending somewhat ordinary.


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## Pugg

Will check this out for you.

Welcome to TalkClassical by the way.


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## Woodduck

nobleturtle said:


> My Google searches haven't been helpful with this question so I thought I'd post it here and maybe someone knows.
> 
> As many of you here know, the final chord at the end of the first movement of Rachmaninov Symphony no.2 is an emphatic sforzando E played in unison by cello and bass. However, in about half (maybe slightly more than half) the recordings I hear, there is the addition of timpani. Does anyone know how this practice was started and on what basis? The score I have from IMSLP shows no timpani on the final chord.
> 
> *Personally, I like it much more without the timpani. There's something about that clean deep unison attack pulled from the string that's very special and pleasing to me. The addition of timpani makes the ending somewhat ordinary.*


I agree. I don't think the timpani is in the original score, but how it appeared I don't know. It sounds like something Stokowski would have done.


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## Merl

From what I can glean from elsewhere, the timpani was originally added for 'emphasis' by various Russian conductors over the years (dunno who started it but the practice seems to have originated in Russia). It's just become almost a tradition. Whether it needs or warrants it is a matter of personal taste. I like it, tbh.


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## nobleturtle

Thanks for the insights everyone. A bit mysterious how that timpani crept its way into common practice. Obviously if anyone has more specifics I'd love to hear.


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## Larkenfield

I like the Timpani because it's a bit more emphatic, and perhaps that's why it was added. I would check any of the Eugene Ormandy performances to see if the Timpany was used - a conductor who was a close friend with the composer and may have received that instruction from him - again, if used. I haven't had a chance today to check one of his recordings.


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## Vaneyes

Another vote for.

*Rachmaninov*: Symphony 2, w. LSO/Rozhdestvensky (IMP Cl., Regis). Recorded March 10/11, 1988, All Saints' Church, Tooting, London. Recording Engineer: Trygg Tryggvason, :tiphat:


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## EdwardBast

The timpani definitely isn't in the score. Well, it's not in mine, anyway.


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## David Phillips

I don't understand why conductors muck about with Rachmaninov's music. I always like to hear the tam-tam crash fading to nothing at the close of the Symphonic Dances, but rarely do. Perhaps conductors dislike a quiet ending and prefer to milk the applause.


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## Larkenfield

Eugene Ormandy, close friend and colleague of Rachmanoff, does use Timpani at the end of the 1st movement of his Columbia recording with the Philadelphia Orchestra within the last minute. 

Andre Previn in his famous 1973 performance with the LSO also uses Timpani. Because I'm used to it, I would find the ending to be empty without the rhythm and sound of it. 

One can check the Timpani part at IMSLP and see that it's playing during the last three bars of the 1st movement. In other words, Rachmaninoff wrote the instrument into the score.


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## R3PL4Y

I had wondered about this before as well. It doesnt seem impossible to me that Rachmaninoff may have approved this in some performance of the work and this then became a tradition, as this was something he was known to do. I definitely agree about the tam tam in the symphonic dances as well, and it is very clear from the score that he intended for it to ring out after the rest of the orchestra.


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## nobleturtle

Larkenfield said:


> Andre Previn in his famous 1973 performance with the LSO also uses Timpani. Because I'm used to it, I would find the ending to be empty without the rhythm and sound of it.


I don't hear timpani at end of first movement in the Previn/LSO 1973 recording. I don't hear it in his Royal Philharmonic recording either.


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## Larkenfield

Okay, I see what you mean with regard to the Timpani on the very last note marked sFF. No, Ormandy and Previn do not use it there. Sorry for the misunderstanding. The question is: who _does_ use it, what recordings? According to the score the timpani is silent, and I also prefer it that way. Best wishes.


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## nobleturtle

Larkenfield said:


> Okay, I see what you mean with regard to the Timpani on the very last note marked sFF. No, Ormandy and Previn do not use it there. Sorry for the misunderstanding. The question is: who _does_ use it, what recordings? According to the score the timpani is silent, and I also prefer it that way. Best wishes.


Yes, I mean very last note of first movement.

