The Unique Timpani Tuning of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is truly a spectacle. In his final symphony, in which the premiere was staged on May 7, 1824 in Vienna, Austria, Beethoven leaves his audience with plenty to consider in regard to its musical elements, structure, and characteristics. After reading this news article located in the African American Newspaper database on the Readex digital achieves website, I was struck by a unique and rather specific musical detail from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony that was mentioned in the article.
Looking first at the origin of the article, the article is from December 4, 1959, and although the author is not directly mentioned, the publication source is the Los Angeles Tribune. The article’s main purpose is to inform its audience of an African American composer named Ulysses Kay and his (along with other American composers) collaboration with five Russian composers who were on tour in the United States. The most recognizable name that is mentioned in the article is Dmitri Shostakovich, and the article incorporates a lengthy section consisting of Shostakovich quotes from a radio interview.
Although the main component I will explore further is from a Shostakovich quote, I feel the need to recognize Ulysses Kay and the work he was involved with back in 1959. The United States has had a complex and messy history with African American communities and seeing how classical music environments have historically been dominated by white individuals, learning that a man such as Kay was collaborating alongside Shostakovich, in a time when American society was hot on the tails of McCarthyism and when African American communities were advocating for their civil rights, Kay’s work delivers perspective to the journey of increasing the diversity within musical communities today.
With that preface, now it is time for the Shostakovich quotes. Shostakovich spoke of many fascinating points such as the morality of music, music as a vehicle of unity, and the evolution of musical elements from different musical eras, but the comment that I was intrigued by was his question in regard to the tuning of an octave for the kettledrums in Beethoven’s Eighth and Ninth Symphonies. Well, why did Beethoven tune the timpani in the interval of an octave? I was curious by this question myself. Shostakovich proceeds to answer this question stating Beethoven did it “in order to express fully his ideas while writing these works.” While that answer is solid (although a bit vague), I want to look at the specifics of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to determine why.
The tuning in question is in reference to the second movement of the symphony refered to as the Scherzo. Here, opposed to the tuning of a fourth or a fifth, which is present throughout the other movements of the symphony, Beethoven makes the bold choice to tune the timpani to the interval of an octave. The timpani are commonly used to reinforce harmonic structure in orchestral compositions, and with the fifth being the strongest cadential interval in music, no wonder the fifth or the inverted fifth (a fourth) is a popular choice to achieve this goal. Octaves are hollow and the octave leap is a striking jump when a mostly conjunct melody is at play in the Scherzo. Yet as Shostakovich mentioned, Beethoven defies this convention. As such, there is another interesting element to examine. The timpani are not tuned to scale degrees one and five or one and four, they are tuned to scale degree three in perfect octaves. This means, since the Scherzo is written in D minor, the timpani is tuned to octave F naturals.
In this video by conductor Gustavo Dudamel with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, the Scherzo begins with descending fifths and the timpani enters on measure five with a solo to solidify the D minor key with the octave F naturals. Here, Beethoven does not use the timpani to reenforce harmonic structure but almost in a melodic way by giving the timpani its own motif which is heard throughout the movement. With the F naturals solidifying the D minor key, the timpani motif will linger in the minds of the audience members throughout the rest of the movement because of how impactful it was at the outset of the movement. The motif almost serves as a reminder back to D minor and to advocate for D minor whenever D major asserts a claim to the harmony.
Moments such as minute markers 3:37 to 4:02 and at 11:14 are moments when the timpani advocates for D minor. When D major phrases such as 4:15 and 10:29 pick up in intensity, the timpani are able to swiftly kill off any momentum D major had built because of how effective the timpani tuning is to the audience’s perception of key. Even after the D major trio at 5:05, the timpani and the D minor campaign are back at it with the opening theme at 7:41 to convey that D minor has a sole hold of the movement. The timpani thus works as a soldier for D minor against the onslaught of D major throughout the movement, and the striking interval tuning reenforces and supports this stance.
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony contains some other truly interesting, sometimes strange elements, from a key battle between D minor and D major, to an interesting horn solo in movement three, to double bass recitatives and vocalists in the final movement, but looking back at Shostakovich’s answer of why Beethoven tuned the timpani in the interval of an octave, here is a hopefully convincing elaboration on why that is. Perhaps the best answer to any question of why Beethoven did something unique in his final symphony, or in any of his pieces for that matter, is because it fully expressed his ideas. Considering how we are still praising these choices today, I would say he may be an effective composer, but who knows for sure.
