jwilzewske: July 2008

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

30 Jul 08

From T-Bone (Letter 6)

T-Bone - Radiating power and strength, this deeply-spiritual massively-built African-American towers over most inmates. He is a prison gladiator with more stab wounds than Julius Caesar. A good man to have on your side.

7-14-08

Hey Brother,

Peace to you + yours!

I want to respond to some of the comments that were made in the blog about me and Scooter.
Yes, I have run into a lot of people who associate me being large as an opportunity for them to test their fighting skills. Also, I’ve run into more of the opposite: those who think that people who are larger than them are slow of wit and/or stupid. There are also some who think that all big men are slow physically, meaning their hand or foot speed and/or hand-eye coordination.

Even though most smaller people are faster afoot than most big people, it doesn’t mean that we’re all made the same in regards to speed and hand-eye coordination. It’s a myth and it can be dangerous in some situations to think so.
I’ve put myself in some very dangerous situations and only by God’s grace am I here today, and my ability to fight has nothing to do with it.
One must understand who she or he is in the life they decide to live, and know that a higher power has helped them when they shouldn’t be here today.

In here you can either be an asshole and use your ability to stand up or be punked or allow someone who is weaker to be punked. I won’t allow myself to be punked, and I’ve been made (created) to stand up for those who can’t fight for themselves. So I’ve always had a target on my back because of my size and because I’m an African American.
Now since I’ve matured and I have a clearer understanding of life and what I want (like a good woman) I do what I do as a matter of choice and I choose to do what is right for me period.

As for the comment about education and people in here, what can one say who doesn’t know how it is in here.
There are a lot of guys who have achieved several degrees while locked up and it hasn’t made them better people. And there are those who earned degrees before they got locked up, and they made the choices to do what they did!
Forget about how a man writes, for it starts at home. Values. We all must be taught the importance of values. Having faith, I know whoever reads this understands.
But saying that, a basic education is essential. It is important for personal growth and for understanding values!

Shaun, I want to talk to you about temptations. You know, my friend, that it will sneak up on you in a second and you’ll find yourself in bed with dope once more. And no matter how good it feels, it only leads to death and/or destruction of oneself and her or his belongings!
Be careful at the local drinking hole. Getting into the habit of having one beer a week is questionable.
At least eat some good English beef or get some peanuts to eat along with that strong English beer.
I am not going to apologize for being protective because my love and respect for you is genuine, and I know you’re going to be a great writer one day!

Things are the same here. I am waiting until next year when I am out of here. There are the usual people in this place who want to do dope and think they’re slick. They play the same slick games on each other and the same racial games to take advantage of the new guys!
I’ve been offered several jobs, from personal security to a _____ man, and several jobs south of the line, Mexico!

Before I forget, I really enjoyed the pictures, the English countryside is beautiful. You have no idea how badly I want to see Hadrian’s Wall. Wow! That looks like fun!

You keep your head up, but before I go I shall answer the question about working out. When you work out, you must keep in mind why you’re doing it. For good looks? Punching power? Conditioning? Or just plain power? There is a lot more to it and I am willing to train anyone with the right frame of mind.

Peace + Love to you, Brother

Each one – Teach one

Strength & Honor

T-Bone

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2007-2008 Shaun P. Attwood

The Uncertain Lateness of the Hour: ‘Periods’ and the Musical Self

E dward Said’s book [published posthumously, following his death in 2003 of leukemia] is a series of dazzling case studies exploring the idea of ‘lateness’ in a range of composers, writers and artists.”
— London Review of Books.

L ateness doesn’t name a single relation to Time but it always brings Time in its wake. It is a way of remembering Time, whether it is missed or met or gone. … The quality of Time alters then, like a change in the light, because the present is so thoroughly shadowed by other seasons: the revived or receding past, the newly unmeasurable future, the unimaginable time beyond Time. The conversion of Time into Space.”
— Edward Said, ‘On Late Style: Music & Literature Against the Grain’, p. xi.

Edward Said, literary theorist and Columbia University Professor of Comparative Literature, had not expected to die when he did, in early Autumn, 2003, at age 67. He had had chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) for more than 10 years. It was an acute infection related to CML blast crisis that took him away. His last book, ‘On Late Style: Music & Literature Against the Grain’, was unfinished at the time, and was completed by Michael Wood at Princeton University. There is both irony and poetic beauty in this fact.

