Timpani. Musical dictionary in stories (with illustrations) See what “timpani” are in other dictionaries

Date of writing: 02.04.2024

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Timpani

Many peoples have long known instruments consisting of a hollow vessel, the opening of which is covered with leather. Such instruments are found in India, Africa, China, and among Slavic peoples. It was from them that modern timpani originated, occupying an honorable place among the percussion instruments of a symphony orchestra. Timpani were the first of the percussion instruments to appear in the orchestra, back in the 17th century. These are large copper cauldrons, the top of which is covered with leather. Using screws, the tension of the skin can be changed, and then the sound becomes higher or lower. The timpani are played with felt-covered sticks. Each timpani can produce only one sound - the one to which it is tuned. Rebuilding a timpani is long and difficult. Therefore, in an orchestra there are two or three timpani of different sizes with different tunings. Modern composers use four, sometimes even five timpani. The sonority of timpani can be very diverse: from imitating the sound of thunder to a quiet, barely perceptible rustle or hum. Individual timpani strikes support the low, bass voices of the orchestra. And sometimes the timpani are even assigned melodies, of course, simple ones, consisting of three or four sounds.

Creative portraits of composers. - M.: Music. 1990 .

Synonyms:

See what "Timpani" is in other dictionaries:

Classification Percussion instrument, Membranophone ... Wikipedia

- (Arabic: el thabl drum). Type of musical instrument; 2 copper hemispheres, covered with leather, along which. hit with a special stick, used in pairs in the orchestra. Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. Chudinov A.N., 1910.… … Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

Timpani, timpani, units. timpani, timpani, women's (referring to the Ukrainian polytaurs, they explain from the Greek poly many and taurea drums) (music). A percussion musical instrument in the shape of two hemispheres covered with leather. Ushakov's explanatory dictionary. D.N. Ushakov. 1935... ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

Timpani, avr, unit. a, s, female Percussion membrane musical instrument with hemispheres covered in leather. Hit in l. (also translated: to triumph over victory, success; usually ironic.). | adj. timpani, oh, oh. Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov,... ... Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

Noun, number of synonyms: 2 breasts (12) nakara (4) ASIS Dictionary of Synonyms. V.N. Trishin. 2013… Synonym dictionary

timpani- timpani, gen. timpani and obsolete timpani... Dictionary of difficulties of pronunciation and stress in modern Russian language

Timpani- Timpani, old. musician ancient Persian instrument origin. In Europe it appears after the Cross. hikes, and we are on horseback. foreign regiments building XVII century With the establishment under Peter V. regular. L.'s armies have acquired modern significance. silver... ... Military encyclopedia

A percussion musical instrument consisting of a metal (or ceramic) hemispherical or egg-shaped body covered with a leather membrane. Typically used in pairs of different sizes and pitches. The first timpani... ... Collier's Encyclopedia

Mn. percussion musical instrument, other Russian timpani - the same (Boris Godunov, 1589; see Srezn. II, 24), Ukrainian. politavri, blr. polytaurs, resins. From Wed. Greek *πολυταυρέα from ταυρέα timpani; see Mikkola, BB 21, 118; Bernecker 1, 725; Vasmer, Gr.... ... Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language by Max Vasmer

timpani- ta/vr; pl. (singular lita/vra, s; zh.) (from Greek poly many and tauréa drums) see also. timpani A percussion musical instrument consisting of two hemispheres covered with leather. Install timpani. The sound of timpani. beat the timpani... Dictionary of many expressions

Books

Timpani of the Sun, I. Severyanin. Igor Vasilyevich Severyanin (1887 1941) Russian poet of the Silver Age, founder of ego-futurism, deservedly proclaimed by his contemporaries the King of Poets. Pineapples in champagne are wonderful...

LAD. This Slavic word is good - lad. It’s good when things go well, when things are going well in the family, when the dress is sewn well... You can give many examples with this root, and all the words will turn out to be bright and friendly. It’s not for nothing that harmony means harmony, peace, harmony, order.

