Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven) - Beethoven's Pedal Mark

Beethoven's Pedal Mark

See also: Piano history and musical performance, Mute (music), and Piano pedals#Beethoven and pedals

At the opening of the work, Beethoven included a written direction that the sustain pedal should be depressed for the entire duration of the first movement. The Italian reads: "Si deve suonare tutto questo pezzo delicatissimamente e senza sordino" ("One must play this whole piece very delicately and without dampers."). The modern piano has a much longer sustain time than the instruments of Beethoven's day. Therefore, his instruction cannot be followed by pianists playing modern instruments without creating an unpleasantly dissonant sound.

One option for dealing with this problem is to perform the work on a restored or replicated piano of the kind Beethoven knew. Proponents of historically informed performance using such pianos have found it feasible to perform the work respecting Beethoven's original direction.

For performance on the modern piano, most performers today try to achieve an effect similar to what Beethoven asked for by using pedal changes only where necessary to avoid excessive dissonance. For instance, Casa Ricordi has a publication of the score that includes pedal marks throughout the first movement.

Half pedaling—a technique involving a partial depression of the damper pedal—is also often used to simulate the shorter sustain of the early nineteenth century pedal. Charles Rosen suggests both half-pedaling and releasing the pedal a fraction of a second late.

Banowetz offers a further suggestion: to pedal cleanly while allowing sympathetic vibration of the low bass strings to provide the desired "blur". This is accomplished before beginning the movement by silently depressing the piano's lowest bass notes and then holding these dampers up with the sostenuto pedal for the duration of the movement.