The intimacy of chamber music genres provides unusually apropos means to express lateness—the irreconcilabilities of it; the private amusements and perplexities of it—perhaps better than other genres. Lateness: the idea that one is not getting out of this alive, that one cannot go beyond the [terminal] idioms and stances to which one has finally arrived.

Edward Said asserts that ‘lateness’ has to do with ‘the sentiment of Being’ and ‘the sentiments of Art’. But there are plenty of specifics beyond such colorful hand-waving. The book was the result not only of his own drafts of material that were intended to become a published book but also lecture-notes and detailed outline materials that he used in his course on Late Style in the Dept of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia. Lateness: inculcating and sustaining the unity and integrity of the self—its dignity and freedom—like Jane Austen and her judgmental stance toward the selves of her characters.

W ith an unexceptionally Arab family name like Said connected to an improbably British first name, I was an uncomfortably anomalous student all through my early years: a Palestinian going to school in Egypt, with an English first name, an American passport and no certain identity at all.”
— Edward Said, London Review of Books interview, 07-MAY-1998.

Lateness: embodying the quality of self-sufficiency and, in anticipation of the finiteness of life, a measure of abandon and acceptance of the human condition. Said’s is a visionary normative stance, just as the qualities we refer to as ‘late’ are likewise visionary and normative. Lateness is the reaching of a new and final level of expression—Titian’s late-period discovery of the all-penetrating light that transmutes human flesh to reveal the soul and an alterior unity (Hermann Broch, quoted by Said, OLS, p. 137). It is the arrival at a state of ‘nothing-left-to-prove’ [to others], a renunciation of ambition.

A mutation: the process by which the arduous enterprise of sincerity, of being true to one’s self, came to occupy a place of supreme importance in moral life—and the further cultural shift which finds that place now usurped by the darker and still more strenuous modern ideal of authenticity.”
— Jacket blurb for Lionel Trilling’s book, ‘Sincerity & Authenticity’.

Lateness’ is not about impoverishedness or loss or despondency. It is not about resignation or desolation. It may touch upon these, but it is not ‘about’ them. It is instead about parables and testaments. It is about exile and unashamed subjectivity. It is about the acceptance of life’s contradictions and irresolvable and irreconcilable differences. It is about the sadness of Life and the joy of Life all at once, as Elliott Carter has said. The longing and the fervency of expression may be, if anything, greater than ever in one’s ‘late’ period; just less concerned with coherence than before.

W hat gripped Adorno in Beethoven’s late work is its episodic character: its apparent disregard for its own continuity … seemingly unmotivated rhetorical devices like trills or appoggiaturas whose role in the work seems unintegrated into the structure … the caesuras, the sudden discontinuities … the work still remains ‘process’ but not as ‘development’; rather as a catching-fire between extremes which no longer allow for any secure middle-ground … the vestige of an individual human sorely aware of the wholeness that has eluded it forever.”
— Edward Said, ‘On Late Style: Music & Literature Against the Grain’, p. 10.

The notions of poetics and lateness imply at least some self-awareness. And whenever descriptive representation of a feeling or idea is planned and realized (composed; performed), poetics is met by analysis and interpretation. Composers, especially, cannot help projecting themselves and their own poetics into the analysis and interpretation by which their ideas are realized. Pierre Boulez’s analyses of Debussy and Berg are an example, as, too, are Adorno’s analyses of Beethoven and, now, Said’s analyses.

T he most meaningful analysis of a symphony is another symphony. [And, at the end of life, there will be no more symphonies, no continuations of re-thinking things, no more replies.] ”
— Luciano Berio

What else? We often see an expressive prolixity in earlier compositions, while in ‘late works’ there is expressive economy. Given just enough notes to sustain the idea, ‘late’ pieces are often harmonically or rhythmically sparse and sometimes lapse into monody, then silence. Sometimes a piece is open-ended, simply vanishing. Early exponents of the practice of ending (‘abandoning’) a work in mid-passage include Frederic Chopin, Robert Schumann, and Franz Liszt. But there have been many since, including Elliott Carter—who spoke of this during his interview with Richard Dyer at Tanglewood last week.