But what do all these concepts have to do with music?

It turns out that it is the most direct.

Music is an art in which sounds are arranged harmoniously, consistently, and in an orderly manner. Try pressing the keys of a piano or plucking the strings of a guitar at random: no music will come out!

However, the word harmony is not just harmony and agreement. This is a special term that means the relationship of sounds with each other, their consistency, coherence.

Think of any melody: a song, a dance, an excerpt from some instrumental composition. If you start humming it, you will find that you cannot stop at any random place. And not only because, for example, all the words did not “fit” or the dance movement did not end. No: the point is that sounds, when combined with each other, are perceived differently. Some are as stable. You can stop on them longer, and even finish the movement altogether. The composer ends a verse of a song, a section or an entire instrumental piece on them. There is no way to stop at others: they evoke a feeling of incompleteness and require movement further, towards a stable, reference sound.

The combination of sounds that are different in pitch and gravitate towards each other is called a mode. The main sound of the mode - the most stable one, to which all others gravitate - is called the tonic. A chord of three sounds, the lower of which is the tonic, is called a tonic triad.

Modes, that is, similar combinations of sounds, are different. The most common modes in European music are called major And minor. The major scale is based on a tonic triad, in which first, below there is a major third (see what is written about the third in the story “Interval”), and above it a minor third. You will get a major key if you go up to the piano and press all the white keys of the note in sequence before up to next note before, located an octave higher. This sequential sound of notes within an octave is called gamma. What you played is a C major scale. You can play a major scale from any other sound, only then in some places the white key will have to be replaced with a black one. After all, the construction of scales is subject to a certain pattern. So in all major scales, after two tones taken in a row, a semitone follows, then three tones in a row and then a semitone again. In a minor scale, sounds alternate differently: tone, semitone, two tones, semitone, two tones. In this case, a scale is always named by its first sound.

What's the difference between scale And tonality? Gamma can be ascending and descending, that is, the sounds in it will rise up or descend. But they are certainly located sequentially, without jumps; they move from step to step (remember this comparison - we will need it later). And the tonality... Let's say you are singing a song in a school lesson. The song ended, and the teacher said: “Okay, you did it in D major (D major means the most stable, main sound of the song - re, and in the accompaniment the most stable chord on which the song ended is the D major triad). Now let’s try to sing it a little higher.” Gives you a “tuning”: a few chords in E major so that you get used to the sound, and you sing the song in a different key. The melody is the same, as if nothing has changed, but the song sounds a tone higher than before. And the main steady sound of the song is no longer re, A mi. And so it all ended with an E major chord.

Means, key- this is the height of the fret, the height at which it is located. Sometimes it is called harmoniousness.

The name of the tonality is obtained when the name of its main sound - the tonic - is added to the definition of the mode - C major, E-flat major, G minor, F-sharp minor... So we have the name of another mode - minor. This is also a very common mode of European music. It is based on a minor triad, in which the thirds are arranged like this: below is a minor one, and above it is a major one. You can get a minor scale if you play all the sounds from the white keys in a row. la before la.

The sounds of the scale are called degrees and are numbered in Roman numerals in order from bottom to top: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII. Tonic is stage I.

Major and minor are the most famous, most common modes. But besides them, there are many others. They are common in folk music and are increasingly used in modern professional music. There are also artificial frets, invented by composers. For example, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka came up with a whole-tone scale. It is called so because the distance between all sounds is a whole tone. It sounds strange, unusual. Glinka invented it to convey a state of numbness, something fantastic and lifeless.

Many modes, like major and minor, consist of seven degrees, but there are modes with a different number of sounds. So in a whole tone there are six steps. There is a whole group of modes called pentatonic modes (in Greek pente - five, tonos - tone) - these are five-step modes. There are also frets with a different number of steps.

WINNER. This concept came to us from ancient times. Even in Ancient Greece, and then in Rome, winners of competitions were crowned with laurel wreaths. Since then, the word laureatus has appeared, in Latin - crowned with laurels.

