Pedalling Music from the Classical Period

In our guest post this week, Penelope Roskell discusses various aspects of pedalling in music from the Classical period. Penelope will also be presenting an online workshop on this subject on 9th July (please click here for further details).

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Pedalling in the early Classical repertoire is quite complex: too little pedal can sound very dry, whereas too much pedal blurs the detail and over-romanticizes the texture. When the pedalling is just right, however, the resultant sound is clear, warm and resonant. In this post I will discuss some ways in which you can use subtle pedalling to enhance music of this period. 

The purpose of the sustaining pedal

The main purposes are:

• To improve the legato – (‘legato pedalling’)
• To enrich the sound by allowing the harmonics to vibrate (‘direct pedalling’)
• To harmonise the sounds (for instance blending the notes of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata together harmonically)
• To create special effects.

When to introduce the pedal

As pedalling in Classical music is quite complex, it is not advisable to try to introduce the pedal until you are confident with both legato and direct pedalling. I advise beginner pianists not to use pedal at all in early Classical music, even though this might make the music sound a little dry. Better too dry than too mushy! It’s better to focus on learning good legato fingering and pedalling in Romantic pieces at this stage. 

Notation

Early Classical composers such as Mozart and Haydn wrote very few pedal markings into their scores, but this does not mean that they want you to play without pedal. On the contrary, they just assumed the performer would be guided by their own instinct and experience. Haydn and Beethoven only wrote in specific pedal markings when they wanted a rather surprising effect, which wouldn’t otherwise be obvious to the performer. In the examples below, the pedal marking indicates a mysterious, other-worldly special effect:

Period instruments

The examples above sound very over-pedalled on a modern piano if we depress the pedal all the way down. Fortepianos and early pianofortes did of course have a sustaining pedal (some activated by the foot, others by the knee) but these pedals had considerably less sustaining power than our modern pedal. If ever you get a chance to play on an early instrument, you will hear this difference very clearly! The secret to good pedalling in Classical music is to replicate the sound of the early piano by depressing the modern pedal only part-way down (this is known as ‘partial pedalling’ or half-pedalling).

In this video from my online course, Teaching Healthy Expressive Piano Technique, I contrast the different effects produced by using no pedal, full pedal and partial pedalling in a Mozart sonata. The effect of partial pedalling is to create a warm glow around the sound, which I describe as ‘halo’ pedalling. My aim is always to make the pedalling so subtle that it enhances the sound without the audience noticing its presence at all!

Types of pedalling

Legato pedalling

Legato pedalling, as its name suggests, helps you join notes legato. It should not be used to compensate for poor fingering, however. We always need to work hard to find the best fingering first, and only then to add in the occasional light dab of pedal as and when required. In legato pedalling the pedal lifts as the note is played.

Direct pedalling

Direct pedalling enhances the quality of the notes being played, by allowed all the sympathetic harmonics/ overtones to resonate. It is used mainly to enrich detached chords: here the pedal is depressed as each chord is played. 

Little and often

We can use the pedal throughout much of the repertoire of this period, but it should be changed frequently. Not only should it be changed with a change of harmony, but also whenever we need to keep the texture clear. As a general rule, the pedal should only be depressed part-way down. To summarise – use the pedal little and often!