An harmonic adventurousness, a radical chromaticism, a tonal ambiguity? Not necessarily. Those sorts of stylistic artifacts can arise at any age—early, middle, or late. Instead, what’s new in late compositions or late performances is a pervasive ‘worldliness’—not bitterness or cynicism or resignation. The musician has accumulated what business people jokingly call ‘scar tissue’—psychological grit; metaphysical emery. It doesn’t blunt the expressive edge; to the contrary, the lapidary effect sharpens all of the expressive edges.

Joann Lynn, RAND Corp, trajectories at end of life

One of the facets of ‘lateness’ that Said does not address in his book is the age-independent psychological aspect of how a piece comes unexpectedly to be ‘late’ or have qualities that we associate with ‘lateness’. The composer may have bipolar depression from early on in life, for example. Or the early onset of strokes or Alzheimer’s may fundamentally alter the composer’s or the performer’s perspective while not extinguishing the ability to continue. Or serious events happen in a person’s life that situationally yield the mien of advanced age. All of those can creep into the music. All of those can determine what and how much is left, and how ‘late’ the output that does follow is.

For example, in the late 1950s, the Neo-Classicist Finnish composer Einar Englund experienced a personal crisis and stopped composing. Modernism, which he termed “a mockery of the composer as a serious artist,” had irrevocably changed what was getting commissioned and performed. He said that in that milieu he felt he no longer had anything to say; his Neo-Classical idioms were no longer welcome: the ‘river’ had changed course, and he was left ‘high and dry’ on the old riverbank.

In his autobiography (1996), Englund confided another, more serious reason for the crisis: the tragic death of his wife in 1956, when Einar was 40 years old. Englund didn’t resume composing until 1971. His most productive period in terms of sheer musical output was the 1980s—and those of the ‘later’ Englund pieces that I’ve listened to do manifest some of the desultory attitude or ‘scar tissue’ I’m referring to. Englund died at 83, in 1999.

W hat of artistic ‘lateness’ not as harmony and mature resolution, but as intransigence, difficulty, and unresolved contradiction; as anachronism and anomaly; as a special ironic expressiveness well beyond the words and the situation?”
— Edward Said, ‘On Late Style: Music & Literature Against the Grain’, p. xiii.

Mahler and Schnittke and many other people have had health conditions that conferred a precocious ‘lateness’ early in their lives as composers. Schubert’s last three string quartets, the String Quintet in C (D 956), the last three piano sonatas (Sonata No. 19 in c (D 958); Sonata No. 20 in A (D 959); Sonata No. 21 in B-flat (D 960), and the ‘Schwanengesang’ cycle are yet another species of lateness that Said does not address. That is, lateness and apprehension sometimes impart a tense, hemmed-in-èdness—an amenability to expediency of orchestration and compositional cliché borne partly out of haste: compromises of the Eleventh Hour; contractions from the radical inventiveness that Said’s treatment of lateness dwells on.

If you haven’t previously seen them, have a look at Edward Said’s books, ‘On Late Style’ and ‘Music at the Limits’. They contain valuable insights for all musicians, with regard to age-appropriate style. And they are, inadvertently, eloquent auto-elegies for Said himself. Touching and, maybe, life-changing for the musician-reader.

A s one can see in the early and the late ‘Goldberg Variations’ performances that eerily frame his career—one at the very beginning, the other at the very end—Gould excavated the contrapuntal as well as chaconne structure of the work to announce an ongoing exploration of Bach’s inventiveness through and by way of his own virtuosic realizations … crafted resolutely against the negation and disorder that surround us on all sides. In enacting it on the piano, the performer aligns himself/herself with the composer, not with the consuming public, which is impelled to pay attention not so much to the performance as a passively looked-at and heard presentation, as to a rational and transcendant activity being intellectually, aurally, and visually transmitted to others.”
— Edward Said, ‘On Late Style: Music & Literature Against the Grain’, pp. 130-2.

Tsunami hitting pier, Hilo HI, 01-APR-1946; Time for the man pictured at left: about as 'Late' as it is possible to get.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

27 Jul 08

Two Tonys and Warrior at Rec (by Two Tonys Part 2)

Two Tonys - A whacker of men and Mafia associate serving multiple life sentences for murders and violent crimes. Left bodies from Tucson to Alaska, but claims all his victims "had it coming."

So I turn to the Mexican and he says, “When did you get here?”
I say, “Hey! How you been?” acting like I recall him but I don’t.
He said, Cool, man. Good to see you again.”
So me and Skids resume our walk.
I ask Skids, “Who are those guys?”
He says, “The one you talked to is Toto. They think they’re badasses. They just hang out together and look down their noses at most of the Mexicans.”
I say, “Yeah. I picked up on that yeah-we’re-bad vibe.”

