TromboneChat

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Check out the dynamic markings in this bass trombone part...

Bennett, William Sterndale / DIE NAJADEN, OP.15



William Sterndale Bennett was a young prodigy composer mentored by Mendelssohn, among others.


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It’s a timpani part.

Here is an excerpt from a later work. Not as many fs but not any more revealing about what an f after an already-existing f intends.

Perhaps this is some sort of mishap in copying parts, like you might see with computer scoring apps today... someone enter on another staff, is assigned a dynamic level, and everyone else in the other staves gets that dynamic level stated on their part, even if it has already been established for them earlier.

My guess would be that each one of those is a sforzando.

Beethoven did this sometimes too.

GabrielRice wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 3:47 pm Beethoven did this sometimes too.

Yup. I think at the time it was a somewhat dated, mostly Austrian idiom for requesting a sort of "push" accent to the articulation. You might see "f", "sf", "sfz", or "rfz" in similar applications.

Maybe not to that extreme (!), but this is very common in parts from the period.

Maybe it was written for a forgetful player???

walldaja wrote: ↑Wed Apr 20, 2022 5:59 am Maybe it was written for a forgetful player???

In other words, it was written for the typical trombone player!

He does know about conventional accents and the sf marking, he uses those elsewhere.


He must want something special here but I'm reminded of the line from "The Incredibles"... if everything is special then nothing is special.


Maybe it's like a loud tenuto

In this performance I don't detect that they have found much else to do with them...

This clip should enter at Letter K (10:28)


Not a bad piece, he wrote it when he was only 20 or so while visiting in Germany. Brush with greatness...

Wiki:

[Mendelssohn] took me to his house and gave me the printed score of [his overture] 'Melusina', and afterwards we supped at the 'Hôtel de Bavière', where all the musical clique feed ... The party consist[ed] of Mendelssohn, [Ferdinand] David, Stamity [sic] ... and a Mr. Schumann, a musical editor, who expected to see me a fat man with large black whiskers.

Kbiggs wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 9:47 am It’s a timpani part.

The actual timpani part is mysterious also. I wonder what staccatos under a slur mean on a timpani...

https://archives.nyphil.org/index.php/ ... 1/mode/2up

That notation is for the legato stroke on the timpani.

Can you play a sforzando on tympani? Special damping technique?

Posaunus wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 11:41 am Can you play a sforzando on tympani? Special damping technique?

Sometimes tympanists will use their opposite hand to dampen the sound after they strike the head. Using the hand, hell, or fingers lends a slightly different effect on the end of the note (the right side of the note). Using different sticks and mallets with different wraps (size, softness/density, etc.) will also affect the right side of the note. In the end, it’s up to what the conductor wants.

Posaunus wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 11:41 am Can you play a sforzando on tympani? Special damping technique?

On a rolled note it's almost a cliché... whack the first mallet and quiet roll after that.

But on a single-struck note it's like sfz on a piano... louder than the notes around it and maybe shorter?