Beethoven's Pedal Markings: Why Do We Ignore Them?
Modern pianists are told to ignore Beethoven's pedal markings, so why did he write them? Let's look at the question using a piano from Beethoven's era.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Hello from Vienna! I’m Daniel Adam Maltz.
Today, we're talking about the pedal markings in Beethoven's ‘Waldstein’ sonata. By modern standards, the pedal markings that Beethoven writes in the opening bars of the 3rd movement are very confusing. He asks you to lift the dampers for extended periods of time and even has you pedal through dissonances.
I think most students are told some variant of the same thing when approaching Beethoven’s pedal markings — and that is that Beethoven was writing for a different type of piano and, therefore, we should ignore his markings. And that’s true: if you were to try to play the third movement of the Waldstein sonata exactly as Beethoven directs with the pedal markings on a modern piano, then the result would be blurred jumble.
However, today we are sitting at a piano of Beethoven's era and I would like to show you what's missing when one plays on modern piano.
One has to consider that everything in this piano is much more lightweight and, therefore, the tone is not quite as booming as one hears on today’s modern pianos. Also, the tone features a quick decay. As soon as I play the note, it starts to go away. On modern pianos, the sound swells and grows a little bit before it starts to decay.
We also have to take into consideration how the pedal was treated in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It was viewed as an effect for a specific musical gesture. It wasn’t a tool for legato playing like it’s used today… something that is being used the whole time one plays.
So, when Beethoven writes these pedal markings in the third movement of the Waldstein sonata, he’s going for a specific effect where the sound blurs together. And, due to the lightweight nature and the tone decay of this instrument, it works quite nicely.