So as we’re walking laps, we pass these guys as they do their routine pushups and stuff.
I give Toto a nod and an alright as I go by the second time. He returns the nod.
Now as me and skids are walking along I hear this voice and the shuffle of feet coming up behind me fast.
And the voice is yelling, “Move! Move!”
So I spin and jump out of the way as does Skids.
These four eses jog on by at a pretty good clip.
So I regain my composure and say to Skids, “What’s up with that shit?”
He says, “Oh, that’s nothing. They’re just jogging a lap.”
So I say, “Oh, yeah. They just roll up behind us and yell, ‘Move! Move!’ like we’re a couple of retard lames. That’s no respect. I got to let them know not to run up on me like that.” So I take off walking.
They’re just finishing their lap on the other side of the track.
Skids says, “Oh, they didn’t mean nothing. They’re good guys.” He’s shitting. He’s a weak motherfucker and I knew it. But I didn’t give a shit. I wasn’t counting on him or anyone else. I’m in the zone and I’m hot. I’m brand new in this building and I’m going to get yelled at like some old punk! It ain’t happening again.

Now, I aint no fool. These are young healthy in-shape want-to-be-tough dudes. But as I said earlier about respect – standing up for yourself is a way of life. Fuck the ass-kickings. I’ve woke up in hospitals with tubes in my nose. It hurts, but it heals. Losing that respect is forever, it never heals. So I’m going to have my say and let the chips fall. Fuck the hole, the gun tower. I go, they go. I know they’ll smash me, but I won’t be yelled at.

Now I don’t go trying to recruit others. I’m solo. Skids takes off. He’s going for Shotcaller.
As I go by, I hear Shotcaller yelling for me to wait. Fuck waiting!
I go up to these four guys and say I say to Toto, “Hey, ese, understand what I’m saying here: when I’m walking laps and you guys are coming up behind me, you don’t have to start yelling, ‘Move! Move!’ like I’m a lame. All you got to do is give me a, ‘Coming through,’ or a, ‘Behind you,’ to me. I got respect. It’s a track. I’ll move over for you. Show respect, you’ll get respect. Toto, you know that.”
One of the other eses says in a real shitty tone, “Oh, we know you’ll move.”
By this time, Shot caller is there. I look and I see Warrior with him and an old pal of mine called Cowboy.
Skids didn’t come. He’s back with the water cooler. Watching.
I respond with, “Hey, ese, I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but I’ll tell you right now, I ain’t the one to be moving on demands. It will be what it will be.” Then I just walked on by. By myself.
Shotcaller stayed behind and engaged them in conversation.
As I made a lap and was getting ready to pass them again, Shotcaller was ahead on the track by the gate.
I felt a guy come up along side of me. It was Warrior. Now he’s Mexican, so I wasn’t sure what was up. So he starts talking to me about Tucson as we pass these four eses. When we’re past them, Warrior says, “Hey fuck those guys. They ain’t all that. I already got down with him. His name’s Al. He tries to be hard. He was probably the one yelling, ‘Move! Move! I’ve seen him do that with others.”
I say, “Well I’m not coming out here to be yelled at. I don’t yell. I won’t put up with it.”

So that was my first night at rec and some shit almost flew. It would have been a shame. We all go to the hole. I probably get hurt. But the big shame would be to come out to rec and walk and have those four assholes yell at me every rec period. It won’t happen. This is prison. Certain lines can’t be crossed. Certain names can’t be called. There are rules. They’re unwritten, but they’re there and have been for years. It’s a 21st Century prison, and adapting is important, but so is respect and pride.

Me and Warrior talked. I checked around about him. He had beefs with a lot of bullies who thought they could muscle him. He fooled them. Choir boy face and all. But he’s not a crazy. He just wants his respect like we all do. Me and him have become close. He’s a good friend.

They moved Shotcaller down to Building 2 along with Mekong Mike who’s a Jesus nut.
What’s funny is the four eses never yelled at me again. I even talked to Toto a few times. I never liked them. Since then, they all four got busted with dope and had to go to the hole. They seem to have trouble adapting.
Skids went to the hole for making hootch and being drunk.
Me and Warrior and a couple of other good guys hang out together. I’m the old man, but we all enjoy each other’s company. I’ll miss these guys when they get out. But there will be some new friends come along. Only the actors change. The roles remain the same.
Hey! It’s like when you and I separated. I missed your English ass. You’re a good bloke. You did your number in your own style, but you did it good. But you know me and some others always had your back, even when you didn’t know it. It was a pleasure, me lad, a real pleasure.