Nowadays this word is used in two meanings. The first is the winner of a music competition or competition. You probably know many of these laureates, especially the winners of the most authoritative music competition, the Tchaikovsky Competition. Among its laureates are Van Cliburn and Valery Klimov, Boris Gutnikov and Grigory Sokolov, Stefan Ruha and John Ogdon, Sergei Stadler and Mikhail Pletnev, Natalya Shakhovskaya and Ivan Monighetti, Lyudmila Shemchuk, Elena Obraztsova and Evgeniy Nesterenko.

The second meaning of the word “laureate” applies not only to representatives of the art world. This is the name given to a person awarded a high prize. We have laureates of the Lenin Prize (this is the most honorable prize that a person can be awarded), laureates of State Prizes, laureates of the Lenin Komsomol Prize. Such laureates are not only musicians, but also artists, poets, architects, filmmakers, scientists who made discoveries, inventors who invented new devices, workers who distinguished themselves by high performance in their work.

LIGHT MUSIC. Let’s admit right away that this term is not one of the most successful. Indeed: if there is light music, then there must also be heavy music? But there is no such thing in the world. There is music that is serious, gloomy, sad, tragic - but not heavy.

Therefore, instead of “easy” it is better to say something else. For example - entertaining. Indeed: it is entertaining music that is the “lightest”, accessible in terms of content. It doesn't provoke deep thought. Her job is to entertain, and sometimes distract, to give a rest. However, “light” and “entertaining” are not synonymous. After all, light music includes operetta, dance music, pop songs, and jazz compositions. And this is not always just entertainment. And there are operettas such as, for example, “Free Wind” by Dunaevsky, which talks about the struggle for peace against the instigators of a new war. And there are some funny pop songs, but there are also very serious, dramatic ones that make you think deeply... And jazz is also not always an entertaining art. You've probably already read about him on the pages of this book. And yet, such a term lives on - light music. And you have to accept it. Let's just always remember how conditional it is.

LEITMOTHIO. Probably every schoolchild has at least once heard Prokofiev’s symphonic tale “Peter and the Wolf” about how the pioneer Petya caught a wolf.

Do you remember who the characters are in it? A funny duck waddling from side to side, a cheerful bird, a grumpy grandfather, a ferocious wolf... It’s as if we see them all - the music of the fairy tale characters so vividly depicts them. Moreover: the text that the actor reads may not say anything, for example, about a bird that flutters in front of the wolf’s nose, but we hear that it is here... Why? Yes, because the music that characterizes it sounds - fast passages of a small piccolo flute. The composer depicts Petya with a beautiful, sing-song melody, similar to a pioneer march, grandfather with the bass grumbling of a bassoon, the wolf with the terrible howl of horns... All the characters in Prokofiev's musical fairy tale are characterized by leitmotifs.

Leitmotiv is a German word (Leitmotiv), which means leading motive in translation. This is the name of a bright, well-remembered musical theme - most often a melody, but there can also be a short, several-sound, motive, and a chord sequence that outlines some image or dramatic situation. Leitmotifs are used in large musical works - operas, ballets, symphonic works - and appear repeatedly throughout them, sometimes in a modified, but always recognizable form.

The German composer Richard Wagner was very fond of using leitmotifs. There are especially many of them in his tetralogy “The Ring of the Nibelung”, where leitmotifs characterize not only the heroes, but also their feelings, and even individual objects, such as the treasured sword, the golden ring, symbolizing power over the world, the calling horn of the young hero Siegfried.

