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Maurice Hinson says that if used delicately and carefully, the pedal can help produce the cantabile style of playing Bach refers to in the Preface to the Two-Part Inventions and that sometimes it is desirable to use it to add resonance and colour to the individual tones and chords.
Maurice Hinson says that if used delicately and carefully, the pedal can help produce the cantabile style of playing Bach refers to in the Preface to the Two-Part Inventions and that sometimes it is desirable to use it to add resonance and colour to the individual tones and chords.
+1. For the same reason I would (and did) use pedal at the opening of the C minor Partita. Actually I used a fair amount of pedal throughout the piece, but that was 12 years ago, and I wouldn't be inclined to be so liberal with it now.
Maurice Hinson says that if used delicately and carefully, the pedal can help produce the cantabile style of playing Bach refers to in the Preface to the Two-Part Inventions and that sometimes it is desirable to use it to add resonance and colour to the individual tones and chords.
Thanks, that is helpful. And I think it is what my teacher was trying to tell me.
Obviously, my teacher was not suggesting I use the pedal as a "crutch" or even to connect notes in this particular piece. It was just really confusing trying to figure out what kind of pedaling sounds good in this type of piece. I've played around with it, and picked some notes to pedal on...but I don't think it makes much of a difference. It might even sound better - idk, cleaner maybe - without pedal.
I use quite a lot of pedal here, in the sense of using it for many small effects, not smearing the whole sound. I think it works, particularly in the sarabande, though you may disagree.
That was very nice.
The Sarabande is one movement that I do think pedal works well in. It came much easier in that movement for me.
Winsome One! What a great question! The conclusion reached by the OP in the thread that ChopinAddict linked to for you to read was this: Let your ears be your guide.
I found these for you to listen to, if you care to. Tatiana Nikolayeva is one of my very most favorite Bach interpreters. The sound quality of this recording is not great, but my impression is that she is NOT pedalling in these renditions AT ALL!
Then, there is Emil Gilels (another of my faves), and in these renditions, my impression is that he DOES pedal, but ever, ever so slightly... sometimes...
What do you think? Here are two professionals NOT PEDALLING! Whether or not to pedal any particular Bach piece or phrase is, IMO, a very personal decision, to be made based on very personal expressive needs. DOWN WITH DOGMA, no matter how deeply imbued with intellect or how shallowly asserted through ignorance.
Hope this helps! --Andy
P.S. That thread ChopinAddict linked to has lots and lots of very cool posts and is worth reading.
Thanks for those links and thoughts! I do like those two interpretations a lot. Gilels is a little too slow for my taste, but much of what Nikolayeva does is just how I envision the piece sounding. Lack of obvious pedaling does not diminish from the performance, I don't think.
[...] but much of what Nikolayeva does is just how I envision the piece sounding.
That was my reaction ENTIRELY when I discovered her recordings!!! I've been working on Partitas 1 and 4 for many years, now, and when I discovered her recordings last year, they sounded IDEAL! I really encourage you to take some time to uncover her stuff on Youtube, or at the library, and just simply enjoy it!
P.S. I agree about Gilels! Pedalling was the point...
To Cinnamonbear: I don't agree that the meaning of the term in music is limited to things involving a "written copy"; the term is often used in a broader way (although, again, not necessarily most often).
Oh, for Pete's sake! Transcription means taking something that wasn't written down a certain way, and writing it down that certain way. If Bach wrote down keyboard music, and you play it on a keyboard, the playing of it is not a transcription, it is a performance. In reading a manuscript that was written for an early keyboard instrument and playing it on a modern piano, there is ceratainly and aspect of "trans." There is no aspect of "scribe." There is, however, and aspect of "late."
If music is played on instrument(s) that it was not originally played on, it is either a realisation (the notation is not changed) or a transcription (the notation is changed to suit the new instrument(s). Can we agree on that terminology? If so, we realise Bach on the piano as we have no need to change the notation. As for the use of the pedal, it has nothing to do with legato: the whole spectrum of ultra legato through detached to ultra staccato can and should be achieved through the fingers. Where the pedal is used, it is surely for colour/sustaining a single note/chord or a series of notes that are harmonically compatible, for musical reasons, not technical reasons. (There are some low notes in the F major fugue, Book 2 WTC, that we could pick up and hold with the 3rd pedal, but this would be for technical reasons - the inability to play all the notes with the LH. I'm sure this would be frowned upon. Even so, Tovey suggests pedalling some chords in Beethoven so that the top half is free to trill, the lower note being held by the pedal. So where is the line between musical and technical? His answer might have been it needs to be pedalled anyway, so why make the trill harder for yourself, just let the thumb go.) To put it into another context, it is possible to realise Bach with or without pedal on the modern piano, butit is not possible to "realise" (if we believe his piano to be suffici ently different from ours) Chopin's music without pedal, but the use of the pedal in Chopin on a modern instrument will be different from its use on an 1840's instrument. To the extent that every instrument is different, the use of the pedal will vary. I think it is mainly to do with the sustaining power of the instrument and the different combination of harmonics generated which inform how we use the pedal to create the musical effect we want.
If music is played on instrument(s) that it was not originally played on, it is either a realisation (the notation is not changed) or a transcription (the notation is changed to suit the new instrument(s). Can we agree on that terminology? If so, we realise Bach on the piano as we have no need to change the notation. As for the use of the pedal, it has nothing to do with legato: the whole spectrum of ultra legato through detached to ultra staccato can and should be achieved through the fingers. Where the pedal is used, it is surely for colour/sustaining a single note/chord or a series of notes that are harmonically compatible, for musical reasons, not technical reasons. [...] To the extent that every instrument is different, the use of the pedal will vary. I think it is mainly to do with the sustaining power of the instrument and the different combination of harmonics generated which inform how we use the pedal to create the musical effect we want.
Nice points, sandalholme! This thread keeps on giving, indeed!
![[Linked Image]](https://forum.pianoworld.com//gallery/42/medium/10968.png)
What a great question! The conclusion reached by the OP in the thread that ChopinAddict linked to for you to read was this: Let your ears be your guide.
) 
This thread just keeps on giving!