Dear Listmembers, Trivia time once again!! I have been puzzled by what I hear on recordings of Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony compared to what appears in the score. I have a Kalmus study score that shows the last note of the first movement as a low E-natural quarter note played ssf by the cellos and basses. I know a different edition of the score exists (by Boosey&Hawkes) and maybe this explains the discrepancy I am hearing. Twenty-one of the forty-three recordings I've been able to hear have the timpani also play the low E, sometimes very loudly, sometimes softly reinforcing the strings. There is also one recording that seems to add a tuba in lieu of the drum, again reinforcing the basses on the low E. Does anyone have access to the Hawkes score? I am loath to pay the full price for an orchestral score to satisfy what is, admittedly, a small and, to some, unimportant question. But I will if necessary. I have a strong suspicion that this note is an addition by either the composer or another eminent conductor due to a weak bass section on a specific occasion. This suspicion is based only upon my (admittedly biased) musical reaction to the vulgarity of the passage with the drum. My bias is that I've heard this passage without the addition of other instruments from the first time I heard this symphony in Ormandy's Philadelphia recording on Columbia, back in the 1960's, and strongly prefer it that way. I know some will say, "Rachmaninov without vulgarity? An oxymoron!" But I disagree. Tchaikovsky could be vulgar, but Rachmaninov's temperament was anything but. I don't think he had a vulgar bone in his body. Even with his heart on his sleeve his music had a certain poise and dignity that kept it above the merely sentimental. In any event, if anyone has any information out there (timpanists?, conductors?) about this tempest in a teapot, I would appreciate hearing from you. David Simmons [log in to unmask] Virginia Beach, VA