10 Recordings Featuring the Best Percussion Playing Ever
Ravel: Ma mère l’oye (Mother Goose) Ballet (Boston Symphony/Ozawa/DG)
Strauss: Macbeth (Scottish National Orchestra/Järvi/Chandos)
Mahler: Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection” (Concertgebouw Orchestra/Haitink/Decca)
Mussorgsky/Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition (Philadelphia Orchestra/Ormandy/Sony)
Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky (London Symphony/Abbado/DG)
Mahler: Symphony No. 7 (New York Philharmonic/Bernstein/Sony)
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring (Cleveland Orchestra/Chailly/Decca)
Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 (Boston Symphony Orchestra/Davis/Decca)
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 13 “Babi Yar” (Concertgebouw Orchestra/Haitink/Decca)
Respighi: The Pines of Rome (Chicago Symphony/Reiner/RCA)
source
I hope you'll do an episode like this on bass playing, too. It's another instrument that doesn't seem to get enough attention and love in the classical world.
Colin Davis and Concertgebouw again, the bells in last movement in the first recording of the Symphonie Fantastique give me chills , they are so terrifying. What a sound!
I remember a recording of The Rite Of Spring by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas with exacting timpani playing by the late great Vic Firth. I had some Vic Firth timpani mallets with my favourite was his cartwheel legato mallets. I also was a fan of Donald Koss who was the Solo Timpanist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Amazing Dave, are we getting string/woodwind section videos too? 😀
A Best Tympani video as an adjunct to this? My vote would got to the tympani in the opening of the ‘73 Karajan “Also sprach”… such great impact.
Very fun. You make me think of lots of recordings I've forgotten. Like, what about those trash can lids at the end of Abravanel's Mahler Eighth! My friend and I use to laugh at this. What about Reiner's Mahler 4? The first movement is apocalyptic! Loved many of the recordings you mention. Especially the Nevsky! Wow!
That was an absolutely fantastic talk! Percussion is so ignored and misunderstood. Please, please do another 10 works soon.
This series is unique, there is no other classical music commentary or critique like this series. So erudite, captivating and passionate. Thank you!
Charles Mackerras two recordings of Sibelius 2 feature extra timpani parts at the conclusion. Writing to him about this he confirmed that it was either Toscanini or Koussevitsky who suggested to the great composer that it sounded right and Sibelius agreed. Mackerras used this version in a concert I attended with the Philharmonia and the great Andy "Thumper" Smith on timps. The conductor had the instruments front centre stage next to him and Thumper let iit go. What a spectacle! Salonen has gone on record as saying the timpanist is the most important player in the orchestra and who can argue with that.
Maazel’s Cleveland Rite also has fantastic percussion AND that Telarc bass drum.
Overall agreed with you, of course. But, as far as the "Rite of Spring", I prefer Neeme Järvi and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Although Chailly's recording overall my be better, Järvi 'Sacificial dance' is a jam session!
How do you break a tam-tam? What the hell were they hitting it with?
I think timpani comes a bit closer to being able to tell different players than some of the other percussion instruments, though I wouldn't guarantee I always could in many full orchestra recordings. For me, David Herbert tends to stand out as a favorite, ever since his SFS days but now in Chicago. His style is typically a bit crisper than most other timpanists, to my ears. A delightfully inventive percussionist that I enjoy (outside of the usual orchestral parts) is Gene Koshinski.
I concur with others about Telarc's bass drum sound- it's thrilling and unique. But I found this by accident: Respighi's Roman Festivals on Naxos wit Batiz and the Royal Philharmonic.
OMG! It's a tamtam extravaganza! You gotta hear it!
You maybe would expect a tam-tam to break during Pictures at an Exhibition or The Pines of Rome, but….La Mer?
Would love to see/hear one of your Italian tam-tams on camera. I've always wondered about the unique sound of the Concertgebouw's big tam on that 1969 Mahler 2nd. The fact that you can hear every note of the part is the only reason I kept that recording on the shelf for as long as I did. LR
Shoot, I thought this was going to be recordings that you are on. 😅
Very informative anyway.
I'd add to this list Peter Serkin's old recording of Bartok one with Ozawa and Chicago. really expressive and impactful
Go Vic!!!
Did you know that the 1969 Boulez Rite with Cleveland was done in ONE take! Got that bit of info from Cloyd Duff the timpanist at the time.
Talking about percussion without sitting in front of your tam-tam!?
Although hardly "traditional",I immediately thought of the Bizet Carmen ballet arranged by Shchedrin recorded by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops! Allof that percussion in the marvelous Symphony Hall acoustics!! Simply out of sight!!
That "PInes' with Reiner is amazing – especially those tam-tam crashes at the end of "The Pines of the Appian Way". No other recording that I know of bring them out like that. It's thrilling.
If I may, I'd like to recommend listening to actual brass bands like The President's Own. They really hit the spot
Did you know my father Michael Aaronson?
I was surprised to hear tam tam strokes at the beginning of Herold's Zampa Overture in Richard Bonynge's LSO recording. Certainly, I haven't noticed this in any other recording of Zampa.
What was the recording date of the Ormandy recording? Is it the stereo recording that's in that 20th Century box that you didn't like? (the box, I mean).
I love the Macbeth pick, also an often undeservedly overlooked Strauss work. Also, the Haitink Babi Yar is shattering + one of my main go to hi fi demonstration discs! That whole Haitink Decca series had tremendously excellent sound & detailed, powerful percussion. Another percussion personal fave is a Gibson/SNO compilation of Scottish themed music on Chandos ("Land of the Mountain & Flood"), particularly the Malcolm Arnold "Tam O'Shanter" piece. Chailly's Varese Decca compilation offers great percussion sound too.