History of the Viennese Timpani

Technical development

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The extremely complex and heavy design of the old Schnellar timpani permitted only a very limited fabrication. Prof. Richard Hochrainer (1904 - 1986), also solo timpanist of the Vienna Philharmonic, successfully took care of this problem, and created a new design of the foot part out of aluminium with equal tone quality and sound character.


Prof. Richard Hochrainer 

Further improvement was carried out by the successor of Richard Hochrainer, Wolfgang Schuster, in the area of the tuning mechanism and the bowl manufacturing.

Since the 1980s the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra also plays on timpani produced by Wolfgang Schuster in Vienna.


Prof. Wolfgang Schuster


A pair of timpani with improved tuning mechanism

Presently it is worked on improvements, another model which foot design is built by means of contemporary production technology should be taken into the delivery-program.



Awarded design by Mag. Julia Aigner. University of Applied Arts Vienna, class of Prof. Paolo Piva (prototype).

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