mic) instrument.

Throughout the Baroque and into the Classical period,

the diameter of timpani increased. This means that the tone quality of
the instruments improved. Jeremy Montagu, James Blades and Edmund
Bowles report that timpani in the seventeenth century ranged in size from
17 to 34 inches. There is some dispute about whether or not the drums
were, on the whole, smaller than what we use today. While 17-inch drums
(smaller drums) were common in many orchestras, James Blades suggests
that other drums measured between 24 and 30 inches. Bowles and Mon-
tague place the diameters of seventeenth-century drums between 18 and
24 1⁄2 inches, and John Papastefan agrees with H. C. R. Landon that smaller
drums were preferred because larger timpani reverberated more than
smaller drums. To complicate this picture, instrument historian, Nicholas
Bassaraboff, argues that larger drums were present in Eastern Europe and
Russia, but not in Western Europe during the Baroque. In the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, very large drums were reported in Hungary and Rus-
sia (Bassaraboff 1941, 33–35). At the end of the sixteenth century, Thoinot
Arbeau describes a Turkish drum measuring about 30 inches in diameter,
and Sebastian Virdung, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, describes
the very large military drums (die grossen Heerpauken) used to summon
men to the battlefield. In Virdung’s words, “die grossen Heerpauken” were
“enormous tubs of great noise” and they were capable of “a smothering
and drowning of all sweet melodies and of the whole of Music” (Arbeau
1972, 18; Virdung 1993, 114–115). Not to be outdone, Henry G. Farmer
discoved a 40- and 38-inch pair of late eighteenth century timpani (Farmer
1962, 129). In conclusion, it appears that timpani were usually smaller than
those used today; however, larger drums were circulating and one must
conclude that some court orchestras owned larger drums. These would
have produced a better tone than smaller drums (Montagu 2003, 78–87).
While smaller-sized drums were common in the early Baroque, musi-
cal scores of this period attest to the use of larger drums in Western Europe.
Nicholas Hasse’s Auffzug 2. Clarinde [und] Heerpauken (1656), Heinrich
Biber or Andreas Hofer’s Salzburger Festmesse (1682), and Jean-Baptiste
Lully, Thesée (1673) are scored for timpani in G and c (Bowles 2002, 18–
19). Andre and Jacques Philidor, court musicians to King Loius XIV, wrote
a march scored for two timpani in G and c and e and g (Blades 1970, 237-
240). In the eighteenth century, many of Bach’s sacred cantatas are written
in for G and c timpani (Nos. 31, 41, 43, 59, 63, 71, 74, 130, 137, and 172)
or for A and d timpani (Nos. 11, 34, 80, 110, 149, 191, 195, 201, 205, and
206 for example). In No. 143 the lower drum reached down to an F—pre-
sumably the lowest, recognizable note on larger timpani of his time (Blades
1970, 245). Bach could have scored the timpani an octave higher and that
would have been appropriate for the use of small drums; however, he did
not. This attests to his preference for using larger, more sonorous drums.
It also suggests that he had access to these drums. Since he wrote for larger
drums when he lived in Köthen, Weimar, and Leipzig, larger drums must
have been available in other parts of Germany. Other composers could
have written parts to fit smaller drums if they desired; however, they chose

Interpretation of Baroque Music 63