Take care,

Two Tonys

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2007-2008 Shaun P. Attwood

Chamber Music & Norman Dello Joio

I n the cool of the night time
The clocks pick off the points
And the mainsprings loosen.
They will need winding
One of these days.
Rabelais, in red boards—
Walt Whitman in green,
Hugo in ten-cent paper covers:
Here they stand on shelves
In the cool of the night time
And there is nothing
To be said against them...”
— Carl Sandburg, ‘Cornhuskers’, 1918 (one of the texts/epigrams for Dello Joio’s 1940 ‘Suite for Piano’, premiered at Carnegie Hall on 09-MAR-1941).

The lyricism of Norman Dello Joio, who died last week at age 95 on 24-JUL, is treasured by all who have performed or listened to his works.

In 1939, he received a scholarship to Juilliard, where he studied composition with Bernard Wagenaar. And in 1941 he began studying with Paul Hindemith, who encouraged him to follow his own lyrical inclinations, instead of pursuing atonal or 12-tone systems. By the late 40s, he was highly-regarded among American composers and prolific in a variety of genres, especially choral music. He served on the faculty at Sarah Lawrence College in the late 40s, and later at Mannes College of Music. He was professor and dean at Boston University until retiring in 1978, when he moved to Long Island. Throughout his career he was devoted to music education, and his ‘Comprehensive Musicianship’ pedagogical materials and advocacy helped to guide and calibrate subsequent generations of authors/composers of curricula, method books and etudes.

Here are some of his chamber music pieces.

Piano Trio, 1937
Suite for Piano (Sandburg’s Phrases), 1940
Sextet for Three Recorders & String Trio, 1944
Duo Concertato for Cello & Piano, 1945
Sonata No. 1 for Piano, 1947
Sonata No. 2 for Piano, 1948
Sonata No. 3 for Piano, 1948
Trio for Flute, Cello & Piano, 1948
Fantasia on a Gregorian Theme for Violin & Piano, 1949
Variations and Capriccio for Violin & Piano, 1949
Nocturne in E for Piano, 1950
Nocturne in F-sharp for Piano, 1950
Aria and Toccata for Two Pianos, 1955
Colloquies for Violin & Piano, 1964
Bagatelles for Harp, 1969
Capriccio on the Interval of a Second for piano, 1969
Three Essays for Clarinet & Piano, 1974
Lyric Fantasies for Viola and String Quintet, 1975
Sonata for Trumpet and Piano, 1980
Concert Variants for Piano, 1983

[Dello Joio, ‘Trio for Flute, Cello & Piano’, 1948]

Dello Joio, Concert Variants for Piano, 1983, mm. 6 - 11

Norman’s open harmonies and engaging writing style somehow fit well with the often-weighty subject matter of his compositions. It’s unfortunate that in recent years many of these pieces have not been more frequently performed and recorded. Although not warhorses for sheer technical virtuosic display, they present the performer with challenges of a different sort—conveying depth/complexity of emotion through phrasing and thoughtful gesture. These pieces have great expressive potential, and deserve to be included more often in the chamber music repertoire.

[Dello Joio, ‘Piano Sonata No. 3’, 1948]

Although sight-singing, keyboard harmony, theory, and so on, are part of development of musicianship, Dello Joio’s emphasis and major concern focused on those skills that are mainly cognitive—that is, music concepts and interpretive and analytical skills that are not predominantly developed through psychomotor (performance) drill. By nature he was opposed to performance-practice ‘tricks’, and he was impervious to the seductions of celebrity and technical virtuosity that have attained such popular cachet in recent years. Dello Joio’s traditional artistic values and teaching—and his compositions—are and will remain important guides for us going forward.

N orman Dello Joio is outstanding for an outgoing directness of expression and simplicity of manner ... which have an intentionally broad appeal. A strong melodic vein; a rhythmic vitality; a relatively restrained harmonic vocabulary; an infectious brio and freshness of invention—these are among the earmarks of his style. Inseparable from this style is Dello Joio’s conviction—resembling almost an ethical attitude—that his music should communicate with a broad, contemporary public——not merely with an alert avant garde, not with a few fellow composers, not with some hypothetical future public.”
— Edward Downes, The music of Norman Dello Joio. The Musical Quarterly 1962; 48:149-72.

