Word: timpani
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...youth and talent of the performers that makes the evening so moving - and the immense, concentrated hard work that went to stage "Figaro"'s bright silliness. Mozart's late-18th-century opera flows from the mouths and instruments (violins, cellos, flutes, oboes, clarinets, horns, trumpets, timpani) of early-21st-century students, fresh and young. They put dew on the music of another young man, long dead, and roses in its notes...
However, despite a historical background of blustering and banging, the modern timpani is an intensely subtle instrument. Depending on the music being played, a timpanist will use from two to five drums, each a different size and in a different register. Each individual timpani can be tuned up or down during the actual performance, so the percussionist actually has a significant melodic range. Formerly, this tuning was done by carefully twisting the screws holding down the drumhead but most timpanis today are constructed to be tuned with a pedal. This is quicker and allows one to tune two timpanis...
...Kris Gauksheim '01 and Adam Beaver '00 play the timpani in the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra. I spoke with both of them before a rehearsal earlier this week. They started studying the timpani in grade school. Neither of them said exactly why they were first drawn to the instrument, but they both agree that there is a sort of adrenaline rush associated with the timpani's wildly expansive dynamic range. Beaver points out that he gets to play everything from the gentle, dying heartbeat in a requiem to great, rolling sforzandos where he "comes in like the hand...
...even with the innovation of the foot pedal, playing the timpani remains a delicate and complex job. Each timpani is different, and in addition, each spot on the taut drumhead has a slightly different tuning, tension and response. And the tuning is still an uncertain science, performed with the orchestra in full swing around the timpanists. They have to find the perfect pitch despite the tooting and sawing of their neighbors and without losing track of the conductor. If you see them stooping over the drumhead during the concert as though they were whispering into a gargantuan ear, that...
...Because the timpani is often so dramatic an element, composers tend to use it sparingly. It's not unusual for Beaver and Ganksheim to sit counting off seventy measures of silence. This doesn't seem to bother them, however. They feel that this downtime helps foster a healthy, laid-back community of percussionists. And of course, if they get hungry they can always cook up a delicious ragout...