Of the recordings I own, these include the timpani thwack:
Jansons/St.Petersburg
Gergiev/LSO
Rozhdestvensky/LSO
Zinman/Baltimore

and these do not include the timpani:
Ashkenazy/Concertgebouw
Maazel/BPO
Pletnev/RNO (my favorite recording of this piece)
Previn/LSO, 1973
Previn/RPO


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## Larkenfield

The thing for me about having the timpani on the last note of the 1st movement is that IMO it makes the conclusion sound _too_ _final_, and I believe that's why Rachmaninoff left it off the last note in the score. There's three movements left to play! If it had been the final movement of the entire symphony, I would have imagined that Rachmaninoff wanted the timpani played on the last note for that _decisive sense of ending_. But over the years I have noticed that certain conductors will make additions or subtractions to certain scores, and now I get to add Rachmaninoff to the list, as if he didn't have a reason not to write for the timpani the way he did... Anyway, apologies again for misunderstanding your initial post... As far as what Janson, Gergiev, Rozhdestvensky and Zinman have superimposed over the score? All I say is, "Naughty naughty!"


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## SixFootScowl

Interestingly. When I went to check this timpani at the end of the first movement of the 2nd symphony, I mistakenly listened to the endings of the first movement of the 1st symphony. I have maybe 6 different recordings. In this set (a great download deal for 99 cents by the way), the first movement of the first symphony ends with a cymbal crash. None of the other ones had that.
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B8M11J5/









NOTE: I say cymbal crash because I have no idea what they call it.


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## mbhaub

A cymbal crash? Now that I've never heard - who is performing this?

Many (most?) recordings and performances of this great symphony have an added timpani note at the very end of this movement - and it is completely wrong! Rachmaninoff was quite clear what he wanted: a guttural grunt from the cello and bass:








Yet so many conductors think they know better than the composer and add an intrusive timpani whack to it. There are many otherwise fine recordings that ruin this effective orchestration by their meddling. Rachmaninoff was a brilliant orchestrator; if he wanted that extra note he would have added it - but he never did! Andre Previn with the LSO understands it and doesn't add it. The late Mariss Jansons did in all of his recordings, and he should have known better.

Someday maybe conductors will trust and respect this symphony and always perform it the way it is written: without cuts and added percussion. The first movement repeat I can live without, since Rachmaninoff didn't play it when he conducted it. It would be interesting to trace where that added timpani note began and why.


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## SixFootScowl

mbhaub said:


> A cymbal crash? Now that I've never heard - who is performing this?


Hopefully I did not confuse things because my post is for the end of the first movement *of the first symphony* and I probably should have found a different thread for it.

It is Symphony No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 13: I. Grave. Allegro ma non troppo · Moscow State Symphony Orchestra & Pavel Kogan

*Here it is queued near the end of the first movement* so you can hear it.


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## EdwardBast

mbhaub said:


> A cymbal crash? Now that I've never heard - who is performing this?
> 
> Many (most?) recordings and performances of this great symphony have an added timpani note at the very end of this movement - and it is completely wrong! Rachmaninoff was quite clear what he wanted: a guttural grunt from the cello and bass:
> 
> It would be interesting to trace where that added timpani note began and why.


I first heard it on a recording by the Pittsburgh Symphony under William Steinberg (Command Classics), a performance with the full panoply of cuts - early 1960s maybe? Probably not the earliest example.

As one who knows the symphony thoroughly in its full form and in the various cut versions, I believe a few of the large cuts vastly improve the work - and I realize virtually no one defends this position these days. I wouldn't touch the first movement or the slow movement, but both the scherzo and the finale, I believe benefit from large cuts. Specifically, the scherzo is a seven part rondo with coda. The cut version makes it a five part rondo, with the sections in red cut:

ABACABA

Same deal with the finale, whose exposition and recap are structured in the manner of a sonata rondo. The first theme section in the recap, like the reprise in the scherzo, is ternary (ABA). In both movements reprising the B section thoroughly kills the momentum. Moreover, the return to A after the B section works wonderfully when the return is surprising, as it is the first time through in both the scherzo and finale. When reprised, the B sections and the retransition to the main idea fall flat.

Interestingly, while composing the scherzo Rachmaninoff wrote a letter to Taneyev worried that he needed some sort of guidance on the handling of rondo form.


