After each of our Southbank concerts, we ask one of our players to write a thank you note to our audience. Here’s what our principal timpani, Adrian Bending, had to say about our Beethoven’s Major Heroes concert at Southbank Centre on Tuesday 28 January 2020.
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Dear audience member,
Eroica…
Every time I think about my ‘Desert Island Discs’, they change…
Except Eroica…
It’s the most spellbinding piece I know.
There is no opening like it. No intro. Just two gunshots.
BANG!…BANG!…
And then the first subject in bar 3. Eh?
This is definitely NOT normal.
And the movement ends? Guess what? The same;
BANG!…BANG!…
We timpanists don’t like to be accused of banging…
Just like our colleagues, we like to think that we draaaaaaw out the tone. But here?
BANG! is what we do best.
Beethoven. Probably the best composer for timpani.
And Eroica… you know what?
It’s actuality the SLOW movement that is my favourite.
I bet you didn’t guess that?
The most sinister funeral march. C minor… it’s a very creepy key…
The tempo, the tension, the triplet grace-notes. It’s a drummer’s drama dream…
Norrington? And Beethoven? Best buddies!
When I was young…at the end of the last century…back at the Royal Academy…
Sir Roger visited… And we did Eroica…like we had never done Beethoven before…
HANG ON! Like we had never done MUSIC before.
It woke me up…it changed me…it made me think…
THIS is how music can go…
HANG ON!
This is how THIS music SHOULD go!
I decided…
THIS is how I want to play my drums.
And I am very lucky that I still do…
Adrian Bending, principal timpani
