So I have come across another thing that some people have said about my Pathetique Sonata orchestration. That is that my tympani pitch changes are too quick and that there will be glissando on the tympani due to the usage of the pedals.
I am doing a third draft of the Pathetique Sonata orchestration, but I honestly don't think I did anything wrong for the tympani in my second draft. This is what I had going on in the tympani part of the second draft in the first four measures of the Grave introduction:
And here is the original piano score of those same 4 bars:
You can see right where the tympani notes come from in this piano score.
I found this video by Thomas Goss specifically on Tympani bass lines a few weeks ago:
I know Thomas Goss to be an orchestration expert. After listening to the video, I was like:
Well, I think this part of the Pathetique sonata deserves a bass line in the tympani. The first 4 bars just sound so grandiose and orchestral in sonority. Of course I wouldn't double every single note in the Cellos. I know better than that. I will just have the tympanist play in the places where I feel there is a harmonic accent in the sonata. That just happens to be beats 1 and 4. Beat 1 has a harmonic accent because of the forte dynamic. Beat 4 has a harmonic accent because of the resolution of a prolonged suspension.
And I will give the tympanist a well deserved break after these 4 bars of the Grave and bring it back during the Allegro. Heavy brass will come in after bar 4 anyway, so they can get across the bass line for the rest of the Grave.
Given that the tympani does nothing on beats 2 and 3 and that the tempo is at 30 BPM(that's what I tend to play the Pathetique Sonata introduction at), than even with the forte strike on the first beat, it should decay enough that there is no glissando on beat 4 and that likewise, the slow tempo combined with the quieter dynamic would mean no glissando into the next forte strike, right? It is only at faster tempos or with constant beat to beat changes that I have to worry about a glissando in the tympani, right?