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## mbhaub

I don't know...in the hands of a fine orchestra and a conductor who has a sense of drama the whole thing works just fine for me. It is a long symphony, but so are those of Bruckner and Mahler and no one seems to want to cut them. I'm of the Erich Leinsdorf school of The Composer's Advocate. Play what the man wrote!


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## mbhaub

Fritz Kobus said:


> Hopefully I did not confuse things because my post is for the end of the first movement *of the first symphony* and I probably should have found a different thread for it.
> 
> It is Symphony No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 13: I. Grave. Allegro ma non troppo · Moscow State Symphony Orchestra & Pavel Kogan
> 
> *Here it is queued near the end of the first movement* so you can hear it.


Confuse isn't quite the right word...there's quite a difference between Symphony *1* and Symphony *2*. But yes, once again the conductor has added that cymbal crash - it's not in the score. The cymbal part does have a whopping three notes in the first movement - and two of those are for suspended cymbal. Very dull for the players. Many conductors have tampered with the percussion parts in this symphony, usually cutting some of it out - Rach wrote a lot for the triangle and it gets tiring to the ear.


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## EdwardBast

mbhaub said:


> I don't know...in the hands of a fine orchestra and a conductor who has a sense of drama the whole thing works just fine for me. It is a long symphony, but so are those of Bruckner and Mahler and no one seems to want to cut them. I'm of the Erich Leinsdorf school of The Composer's Advocate. Play what the man wrote!


Rachmaninoff isn't like Bruckner and Mahler. There are only a couple of major works of his that are digressive or less than directly to the point. The Second Symphony (and the First Piano Sonata) is one of them. At the time he was living in Dresden and under the spell of Wagner, claiming he carried a miniature score of _Die Meistersinger_ around with him in his coat pocket. The problem with the scherzo is that the retransition from the central C section (ABACABA) is much more powerful than the retransition to the final rondo statement. So, as part of a seven part rondo, the final statement of the theme is inevitably a dreadful anticlimax. Same problem in the finale. He hobbles the dramatic arc in both movements by unnecessary repetition.

Once again, the above is a minority viewpoint. Virtually no one these days would accept it.


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## Woodduck

EdwardBast said:


> Rachmaninoff isn't like Bruckner and Mahler. There are only a couple of major works of his that are digressive or less than directly to the point. The Second Symphony (and the First Piano Sonata) is one of them. At the time he was living in Dresden and under the spell of Wagner, claiming he carried a miniature score of _Die Meistersinger_ around with him in his coat pocket. The problem with the scherzo is that the retransition from the central C section (ABACABA) is much more powerful than the retransition to the final rondo statement. So, as part of a seven part rondo, the final statement of the theme is inevitably a dreadful anticlimax. Same problem in the finale. He hobbles the dramatic arc in both movements by unnecessary repetition.
> 
> Once again, the above is a minority viewpoint. Virtually no one these days would accept it.


I think you're right, EB. As a composer, I think you're absolutely right. But for some reason, when I get into the piece, I don't want to be a composer and I don't want to be right. I just want more B; it's too good not to hear again. Like a potato chip, i can't eat just one.


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## SixFootScowl

EdwardBast said:


> The problem with the scherzo is that the retransition from the central C section (*ABACABA*) is much more powerful than the retransition to the final rondo statement.


See. Here is my problem. That ABACABA stuff may as well be ABRACADBRA for all it means to me. Maybe not knowing that stuff, I don't mind the transitions whatever they may be and where ever they may go.


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## EdwardBast

Fritz Kobus said:


> See. Here is my problem. That ABACABA stuff may as well be ABRACADBRA for all it means to me. Maybe not knowing that stuff, I don't mind the transitions whatever they may be and where ever they may go.


This is not esoteric. Just listen to the cut scherzo (for example, the Steinberg/Pittsburgh recording) and any complete version and the difference will either matter to you or it won't. It requires no study or diagramming of the structure. You'll either feel it or you won't.


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## Vasks

As a composer, I know whether I want a timpani stroke or a cymbal crash on the last note of the first movement of my symphony. 

However, if a conductor adds one of those, it really does not change the piece; so I find the argument to ignore the composer's orchestration of the final note to be frivolous.


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