March for Two Pairs of Timpani

In the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras, trumpets and kettledrums were inextricably linked with military action. Players were part of secret societies, and their performance methods were unwritten and closely guarded aural traditions. Early transcriptions of music for kettledrums (or timpani) are particularly significant, therefore. Perhaps the most important were those of André Danican Philidor, the librarian for the Royal Music Library at the Court of Louis XIV and the grandfather of the famous 19th-century chess player François-André Danican Philidor. Philidor the elder notated hundreds of pieces in what is known today as the Philidor Collection, including the March for Two Pairs of Timpani, which he composed with his brother Jacques. The March offers a window into the kind of drum music performed at the French court, replete with complex rhythms and unusual tuning.