Ru
EnE. Zanin
Timpani in orchestral music of the 17th–19th centuries
The article notes the important role given to timpani in modern orchestral practice; along with this, the research literature on the mentioned tool remains very limited. Until now, the epoch-making historical processes that favored the approval and subsequent evolution of timpani in orchestral performance throughout the 17th century remain insufficiently studied. The author of the article comments on various hypotheses regarding the early references to the instrument associated with the opera orchestra (versions about C. Monteverdi, F. Cavalli and M. A. Cesti, J. B. Lully). An overview of the Baroque era is presented, when timpani performed an auxiliary function, duplicating batches of pipes without appropriate instructions in the scores. The priority contribution of the composers of the Vienna Classical School to the orchestral “representation” of timpani is stated: W. A. Mozart strove to reveal their diverse expressive potential, J. Haydn gravitated to paradoxical decisions in the interpretation of the instrument (which was facilitated by repeated restructuring of boilers throughout Haydn’s works), L. Beethoven endowed the instrument with significant dramatic functions. In the era of romanticism, the idea of timpani has fundamentally changed. This is evidenced by the creative innovations of H. Berlioz, who used the instrument in harmonic constructions and multi-voiced tremolos, as well as Russian composers of the second half of the 19th century – A. Borodin, N. Rimsky-Korsakov, P. Tchaikovsky. In the works of these masters, timpani appear as a bright and large-scale means of orchestral expressiveness, often playing the role of leit-timbre. According to the author of the article, this laid the foundation for the subsequent very diverse use of timpani in orchestral music of the twentieth century
Key words
timpani, European orchestral music, performing technique, timbre palette, expressive potentialities, functions of the instrument in orchestral performing art.
For citation
Zanin E. Timpani in orchestral music of the 17th–19th centuries. In: South-Russian Musical Anthology. 2026. No. 1. Pp. 66–73.