Wakin D. Norman Dello Joio, prolific and popular composer, dead at 95. NY Times, 27-JUL-2008.
Norman Dello Joio page at BU
Norman Dello Joio page at Schirmer
Whang U-Y. Analysis of Dello Joio’s Chamber Music for Piano and Strings with Performance Suggestions (PhD Dissertation, Columbia Univ). UMI Ann Arbor, 1986.
Dello Joio N, Beglarian G, eds. Comprehensive Musicianship. Foundation for College Education in Music, Washington, D.C., 1965.
International Society for Music Education (ISME)
College Music Society
National Association for Music Education (U.S.)
VH1 SaveTheMusic program

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Some Resources for Timpani Chamber Music

T he performances by Steven Merrill and Kyle Zerna at Tanglewood were spectacular. The music was almost like it was floating—it was fluid and virtuosic and amazingly tuneful. I’d never realized there was chamber music for timpani—a shortcoming of my training, I suppose, but there you are. Where might I go to find more of these—not just Carter’s chamber works and solo pieces for timpani, but other chamber works for timpani too, where the composer writes for timpani so the melodic and conversational capabilities of the instrument are featured? This [performance at Tanglewood] was way beyond ‘timpani-as-percussion’ [and I’d like to find and program other chamber pieces like these].”
— Anonymous.

The BSO’s Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood (Elliott Carter Centenary) was consciousness-raising in many ways, and not just as a showcase for virtuosic solo timpani (reader comment above).

Saeta (1949) and Canaries (1949) [Steven Merrill (timpani)]
Canto (1966) and March (1949) [Kyle Zerna (timpani)]

Here are a few mp3 clips from several available recordings of other timpanists, to give you a flavor for some of the literature that’s out there:

[30-sec clip, Jonathan Faralli, Carter, ‘Canto’, 1MB MP3]

[30-sec clip, Staffan Borseman with Danmarks Radiosymfoniorkester members, Holmboe, ‘Chamber Concerto No. 1, Molto allegro’, 1MB MP3]

[30-sec clip, Alexander Peter with Dresden Phil Chamber Orch, Sammartini, ‘Symphony in g minor, for 2 Horns, 2 Violins, Viola, Double-Bass & Timpani, IV. Bouree’, 1MB MP3]

And here is a short list of some of the literature you may or may not be familiar with. There are some solo timpani works in here, but most of these are for ensembles consisting of timpani plus one or more non-percussion instruments.