Russian composers also used leitmotifs. In the opera “The Snow Maiden,” Rimsky-Korsakov gives leitmotifs to the daughter of Spring and Frost herself, and to the beautiful Spring, and to Leshy, the personification of wild, frightening fantastic power. In Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, the leitmotif of swans sounds. Do you remember Glinka’s opera “Ivan Susanin”? The composer characterizes the Poles with the melodies and rhythms of their national dances - polonaise, krakowiak, mazurka. Later, during the next acts of the opera, the mazurka acquires the meaning of a leitmotif. At first, in the second act, in the castle of King Sigismund, it sounds solemn and ringing. In the next act, in Susanin’s house, where the invaders break into to force the old peasant to lead them to Moscow, the melody of the mazurka sounds warlike and menacing. Finally, in the fourth act, in a deep forest, in an impenetrable thicket, where Susanin led the Poles, the mazurka “faded”, lost its luster, its self-confidence and belligerence. Confusion, anxiety, and impotent anger can be heard in her.

LIBRETTO. If you love music (which you undoubtedly do, since you needed this book), then you have probably seen books called “Opera librettos.” They outline the content of many Russian, Soviet and foreign operas.

What does libretto mean - content? No, this is an inaccurate name. In fact, a libretto (the Italian word libretto means little book) is the complete text of a musical and stage composition, that is, an opera, an operetta.

As a rule, librettos are composed by librettists who specialize in this field. Known in the history of musical theater are outstanding librettists who significantly influenced the development of opera, such as P. Metastasio, R. Calzabigi, and later A. Boito in Italy, E. Scribe, A. Meillac and L. Halévy in France. In Russia it was M. I. Tchaikovsky, who wrote the libretto for his brother P. I. Tchaikovsky, V. I. Velsky, who worked with N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov. Many librettos for Soviet composers were written by singer S. A. Tsenin.

Often a literary or dramatic work serves as the primary source for the libretto. Remember the most popular operas: “Eugene Onegin”, “The Queen of Spades”, “La Traviata”, “Rigoletto”, “Carmen”, “Snow Maiden”, “Boris Godunov”, “War and Peace”, “Katerina Izmailova”. Russian, foreign and Soviet operas are named here at random, based on the famous works of Pushkin, Tolstoy, Leskov, Ostrovsky, Merimee, Hugo, Dumas the Son. However, these works are greatly changed, because the opera genre has its own specifics. Thus, the text of the opera must be very laconic: after all, the sung word sounds much longer than the spoken word. Moreover, the basis of a dramatic play is dialogue. An opera must have arias, ensembles, and choruses. All this also requires processing. Even reworkings of a dramatic play. If a story or novel is chosen as the primary source, there are even more alterations: the number of characters is reduced, one storyline is highlighted and others disappear altogether. Compare, for example, Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin” and Tchaikovsky’s opera, and you can easily see this for yourself. Sometimes the characters of the characters change, and even, to some extent, the idea of the work. Therefore, the composer is sometimes reproached for distorting the writer’s intention. But such reproaches are unfounded: after all, the composer, together with the librettist, writes his own independent work.

Not only a literary work, but also a historical event and a folk legend can be taken as the basis for the libretto.

The libretto can be independent, not based on a literary work. The librettist either composes it himself or creates it based on some documents, folklore sources, etc. This is how, for example, a magnificent, very original libretto of N. Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia” arose. written by V. Belsky.

Sometimes the composer himself becomes the author of the libretto. Thus, Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin, based on the great monument of ancient Russian poetry “The Lay of Igor’s Campaign,” created the libretto for his opera “Prince Igor”. Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky himself wrote the libretto for “Boris Godunov” and “Khovanshchina,” and in our time this tradition was continued by R. K. Shchedrin, who is not only the author of the music, but also the author of the libretto for the opera “Dead Souls.”

The history of music knows cases when a composer chooses a completed dramatic work as a libretto. Such, for example, is “The Stone Guest” by Dargomyzhsky, written on the unchanged text of Pushkin’s little tragedy.

LIRA. Do you know what the emblem of musical art is? It has long been accustomed to depict it in the form of an elegant instrument: a figured curved frame, fastened at the top with a crossbar, to which strings stretch. This is a lyre, a plucked string instrument known back in Ancient Greece and Egypt. The lyre was held with the left hand, and in the right there was a plectrum with which sounds were made.

