the Moonlight Sonata and the sustain pedal...

[Peter]

I don't see the problem, to be honest. Beethoven clearly marked the pedal to be applied throughout the movement in question (given the "decay" factor on the fortepianos of his day), and clearly it would be a nonsense to apply strictly that marking on a modern piano. Ergo, one has to make compromises in terms of pedalling in order to create the effect that Beethoven intended. Peter, Chris and Sorrano have already dealt with this.
Having said that, the sympathetic resonances (not "variations", I think) that Ed C refers to do indeed create interesting sounds, but one should not forget that there is a clear melody to be brought out. We must also not forget that the epithet "Moonlight" was not given by LvB, and I think the term induces us (lesser performers) to imagine some sort of flux-like limpid light that blurs the line. The line is clear.

Yes the title 'Moonlight' is a nonsense and Andras Schiff in his lectures on the Beethoven sonatas makes a good case for the first movement actually being a funeral march and one that is generally played way too slow given the 2 in a bar time signature.

[Preston]

...and one that is generally played way too slow given the 2 in a bar time signature.

I think it really comes down to the performer's interpretation of the piece. Schiff feels it is too slow, while many do not and have performed it slowly for many years. Personally, I prefer it to be very slow, I find much more enjoyment from it that way. Though, that is just me. If someone likes it fast then by all means play it so.

Also, I think that performers need to play the music as they understand it and not try to play, or mimic, as Beethoven understood it. If some wholly understand the way Beethoven would want his music performed, in modern times, then by all means do. Though, I find that many performers do not and therefore do things differently from one another.

[Preston]

This is a pretty cool experiment. I actually like both versions. As you and others have voiced, the fortepiano didn't sustain nearly as much as modern pianos do now, and B probably intended "constant pedalling" with some varied expression - nonetheless I'm all for different interpretations (which is why I like Heifetz as well as Kopatchinskaja). The "full" pedal version is actually not as muddy as I expected it would be and the sympathetic variations are an interesting added element. Not B's intention I'd guess but still interesting to hear as an alternative interpretation. As you know Im all for "provocative interpretations" Also - if you sat in the back row of a huge cathedral and heard the Moonlight - that might produce a similar effect even with no pedalling...

I thought it was an interesting experiment also. It is not perfect by any means, but it does give us something to at least go by. I like experimentation also. We have the original works they are said and done - so why not experiment a little and learn more through experimentation about a piece of music?

Though, the midi file I used has a tempo that is too fast for the 14 sonata, imo. It runs around 5 minutes and something. I would like to take the tempo down and see how that sounds. Also, the software library used does a pretty good job, through the programming, of making it work more like an actual piano. Such as, if a sustained C note is hit and then, without lifting the sustain pedal, hit again the programming does its best not to have two notes still going - so the ambience of the first C note slowly softens.

[Preston]

The reason is simple - played on the fortepiano the pedal effect Beethoven asks for creates the right atmosphere without a complete blur (which is not what he intended).

This is what confuses me about this piece and the reason I hold back from voting. I understand exactly what you are saying about the fortepiano. It is just that I feel as though Beethoven was going for an almost blurred effect, where the sound is like a great wave of sound and you hear notes being played coming from other notes, blending off each other, then being recreated, and so on, etc. I feel like Beethoven was really working with the effects of the piano with this piece.

So, I will not vote yes or no. Because personally, I like the huge wave of sound, .

As to 'depth' - nothing in the early sonatas achieves this quite like the slow movement of Op.10/3. Use of the pedal in anycase has nothing to do with depth and power, but colour and atmosphere.

Yes, I have heard the Op.10/3 slow mov. many times.

Though, can the pedal not increase the depth and power? I agree, that it has more to do with color and atmosphere, but why do you say that it can do nothing for depth, power, profoundness, etc.? That is really a complex question.

You have to understand that when playing music on the modern piano written for the fortepiano or earlier instruments you are in effect transcribing for a different instrument with different capabilties and sonorities than those imagined by the composer. The task is to try as faithfully as possible to recreate that sound world and simply holding the sustain right down throughout is not a recreation but a distortion which is why I suggest that a compromise is necessary. I'm not suggesting Beethoven's direction should be ignored (as many do) but simply transcribed for the modern piano - if the pedal is not depressed fully but at around a 3rd then you can get closer to the effect produced by the fortepiano in this movement.

I do understand about the forte.

I guess I imagine that Beethoven may not have been completely satisfied with it, yet at the same time knew that it was the start of a great instrument that could be developed.

[Peter]

This is what confuses me about this piece and the reason I hold back from voting. I understand exactly what you are saying about the fortepiano. It is just that I feel as though Beethoven was going for an almost blurred effect, where the sound is like a great wave of sound and you hear notes being played coming from other notes, blending off each other, then being recreated, and so on, etc. I feel like Beethoven was really working with the effects of the piano with this piece.

So, I will not vote yes or no. Because personally, I like the huge wave of sound, .


Yes, I have heard the Op.10/3 slow mov. many times.

Though, can the pedal not increase the depth and power? I agree, that it has more to do with color and atmosphere, but why do you say that it can do nothing for depth, power, profoundness, etc.? That is really a complex question.


I do understand about the forte.

I guess I imagine that Beethoven may not have been completely satisfied with it, yet at the same time knew that it was the start of a great instrument that could be developed.

