not to do so.

Rather, they wrote parts that could be played on modern 26-

to 29-inch timpani. Second, if smaller drums were used, the tone would
not have been very good. Bowles rightly concludes that tuning small
drums down to A and d would have produced a “belting” tone. Addition-
ally, articulation would have been very difficult to achieve on drums with
very loose heads. Where the timpani were employed rhythmically, com-
posers would have preferred drums capable of better articulation. This
would mean that when timpani were written in G and c, larger drums with
tighter heads would have been preferable to smaller drums with slack
heads. Composers would not have scored for instruments unable to artic-
ulate a part or play it tonally. Finally, the existence of larger drums suggests
that they were available to European composers, and for this reason, com-
posers would have scored for them. It is unimaginable that Bach, a sensi-
tive and demanding composer, would want timpanists to play on very
slack heads. He would have asked for the larger drums (Altenburg 1974,
121–122; Terry 1932, 50–61; Bowles 1976, 58–59; Papastefan, 1978, 61;
Blades 1970, 230–231).
There is one further piece of evidence suggesting that timpani in-
creased in size in the eighteenth century. By examining Bowles images of
historical timpani of the time, the number of tension rods increases. In the
seventeenth century, there were approximately six to seven tension rods on
the larger of two drums; however, in the eighteenth century, seven to eight
tenion rods are common. Assuming that the tension rods were not added
to improve the sound quality of the drum, it is reasonable to conclude that
the increased number of tenion rods reflected a modest increase in the size
of the drums.
Well into the classical period, timpani larger than the traditional 19-
to 24-inch drum were available to some composers (Montagu 2002, 80).
When Handel came to London in 1784, Charles Burney notes that Ash-
bridge of Drury-Lane made two larger drums (Bowles 2002, 457). These
drums were larger than the orchestra’s drums and they provided superior
tone (Burney 1979, 7–8). We do not know the size of the Ashbridge tim-
pani; however, Jeremy Montagu, noted instrument historian, says that two
surviving timpani of the eighteenth century were 27 1⁄2 and 33 inches (Mon-
tagu 2002, 85). These middle-sized drums suggest that Ashbridge could
have produced drums of like or similar size, and they would have pro-
duced a much better tone than 19- to 21-inch or alleged 36- and 39-inch
double-bass timpani (Farmer 1960, 95; Blades 1970, 254–255). Finally, an-
ecdotal evidence suggests that drums in the 25- to 29-inch range were used
at this time. O. Vandenbrock, in his Traite general de tous les instruments a
vent a l’usage des compositeurs (1794, 56–57), tell us that the preferred
notes on the larger and smaller drums were B and c, and d and e-flat re-
spectively. These are suspiciously close to the range of a contemporary 29-
and 26-inch Dresden drums. Choice notes on these timpani range from A
to c on the large drum and from d to f on the small drum.
The size of the Ashbridge timpani helped produce a better sound, but
Burney suggests something more tantalizing: he writes that Ashbridge

64 Timpani Tone and the Interpretation of Baroque and Classical Music