ORPHEUS PLAYING THE LYRE. DRAWING FROM A GREEK VASE. 5th century BC

ANCIENT GREEK LYRA

The lyre is the ancestor of many other stringed instruments, but it has survived to this day only in its images. This name was common in Ukraine and Belarus, starting from the 17th century, but referred to a different instrument.

PEASANT'S HYDREA

Timpani. Many peoples have long known instruments consisting of a hollow vessel, the opening of which is covered with leather. Such instruments are found in India, Africa, China, and among Slavic peoples. It was from them that modern timpani originated, occupying an honorable place among the percussion instruments of a symphony orchestra.

Timpani were the first of the percussion instruments to appear in the orchestra, back in the 17th century. These are large copper cauldrons, the top of which is covered with leather. Using screws, the tension of the skin can be changed, and then the sound becomes higher or lower.

The timpani are played with felt-covered sticks. Each timpani can produce only one sound - the one to which it was tuned. Rebuilding a timpani is long and difficult. Therefore, in an orchestra there are two or three timpani of different sizes with different tunings. Modern composers use four, sometimes even five timpani.

The sonority of timpani can be very diverse: from imitating the sound of thunder to a quiet, barely perceptible rustle or hum. Individual timpani strikes support the low, bass voices of the orchestra. And sometimes the timpani are even assigned melodies, of course, simple ones, consisting of three or four sounds.

SPOONS. It seems that this word has no place in the musical dictionary. And yet it got here by right. Spoons are a Russian folk musical instrument, essentially similar to castanets. It consists of two ordinary wooden spoons. They are struck against each other with their convex sides, and a clear, ringing sound is obtained. Previously, small bells were tied to the handles of spoons.

They are used in folk instrument orchestras. And sometimes they organize independent ensembles and even entire spoon orchestras.

SPOONS WITH BELLS

Buffoons. RUSSIAN LUBOK XVIII century. A BUCKMAN RIDING A GOAT PLAYS SPOONS

LUTE.

“The most important and most interesting musically-historically instrument,” this is what many musicians interested in the history of musical instruments say about the lute.

LUTE PLAYER (RIGHT) AND HARPER PLAYER. DRAWING FROM AN ENGRAVING BY THE DUTCH ARTIST ISRAEL VAN MEKENEM. END of the 15th century

The lute was common throughout the ancient world - in Mesopotamia, India and China, in Egypt and Assyria, in Ancient Greece and Rome, among the Persians and Arabs. The Arabs considered the lute the most perfect of all musical instruments and called it the queen of instruments. It was through the Arabs that the lute came to Europe: it appeared in Spain in the 8th century, when it was conquered by the Moors. Over time, the lute penetrated from Spain to Italy, France, Germany and other countries. Its dominance in musical life continued for many centuries. In the 15th–17th centuries it sounded everywhere. It was used both as a solo instrument and as an accompaniment. Large lutes were played in ensembles and even in orchestras.

Gradually, she had to give way to bowed instruments: they had a more powerful and bright sound. And in home music playing, the lute was replaced by the guitar.

If you have ever seen a reproduction of Caravaggio’s painting “The Lute Player,” you can imagine what this instrument looks like. The body, reminiscent of half a melon or a tortoise shell, is quite large in size, and has a wide neck with pegs for tensioning the strings. The lower soundboard, that is, the convex part of the body, is often lined with pieces of ebony or ivory for beauty. In the middle of the upper deck there is a cutout made in the shape of a beautiful star or rose. Large, so-called archilutes, had three such rose cutouts. The number of strings on a lute varied, from six to sixteen, and all of them, except the two highest, were doubled in unison or octave.

They played the lute while sitting, placing it on the left knee. The strings were plucked with the right hand, while the left hand fixed them on the fingerboard, lengthening or shortening them.

Several decades ago it seemed that the lute was an instrument that had left us forever. But in recent years there has been an interest in ancient music and ancient instruments. Therefore, now in concerts of early music ensembles you can sometimes see the lute and its varieties - the archlute and theorbo.

