Instrument
Timpani
Large copper kettledrums that can be tuned to specific pitches.
Timpani are large, bowl-shaped copper drums, typically played in sets of two to five, and unlike most of the wider percussion family, they have a definite, tunable pitch: a foot pedal adjusts the tension of the drumhead, letting a player change which note each drum sounds, sometimes even while playing. The name is Italian (one drum is a timpano), and in English they're also called kettledrums.
How they're played
The timpanist strikes the head with mallets - soft felt for a warm, booming sound, hard felt or wood for a sharp, dry crack - and plays rolls by alternating strokes rapidly. Because each drum produces a real note, the player must tune it precisely, often during the music while other instruments are playing; timpanists can be seen leaning close to the drum and tapping it softly to check the pitch. The drums also resonate sympathetically, so the player has to damp them by hand to stop the sound.
A short history
Kettledrums came to Europe from the Middle East, where they were played on horseback by cavalry. In Baroque Europe, timpani and trumpets went together as symbols of royal and military power, and composers paired them for festive music: Bach's Christmas Oratorio opens with a solo for the timpani.
For most of the Classical era, timpani were often the orchestra's only regular percussion instrument, typically tuned to the piece's home key and used to reinforce cadences and climactic moments. That gives timpani an outsized dramatic role relative to how rarely they actually play in most pieces - a single, well-placed timpani roll or strike can carry enormous weight precisely because the instrument isn't heard constantly. Haydn's "Drumroll" Symphony (No. 103) begins with a solo timpani roll.
Beethoven did more than almost anyone to expand timpani beyond that supporting role, giving them unusually prominent, almost melodic material rather than treating them purely as rhythmic reinforcement. The pedal mechanism that lets a modern player retune a drum smoothly, even mid-performance, wasn't perfected until the late 19th century; earlier timpanists generally had to stop and hand-crank each drum's tuning screws between pieces (or movements) that needed a different key, which made the instrument far less flexible in Beethoven and Mozart's time than it is today.
Thunder and beyond
Romantic composers loved the timpani's power. Berlioz used four timpanists to create distant thunder in his Symphonie fantastique, and called for sixteen timpani in his Requiem. Carl Nielsen's Fourth Symphony stages a battle between two sets of timpani on opposite sides of the stage, and Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra pounds out its famous sunrise on the timpani.
Famous timpani moments
- Bach - Christmas Oratorio, opening chorus.
- Haydn - Symphony No. 103, "Drumroll."
- Beethoven - Symphony No. 5, the hushed timpani heartbeat leading into the finale.
- Beethoven - Symphony No. 9, the hammering octave strokes of the scherzo.
- Strauss - Also sprach Zarathustra, opening.
- Nielsen - Symphony No. 4, "The Inextinguishable."
Where to start listening: the timpani outbursts in the scherzo of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 show the instrument at its most dramatic. Beethoven's Violin Concerto opens even more unusually - with four solo timpani strokes alone, before any other instrument enters, an audacious choice for its time.