# I love Tympani... do you suggest any pieces?



## kingtim

I absolutely love the Tympani: It's bold noises, it's power, and the way it changes any piece.

Can anyone suggest any pieces which are heavily influenced by Tympani?


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## Jaime77

timps are prominent in Nielsen's 4th Symhony - very exciting stuff


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## Aramis

Mozart's string quartets

HAHAHAHAHAHA I'M LIKE TAPKAARA <takes cage with kitten inside and jumps overboard>


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## emiellucifuge

Mahlers 2nd symphony, the timpani is used quite prominently and also has small solo fragments.


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## hlolli

Jón Leifs Saga symphony 



 besides Shields, chains, swords, bronze horns, sledgehammer you can hear alot of timpani.

Shostakovich uses timpani frequently in his symphonies, great examlpe 




And of course the cliché R. Strauss opening of Also sprach zarathura.


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## joen_cph

The Nørgård concerto for percussion and orchestra, For A Change,
has some pretty thunderous passages. The dacapo recording by Gert Mortensen,
coupled with the opera Siddharta, is better than the other, mixed-Scandinavian
one, which, as far as I remember, also includes a Sallinen work.


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## Weston

Another cliché, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, movement 2. The timpani take over the melody for brief motifs alternating with the full orchestra. Still stunning 186 years later.


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## JAKE WYB

Mahler Symphony 1 has some particularly exciting parts for two timpanists especially in the last movement

for a subtler and most atmospheric timpani part - a number of sibelius works use it to good effect- symophony 1, 7, The oceanides, Luonnotar etc etc etc etc 

of course you can beat the rite of spring either


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## bassClef

JAKE WYB said:


> of course you can beat the rite of spring either


Whenever I see the Rite performed (on TV or live) I always watch the Timpani and Bass Drum - they love it!


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## bplary

Jupiter from The Planets Suite by Holst has an interesting tympani part. Also, you might enjoy the 4th movement of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony.


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## Jeremy Marchant

The final movement, _Peaux _(=skins), from _Pleiades _by Iannis Xenakis, is for six percussionists playing a wide variety of drums, inc timpani.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OqTYkLWCLA (minus the last few seconds, which is cretinous).


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## Sid James

Many of Penderecki's earlier "texture music" works of the 1960's & 70's have alot going on in the percussion section. His _Symphony No. 1_ is top stuff if you like that kind of thing.

I was just at a concert on the weekend where they played Berlioz's _Symphonie Fantastique _and this had plenty of big moments for the timpani. Pretty gripping stuff when seen live especially.

Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe also uses timpani to good effect in many of his works - take the _Piano Concerto, Sun Music(s) I - IV, Irkanda IV, Fifth Continent_, etc.

& Hovhaness has a big solo for the timpani at the end of his _Symphony No. 50 "Mount St Helens"_ where he depicts the eruption of the volcano. To me, it sounds vaguely like Japanese/East Asian drumming as well...


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## JAKE WYB

*Bartok - Piano concertos 1* and especially *2* - particulary the rythmic interplay between perc and piano

*Martinu symphony 4* - the scherzo has a rollocking timp part that is good fun


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## JRFuerst

As JAKE WYB said, Bartok Piano concerto 1 and 2. Really, pretty much any Bartok work you can't go wrong with.

I'm a percussionist and timpani is my favorite to play, so I'll just list the works that had heavy scoring for timpani and that I enjoyed a lot:

Shostakovich Symphony No. 11 (21 page timpani part)
The Firebird Ballet - actually has lots of interesting scoring (the stuff not included in the suite)
William Walton Crown Imperial March - Simple work, but huge timpani part.
Carmina Burana has great timpani part - especially the flute/timpani duet
Any Christopher Rouse work (Symphony No. 2/Phantasmata)
Mahler Symphony No. 1/2
Hindemith Symphonic Metamorphosis
Symphonie Fantastique - End of 3rd movement through end of work

Though in the end, for me, nothing beat the timpani part to Shostakovich 11. Heavy solo parts throughout the entire symphony, which would explain the 21 page part!

The first movement is scored with timpani solo (that is a throughout the entire symphony). In fact, I remember when performing this work, during our first rehearsal, the conductor, said "Timpani....this solo represents the nervousness of the people, not the nervousness of the timpanist." It was great.

And the second movement, takes a lot of energy from the entire percussion section which was always a thrill to play....


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## Zingo

Opening and close of Janacek´s Sinfonietta.


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## thatperson

All Mahler Symphonies, Elgar enigma variations, Shostakovich symphony 1, Stravinsky rite of spring, Kraft timpani concerto (if you can count solo timpani rep.)


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Haydn's symphony no.103, nicknamed _Drumroll_ because it has about a 10 second drumroll at the start/introduction, unqiue in all Haydn symphonies (and he wrote over 100). One of Haydn's finest.


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## TWhite

Mahler symphonies, especially 1,2 and 5
Carmina Burana--Orff uses them especially well
Walton's "Belshazzar's Feast"
Shostakovich Symphonies #5 and 11
Saint-Saens--Bacchanale from "Samson and Delilah"
Walton--Crown Imperial March
Ginastera--"Estancia" ballet suite--some remarkable tympani work especially in movements 3 and 4
Rimsky-Korsakov--"Russian Easter" overture
Rachmaninov--Finale of First Symphony and First and Third movements of Symphonic Dances
Tchiakovsky--Capriccio Italien and finale of Fourth Symphony
Prokoviev--Alexander Nevsky Cantata and Scythian Suite
Almost any Beethoven symphony

Tom


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## Il Seraglio

The transition between Scene II and III in Wagner's Rhinegold where Wotan and Loge descend into the underworld of Nibelheim. Very forceful with lots of rumbling timpani.


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## Rondo

Uranus, from _Planets_ suite
Glass' Timpani concerto,
_Raise the Roof_, Michael Daugherty (*great* music)
Arnold's 8th Symphony
Procession of the Nobles, from Korsakov's _Mlada_
Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
...

Ill stop there.


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