Adams - Concerto for Timpani, Percussion & Winds
Andersen - Pirun Polska, Op. 49, for 2 Bassoons, 2 Horns, 2 Trumpets, Trombone, Timpani & Triangle
Arevalo - Meridian for Timpani, Cello & Piano
Badings - Passacaglia for Timpani & Organ
Bartók - Sonata for 2 Pianos & Percussion
Batigne - caracteres for Timpani & Piano
Beck - Sonata for Timpani; Three Episodes for Timpani
Biber - Sonatae tam Ares, for Trumpets, Strings, Timpani & Continuo
Bolcom - Dark Music for Timpani & Cello
Bovey - Tombeau d’Antenor
Britten - Concert Piece for Jimmy (Timpani & Piano)
Bump - Studie II: Epthyic for Percussion Quartet
Buss - Capriccio
Carroll - Chaconne
Carter - 8 Pieces for 4 Timpani
Chavez - Partita for Solo Timpani
Cheadle - Melodic Movements for Timpani
Cirone - Sonata No. 1 for Timpani & Piano
Denisov - Music for 11 Wind Instruments and Timpani, Op. 13
Druschetzky - Timpani Concerto, Partita in C, etc.
Firth - Solo Impressions for Timpani & Piano
Granados - Escena religiosa for Violin, Organ, Piano & Timpani
Graupner - Symphony in D major for 2 Trumpets, 4 Timpani, 2 Violins, Viola & Basso continuo (GWV 520-534); Symphony in G major for 2 Horns, 4 Timpani, 2 Violins, Viola & Basso continuo (GWV 596-599); Symphony in A major for 2 Horns, 4 Timpani, 2 Violins, Viola & Basso continuo (GWV 612).
Haydn - The Seven Last Words; others …
Helble - Night Music
Holmboe - Chamber Concerto for Piano, Strings & Timpani, Op. 17, No. 1 (molto allegro)
Houllif - Four Verses for Timpani
Kellogg - Ben, for Chamber Orchestra (Piccolo, 2 Flutes, 2 Oboes, English horn, 3 Clarinets, 3 Bassoons, 4 Horns, 3 Trumpets, 3 Trombones, Tuba, Timpani, Percussion, and Strings)
Kessner - Sonata for 4 Timpani
Kloppers - Concerto for Organ, Timpani & Strings
Kohler - Concertino fur Pauken und Streicher
Kraft - Concerto for Percussion and Chamber Ensemble; Brazen for Timpani, Brass & Organ; Concerto for Timpani & Orchestra (arr. for Piano)
Leonard - Canticle for Solo Timpani
Lindberg - Marea Sinfonietta (2 Flutes, Oboe, English horn, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Bassoon, Contrabassoon, 2 Horns, Trumpet, Trombone, Tuba, Timpani, Percussion & Strings); Fanfare for Arne Wessberg (4 Horns, 3 Trumpets, 3 Trombones, Tuba & Timpani)
Muczynski - Designs for 3 Timpani, Op. 11, No. 2
Paliev - 19 Pieces Bulgares
Richter - Düsseldorf Concerto for Flute, Harp, Timpani, Percussion & Strings (chamber version)
Sagnier - Six Pieces for Timpani & Piano
Sammartini - Symphony in G minor, for 2 Horns, 2 Violins, Viola, Double-Bass & Timpani
Schinstein - Tympendium for Timpani & Piano; Sonata no. 1 for Timpani & Piano
Schmitz - Spiritual Excursion for Viola, Vibraphone & Timpani
Schnittke - 4 Hymns, No. 4, (Septet for Timpani, Cello, Double-bass, Bassoon, Harp, Harpsichord & Tubular bells)
Schwantner - From a Dark Millennium
Scriabin - Deux Morceaux, Op. 57, for 2 Horns, 2 Trumpets, 3 Trombones, Tuba, Timpani, Harp & Strings
Sibelius - Andante Festivo (JS 34b) for Strings & Timpani; Rakastava Op. 14, for 2 Violins, Viola, Cello, Basso, Timpani & Triangle.
van Slyck - Octet for Flute, Clarinet, Horn, Violin, Viola, Cello, Timpani & Piano
Surinach - Tientos for English Horn, Timpani & Piano
Takemitsu - Rain Tree
Tcherepnin - Sonatina for Two or Three Timpani & Piano
Thoresen - Lop, Lokk Og Linjar
Utvolskaya - Concerto for Piano, String Orchestra & Timpani
Vinao - Khan Variations
Vivaldi - Concerto for Violin, 2 Oboes, 2 Horns, Timpani, Strings & Basso continuo
Whaley - Scherzo for Timpani; Statement for Timpani
Wuebold - Fantasy for Timpani & Piano
Wuorinen - Percussion Quartet
Zivkovic - Cadenza for 5 Timpani; Trio per Uno

There are probably plenty more pieces, but the above list is what just a quick hour or two of web searching turns up.

Besides a trip to your nearest friendly local Conservatory’s library, the list of links below may offer some additional help.

S o often, great artists, soloists, and orchestral instrumentalists have remarked to me after a performance that they never realized before that it was possible to hear from the timpani such clear defined pitch, tone quality and such a musical sound. Previously, they had the concept that timpani could sound only noisy, with no musical potential. This brings us to the unhappy recognition that too often today timpani are being played with a snare drum technique, and as such, has no relation to true timpani technique. Often this happens because a percussionist———who has never studied timpani at all—or, if he has, never with a professional timpanist—but who does know all the rest of the percussion———applies the snare drum technique to the timpani because of the similarity of wrist action and rhythmical requirements. This style of playing, almost mechanically pointed and rhythmical—staccato: we play this way when it is especially called for; but many performers play this way all the time. Missing is the knowledge of how to achieve tone quality, resonance and a noble full sound with an artistic touch. The nature of the timpani is to ring—full and resonant—so this should be developed to its full capability.”
— Cloyd Duff, 1966.

