Favourite tam-tam moments

[Maestro267]

Tam-tam, gong, whatever you want to call it. Your favourite passages featuring the tam-tam, please. Whether pianissimo or fortissimo, whether involving a single tam-tam or multiple ones in the same passage, it's all good.

Some of mine;

1. Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6, finale
This extraordinary finale reaches an enormous cry of despair of a climax, then it gradually dies down, but the tension is still in the air, before it is finally broken by a pianissimo tam-tam strike, and Tchaikovsky finally allows us to breathe.

2. Vaughan Williams - London Symphony, finale
Many climaxes in this one, usually topped with cymbals, but the ultimate climax is brought in by an almighty strike on the tam-tam (fittingly saved for this one and only moment in the entire work).

3. Elgar/Payne, Symphony No. 3, finale
This work ends with a pianissimo tam-tam stroke, left to die out on its own. A fittingly ambiguous end to this work.

4. Messiaen - Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, 4th movt.
This movement calls for three tam-tams, of differing registers, and the strikes interrupt the music at frequent intervals, each time getting louder and louder until it's almost unbearable.

[TheGSMoeller]

Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances - let that baby ring out!

[Mahlerian]

Four that come to my mind, in no particular order.

1. Boulez - Le marteau sans maitre:  At the very end of the work, a tam-tam along with several other gongs interrupt the reminiscences of earlier movements and proceed into a dialogue with the alto flute.  Unearthly and wonderful.

2. Mahler - Symphony No. 4: The vertiginous development is brought to a climax with ringing glockenspiel and rushing strings, complete with a tam-tam that pulls the timbre rapidly downwards to darker regions for the strange trumpet call that follows.

3. Schoenberg - Five Pieces for Orchestra Op. 16: One that few people probably notice, but the ringing of the tam-tam in the first piece under chiming xylophones and winds adds depth to a fascinating apparition.  Naturally the far more prominent tam-tam stroke at the climax of the same piece is also a great moment, but it's not the one that inspires me most.

4. Messiaen - Trois petites liturgies pour la presence divine: Enough of subtlety.  I love the clamorous roll on the tam-tam that provides the racous final moment of the second movement of this piece.  When I heard it live it was overwhelmingly loud, filling the entire hall.

[Dax]

Constant Lambert - the Rio Grande. Climax before the piano cadenza.

(By the Rio Grande - they - dance - no - sara [crash] bande)

[Cato]

Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini at various points, but especially the last bars!  In fact, you should hear the 1970's Stokowski recording on London!  The tam-tam is on steroids in that one!

[SymphonicAddict]

At this moment I remember these ones:

The most explosive moment is in the ending of St. Gregory the Great from Vetrate di Chiesa by Respighi. It's like a supernova 

Also in the Symphony Nr. 3 Ilya Murometz by Glière when Ilya is petrified by the army of the gods: terrific telluric moment!

In Mahler's Symphony Nr. 6 almost at the end, when all the tension builds up and it sounds the opening theme. Powerful!

2. Vaughan Williams - London Symphony, finale
Many climaxes in this one, usually topped with cymbals, but the ultimate climax is brought in by an almighty strike on the tam-tam (fittingly saved for this one and only moment in the entire work).

And this: really is exciting this fragment. I love it!!

[Spineur]

Rameau Alcante et Cephise ouverture

Rossini La gazza ladra ouverture

[vandermolen]

Weinberg Symphony 5 - last movement I think.

[BasilValentine]

My favorite is a quiet strike in the first movement of Shostakovich's Sixth Symphony. At 9:32 in this performance, as part of a ghostly echo of the movement's harrowing climax, following the statement of a key motive, the tam-tam sounds like a cavern opening up beneath ones feet. Vertiginous and chilling!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPL1U_cKlt0

[ritter]

Four that come to my mind, in no particular order.

1. Boulez - Le marteau sans maitre:  At the very end of the work, a tam-tam along with several other gongs interrupt the reminiscences of earlier movements and proceed into a dialogue with the alto flute.  Unearthly and wonderful.

Oh yes, unearthly, wonderful and really beautiful! The whole of "Bel édifice et les pressentiments" - double is stunning (those hummed lines just before the section you describe...wow! )....

[Mahlerian]

Oh yes, unearthly, wondefful and really beautiful! The whole of "Bel édifice et les pressentiments" - double is stunning (those hummed lines just before the section you describe...wow! )....

I can't imagine the work without that movement, which makes it surprising that it was added to the initial conception at a later date.

[Turner]

To mention a few others, there´s also Takemitsu´s "From Me Flows What You Call Time", the few, sparse Gong-moments lifting the somewhat subdued piece a bit. And Jon Leif´s "Saga Symphony" and "Geysir" has a good deal of these effects.

And of course "Sacre" and "The Inextinguishable".

But Nørgård´s "Percussion Concerto, For A Change" has aplenty of it, and for pure percussiveness, it would be my first choice, together with the "War Dance" from Respighi´s "Belkis Suite", and Stravinsky´s "Symphony in 3 Movements".

[some guy]

Tam-tam, gong, whatever you want to call it.

Well, if "it" is a tam-tam, then I want to call that "it" a tam-tam. If the "it" is a gong, then I want to call it a gong.

What I do not want to do is call a tam-tam and gong or a gong a tam-tam.

Having said that, how about that "Mikrophonie" thing by Stockhausen? That's probably longer than a moment, but it's a nice piece.

And the bowed tam-tam at the end of Crumb's string quartet is pretty delicious....

[arpeggio]

After constantly complaining about favorite lists like your 14¾ favorite gavottes composed by composers from Vermont, I actually have one.  I can not believe I actually have a favorite of something.  I am so excited.

The ending of the first movement of H. Owen Reed's Symphony for Band La Fiesta Mexicana.

[Parsifal]

Respighi: Pini di Roma finale movement coda
Richard Strauss: Tod und Verklarung (the moment of the protagonist's death)

[Maestro267]

And of course "Sacre" and "The Inextinguishable".

Unless you're speaking of another Inextinguishable, I'm 99% sure Nielsen 4 doesn't include a tam-tam.

[Turner]

Unless you're speaking of another Inextinguishable, I'm 99% sure Nielsen 4 doesn't include a tam-tam.

I won´t dispute that, (mis?)understood some entries here as allowing the music to be just generally percussive.

[Maestro267]

I won´t dispute that, (mis?)understood some entries here as allowing the music to be just generally percussive.

Nope. Tam-tam moments only for this specific thread.

[relm1]

1. Ending of Walton symphony no. 1
2. Ending of Horst planets, Mars.  The big ending with organ too before the music builds back up to those last smashing chords.
3.  Shostakovich no. 5, first movement, mid way during those heavy chords.