When I was talking about depth or power I was talking about the piece rather than the performance of it. The pedals are used primarily for colour/ effect and yes the sustain pedal adds extra resonance to notes and is often used with powerful chords to give a bigger sound. The art of pedalling is a complex matter and varies from piano to piano and from venue to venue, so it is not possible to have an exact notation of it, only suggestions which the interpreter has to be aware of.

I think the notion that the fortepiano of Beethoven's day was 'the start of a great instrument' is not accurate - by the 1820s the fortepiano was well over 100 years old and had reached a high degree of perfection. It had to be so or else Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven would not have shown any interest in writing for it and let's not forget even Chopin did not have the modern iron frame piano and Liszt dazzled the world on the old instrument, not the modern piano of his middle and later years. Beethoven was not happy that the music that he was writing for the instrument particularly in later years required more power and sustain than was available and I think he would have approved the modifications in design that came about in later years.

[Quijote]

[...] I think the notion that the fortepiano of Beethoven's day was 'the start of a great instrument' is not accurate - by the 1820s the fortepiano was well over 100 years old and had reached a high degree of perfection. It had to be so or else Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven would not have shown any interest in writing for it and let's not forget even Chopin did not have the modern iron frame piano and Liszt dazzled the world on the old instrument, not the modern piano of his middle and later years. Beethoven was not happy that the music that he was writing for the instrument particularly in later years required more power and sustain than was available and I think he would have approved the modifications in design that came about in later years.

Good point, and the ramifications are really quite enormous.
It raises a question : do we compose for an instrument, or do we think "beyond" the instrument? To put it another way, is it the instrument that drives the music, or that the instrument has to catch up with the music? I can only raise the "ogre" (for some on this forum) of contemporary "classical" music. I will try to explain as concisely as I can.
Whatever the compositional constraints Beethoven felt about the existing instruments of his day, the writing is at all times "pianistic". We may, then, compare this "idiomacy" (for which we should read "writing for the instrument in ways that reflect the instrument's perceived capabilities) with how the piano has been treated by composers such as Ligeti and Stockhausen. It's analogous with the "chicken and egg" conundrum : "Classical instruments" were designed to play "classical music". Or were they?

[Quijote]

If I may throw a bit more oil on the fire, I do feel there is a link with the development of notational procedures : the more we are able to notate (the more we are able to "capture" the actual sound on paper), the more we need "precise" instruments to render that notation. Ergo, hello computers, goodbye traditional notation, hello to new "instruments" that go beyond what the fingers can do. Hand in hand with that posit is a new approach to listening, to what music is and can be.

[Sorrano]

I like where you are going with this, Philip. Consider performing Ligeti's Lontano with period instruments of 1750 (tuning included). Did Beethoven even consider where musical instruments would be 50 years from his time? Did he care? Did he compose for specific piano brands? Are his pedaling notations specific to a piano or are they generalizations?

I like your thinking on this very much.

[Preston]

Did Beethoven even consider where musical instruments would be 50 years from his time? Did he care?

I would hope so. His entire life was based around musical instruments. Why would he not think, often, about what was to come regarding instruments? It would seem somewhat absurd to me to think that he did not think of the future of music.

[Sorrano]

Typically, composers write for the instruments that currently exist. It would be silly for them to do otherwise. But then, I guess there are silly composers out there. One can think all day long of what might be in the future, but all that thought and projection does not put bread on the table. I think about the future of music but I am not inclined to compose for an instrument or version thereof that does not yet exist.

[Preston]

Typically, composers write for the instruments that currently exist. It would be silly for them to do otherwise. But then, I guess there are silly composers out there. One can think all day long of what might be in the future, but all that thought and projection does not put bread on the table. I think about the future of music but I am not inclined to compose for an instrument or version thereof that does not yet exist.

Well, I can't disagree with you here, .

I was talking about if Beethoven thought of music in the future. I imagine it would be like someone today who is really into technology thinking what the future will hold - spaceships, hyperspace, etc.

[Sorrano]

That Beethoven was visionary I don't question. But he was quite practical, too, especially when if affected his capacity to eat. With respect to composition he could only really compose for what instruments and ensembles that were readily available to him, otherwise he could not count on a performance or revenue. It may be that the circumstances existing for most people during that time period prevented a lot of opportunity for excess daydreaming. We certainly, as a rule, have a lot more time on our hands for that sort of exercise.

[Peter]

Good point, and the ramifications are really quite enormous.
It raises a question : do we compose for an instrument, or do we think "beyond" the instrument? To put it another way, is it the instrument that drives the music, or that the instrument has to catch up with the music? I can only raise the "ogre" (for some on this forum) of contemporary "classical" music. I will try to explain as concisely as I can.
Whatever the compositional constraints Beethoven felt about the existing instruments of his day, the writing is at all times "pianistic". We may, then, compare this "idiomacy" (for which we should read "writing for the instrument in ways that reflect the instrument's perceived capabilities) with how the piano has been treated by composers such as Ligeti and Stockhausen. It's analogous with the "chicken and egg" conundrum : "Classical instruments" were designed to play "classical music". Or were they?

Firstly I'd question what you mean by pianistic? For example pianists generally regard Chopin as a naturally pianistic composer and Schubert definitely not. I'm not sure that Beethoven's piano music is always so either - take for example the fugue from the Hammerklavier sonata - virtually unplayable!

Musical instruments can only have been designed to play the music that was around at the time - Christofori wasn't thinking of Rachmaninov's 3rd concerto, nor Stradivarius Bartok quartets.

[GregMitch]

Andras Schiff's recent use of the sustain, and speeding up tempo, really works.