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The lyre was held with the left hand, and in the right there was a plectrum with which sounds were made.
ANCIENT GREEK LYRA
ORPHEUS PLAYING THE LYRE.
DRAWING FROM A GREEK VASE.

The peasant's lyre or hurdy-gurdy is a small keyboard instrument. The performer pressed the keys with one hand, playing the melody, and with the other turned the wheel, which, touching the strings, created a constant accompaniment. Wandering, often blind, musicians - lyre players - roamed the roads with hurdy-gurdy wheels.
Timpani. Many peoples have long known instruments consisting of a hollow vessel, the opening of which is covered with leather. Such instruments are found in India, Africa, China, and among Slavic peoples. It was from them that modern timpani originated, occupying an honorable place among the percussion instruments of a symphony orchestra.
Timpani were the first of the percussion instruments to appear in the orchestra, back in the 17th century. These are large copper cauldrons, the top of which is covered with leather. Using screws, the tension of the skin can be changed, and then the sound becomes higher or lower.
The timpani are played with felt-covered sticks. Each timpani can produce only one sound - the one to which it was tuned. Rebuilding a timpani is long and difficult. Therefore, in an orchestra there are two or three timpani of different sizes with different tunings. Modern composers use four, sometimes even five timpani.
The sonority of timpani can be very diverse: from imitating the sound of thunder to a quiet, barely perceptible rustle or hum. Individual timpani strikes support the low, bass voices of the orchestra. And sometimes the timpani are further assigned melodies, of course, simple ones, consisting of three or four sounds.

Timpani

Buffoons.
RUSSIAN LUBOK XVIII century.
Buffoon RIDING A GOAT
PLAYS SPOONS

SPOONS. It seems that this word has no place in the musical dictionary. And yet it got here by right. Spoons are a Russian folk musical instrument, similar, in essence, to castanets. It consists of two ordinary wooden spoons. They are struck against each other with their convex sides, and a clear, ringing sound is obtained. Previously, small bells were tied to the handles of spoons.
They are used in folk instrument orchestras. And sometimes they organize independent ensembles and even entire spoon orchestras.

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Many peoples have long known instruments consisting of a hollow vessel, the opening of which is covered with leather. Such instruments are found in India, Africa, China, and among Slavic peoples. It was from them that modern timpani originated, occupying an honorable place among the percussion instruments of a symphony orchestra. Timpani appeared in the orchestra as the first of the percussion instruments, back in the 17th century. These are large copper cauldrons, the top of which is covered with leather. Using screws, the tension of the skin can be changed, and then the sound becomes higher or lower. The timpani are played with felt-covered sticks. Each timpani can produce only one sound - the one to which it was tuned. Rebuilding a timpani is long and difficult. Therefore, in an orchestra there are two or three timpani of different sizes with different tunings. Modern composers use four, sometimes even five timpani. The sonority of timpani can be very diverse: from imitating the sound of thunder to a quiet, barely perceptible rustle or hum. Individual timpani strikes support the low, bass voices of the orchestra. And sometimes the timpani are even assigned melodies, of course, simple ones, consisting of three or four sounds.

Meanings in other dictionaries

Lyra

Do you know what the emblem of musical art is? It has long been accustomed to depict it in the form of an elegant instrument: a figured curved frame, fastened at the top with a crossbar, to which strings stretch. This is a lyre, a plucked string instrument known back in Ancient Greece and Egypt. The lyre was held with the left hand, and in the right there was a plectrum with which sounds were made. The lyre is the ancestor of many other string instruments...

Liszt Ferenc

(22 X 1811, village Doborjan, Hungary - 31 VII 1886, Bayreuth, Bavaria) If Liszt had not been in the world, the whole fate of new music would have been different.V. StasovThe compositional work of F. Liszt is inseparable from all other forms of the varied and intense activity of this true enthusiast in art. A pianist and conductor, music critic and tireless public figure, he was “greedy and sensitive to everything new...