Is it common in modern classical music for timpani to play chromatic passages?

Question

As far as I know, timpani are traditionally tuned only to the tonic, perfect fourth, and perfect fifth of the main scale of the piece. I also know that over time, various devices like pedals and screws have been developed to help re-tune timpani. However, they still seem somewhat cumbersome and, like with harps, require some time for adjustments. This means that the use of timpani may be limited in a piece where the main key could shift one key higher in the middle.

However, what I stumbled upon in the Wikipedia article on timpani was a bit puzzling — a chromatic passage for timpani:

This chromatic passage from the Intermezzo interrotto movement of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra requires the timpanist to use the pedals to play all the pitches. One way of executing this passage is annotated here: The lowest and highest drum stay on F and E♭, respectively. All pedaling is executed on the middle two drums. Each pedal change is indicated by a colored line: red for the larger and blue for the smaller of the middle drums.

I wonder if this is something really odd that has happened only a few times in the history of timpani usage, or if it is a trend that, thanks to advancements in technology, is becoming more common among composers.

Answer 1

Pedal timpani can be used to play melodic passages. The amount of time required to change the pitch is well under a second. They typically have a gauge with an arrow an adjustable letters to allow the timpanist to adjust the pedal without having to test the tuning each time. A skillful timpanist can adjust one drum while playing others; with three or four drums there is a good deal of possibility. (You can easily find images of the gauges through a search.)

The existence of this capability being known to composers, they do not hesitate to exploit it. I don't know when pedal timpani became common enough and players skillful enough with them for this, however. I first encountered it in the large orchestra version of Appalachian Spring, made in 1945. (The timpani play a descending C major scale C to E, then F, D, C, in unison with the other bass instruments, in the last statement of Simple Gifts just before the end of the piece.) The Bartok is from 1943.

Answer 2

As far as I am aware this in particular is not a big modern trend. The pedal timpani were invented in the late 19th century and were really the thing that made things like this possible.

But rather than being able to play very complicated passages the main effect we got from this is timpani glissandi and the advantage of being able to quickly retune your instrument.

Even before you did have frequent use of retuning the timpani within one piece. But composers would need to give a few bars for the player to tune. Or as with Berlioz, just add more timpani. With the modern timpani it is much faster, so you can change the timpani tuning in very short time.

But what we are seeing with the Bartók is very difficult to perform. You need to keep in mind: The whole thing is in changing time signatures without really anything else for reference. So you need to concentrate on the conductor. Meanwhile you are supposed to hit the correct timpani, so you need to concentrate on the drums. Also you need to dampen the timpani in between. And then you are supposed to fiddle with the pedals, without creating glissandi, and manage to be in tune.

That is hard, and it requires for a very skilled player to practice a lot.

And then the effect is limited, and can probably substituted well enough by a CB pizzicato or something. So as a composer you need an orchestra than can play this and then it still has to be worth it. Which means you usually do not see composer going for something like this (at least at that level).

Timpani glissandi on the other hand are really easy to perform and give a great effect. So we see this much more often.

Answer 3

There is also the minor, but, I think, important, aspect that hand-muting at certain spots on the timpani head can alter the pitch(es), also depending on the strike-spot of the mallet.

I am not a professional timpanist... but (for mathematical reasons) I've looked at the resonance of two-dimensional "surfaces" (as opposed to the one-dimensional strings of string instruments) for some years, and have some in-principle understanding of the weird possibilities (e.g., the "harmonic series", in any case, is not in a simple/nice sequence like the harmonics on a string...)

So, in particular, in principle, hand-muting (by astute choice of location) some of the "harmonics" could indeed leave a surprising remaining dominant pitch.