S o, how do you make your timpani sound like musical instruments? How do you get timpani to blend with other instruments? Start by eliminating as many variables as possible.
1) The timpano bowl should be free of large dents and must be in-round.
2) The lip of the bowl (the bearing edge) must be smooth, level and free of any nicks, dents and imperfections and create an air-tight seal between the bowl and head.
3) The counterhoop must be flush and in-round.
4) The head must be centered in the counterhoop.
5) The head must be true, free of dirt and defects and be centered on the drum.
6) The mechanics of the timpano must be functioning so that a uniform or equal tension can be maintained at all lug points throughout the range of the drum.
7) The proper MSR for the size of the drum must set.”
— Richard Jones, Nebraska Wesleyan Univ, 2006.

There are some challenges for scoring for timpani—as with practical realities for any instrument. Many of those challenges involve the narrow range of pitches achievable by tuning each size; the speed with which the head tension and pitch can be changed on any one timpano; and (if the harmonic complexity desired and tuned-pitches-per-second velocity are great, and therefore can’t be accommodated by pedaling a smaller set) the space required for a set of 5 or more timpani.

Passages where the timpanist has to change the pitch of a drum while playing—for example, playing two consecutive notes of different pitches on the same drum—require pedaling. To do this on Dresden-type timpani, the timpanist has to disengage the clutch with the foot, adjust the pedal to change the pitch of the drum, and reengage the clutch. Doing this with musical precision takes time. The faster the changes are as-scored, the more risk for the timpanist in performance. One clutch or pedal adjustment screw-up can demolish the melodic/harmonic effects and ruin the piece. So, for very rapid figures, you need a bigger set of more timpani—and that requires more floor space; you need a longer, even acrobatic reach for the timpanist to strike the desired sticking spots on the drum heads that are furthest away; you need more pre-event time for the more finicky gear set-ups on-stage prior to performance; and so on.

What else? Prior to performance, the timpanist has to clear the heads by equalizing the tension at each tuning screw. When the head is ‘clear’, the timpano intonation is acceptable and blends reasonably well with other instruments. If the head is not clear, the pitch will bend after the initial mallet impact. The drum will also give different pitches at different dynamics: not something you want, in general. Clearing requires a similar level of care as piano tuning. The rental expense, or the complexity of shipping, or the pre-event tensioning/clearing, or relative shortage of timpanists accessible to chamber music ensembles, or other logistical challenges, though, are surely not the reasons for the rarity of timpani in chamber music performances. Probably instead it’s mainly that non-percussionist composers don’t think to write for timpani very often--which is a shame.

For safety’s sake and healthy composer-timpanist relations, a composer might do well to observe the red brackets in the figure below (from Dwight Thomas’s website) that circumscribe a portion of the nominal range for each head and show the extent of the best notes in the range for that head size. These ranges can vary a fair amount depending upon the manufacturer and the design of the instruments, but Dwight’s suggestions are good guides for composers who’d dare to write chamber works for these challenging instruments.

Even if due care is taken, there can be some inherent intonation challenges that can restrict the music’s practical harmonic possibilities. The tensioning/tuning to a predominant (1,1) head vibration mode as suggested by Richard Jones and others can mitigate some of these challenges. Using cross-tuning, the timpanist tightens each pair of diametrically-opposing tension lugs to get a uniform pitch with an electronic tuner. Basically, you want to get the head into a (1,1) vibrating mode, from which the purest ‘fundamental’ pitch of the head is generated. But even in (1,1) mode, there are residual extraneous harmonics that may interfere with the timbre of other instruments, and those harmonics are impossible to eliminate entirely. But, in fact, maybe that’s the beauty of timpani: it makes them what they are. The safe harmonic choices for timpani are a bit like scoring for carillon and all its complex bell harmonics.

Timpano head acoustic vibration mode (2,2)

No matter. Despite those challenges, the good fun that timpani, expertly tuned and virtuosically played, bring to the ensemble is really hard to resist, as the CMT commenter put it and as those of us at Tanglewood this past week experienced. There’s no reason why the chamber timpani literature—however big or small it may be—can’t be performed more. There’s considerable diversity to it, in terms of periods and genres and orchestrations, as the cursory list above suggests. Presenters, how about considering that possibility, with an eye toward audience development and marketing? There might even be room in your programming next year for a ‘Percussion Masters’ series?

Thank you again for your CMT comments. Thank you, Steven and Kyle, for your illustrious and beautiful performances this week.