Principal percussion has explosive final bash of the year
mainA message from Graham Johns, principal percussionist of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
Make sure you watch to the end.
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Wonderful. I would like to see (hear) Mr Johns in Mahler 8.
I remember his splendid part , now too many years ago, in Bolero . It was the first time I had ever seen a live performance, and until then I had not realised what a tour de force of both concentration and stamina it is for the tympanist
The test of stamina and concentration falls on the shoulders of the snare drummer. 27 minutes of the same two-measure rhythmic pattern. The timpani part is really nothing too special in comparison.
Don’t exaggerate: even Celibidache at his slowest would not have been able to stretch Ravel’s Bolero to “27 minutes”.
“I had not realised what a tour de force of both concentration and stamina it is for the tympanist”….
….to stay awake.
It’s the snare drummer who plays all the way through.
No hammer in M8, but huge tam-tam smashes at the end of Part II.
I mean the strondous drum in the beginning of the first movement. Mahler had a specially designed drum; the Concertgebow Orch. also has one.
Don’t you mean Mahler 6?
That should be percussionist !
The go to choice for eliminating antisocial neighbours
Now HERE’S some Mahler 6 humor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTloV4Bn10I
He should lay a Timex wristwatch on that thing to see if the watch truly “takes a licking and keeps on ticking”.
(People of a certain age will get the reference.)
Thor couldn’t do any better.
Must have took a lot of talcum powder!
The picture actually shows the box of the Liverpool Phil wherein they put players who protest too much during rehearsels, thereby wasting costly rehearsel time. The round hole is for the breathing and the man next to the contraption is an usher specially hired to hammer the head back into the box when it appears again with its expostulations.
Oh Graham that is better than the one we did with the BBC Northern years ago when recording at the Salford University.Kevin brought the plaster off the wall.Good fun!!!
Irene ♬♫XXĞ
The last time I saw the CSO play Mahler’s Sixth, each time the hammer-stroke neared, a round spotlight surrounded the percussionist at center rear stage on a riser, just to be sure we didn’t miss it. Small chance of that! EMT’s were in attendance with resuscitators.