So I've chosen a Scarlatti piece for my grade 8 and I have an unsettling conflict; to pedal or not to pedal? I think it's an innate fear I have developed after studying under my secondary school music teacher at GCSE who was a baroque enthusiast. I'm not quite sure whether or not I'm clutching at straws, but the possibility of pedaling hadn't occurred to me until researching some recordings of the piece - all of which use pedals.

Do I pedal, or don't I? And will it hurt me in the exam room either way?

There were fortepianos around in Scarlatti's day, and in the court he worked in, so he might well have come across those - I think Scarlatti's music works as well on piano as it does on harpsichord, for what my opinion's worth. (Alfred Brendel disagreed with me on that one ). - Early pianos clearly aren't the same as later ones, having had different actions and not all having been equipped with pedals, but from the point of view of piano e forte, the basics were there already. So...even in the event of getting a baroque enthusiast for an examiner (by no means certain), pedalling would be reasonable. I would watch that you don't overdo it, simply because the texture of earlier music is more readily heard without it, but if you do so in moderation, it can work very well indeed. Much of Scarlatti's music does benefit though from fairly crisp articulation for its effect.

Just to deflect for a moment: my kids' first piano teacher always said - it's worth being able to play all your pieces reasonably coherently without pedal at all, just in case the mechanism fouls up in performance: trying that out means you also focus quite hard on the articulation of what you play, and helps to avoid smudge once you do put the pedal there.

You're playing on a modern piano so use pedal. A 100% authentic performance is impossible to achieve anyway. You just need to pedal in a way that doesn't sound like you're pedalling and be smart about your pedal - only use it when you know it will produce a better musical effect. My Western Music History lecturer is an early music expert. She would say the same. You just want to recreate the Baroque sound world - not the exact Baroque timbre.

Good luck

One of my great friends has become something of a Scarlatti specialist. He plays both harpsichord and piano and usually plays Scarlatti on the harpsichord. But at his last concert - with an explanation a bit similar to Anacrusis' - he also played a piece on the piano, so the audience could appreciate that Scarlatti, composing at the transition from harpsichord to fortepiano, sounds great on the piano too. Light pedalling - but there was some.

I agree that the works are suitable for a piano, but the more pedal you use the less they will sound like what Scarlatti would have done.

From what I've heard on the subject (I think a similar topic was started in the diploma forum?), you should always try to play the piece in the style/era it was written. So baroque normally = no pedal.

That said if Scarlatti composed when piano's were around it could probably work either way. I'd reckon it would be easy to over-pedal a piece from this time though. I would say its safer not to pedal.

^this basically.

I don't know if I'm quoting another member here or someone on another forum, but they were saying that the concept of using no pedal because earlier instruments had none/ones that operated differently is ridiculous because, for example, a piano is a piano and a harpsichord is a harpsichord, and a piano without pedal does not sound like a harpsichord, it sounds like a piano without pedal. Whoever said it hit the nail on the head really.

A couple of other nuggets of info: first, that it was general practice in that era to pilfer the repertoire of other instruments than the one it was written for (thank goodness - it means that I can nick baroque strings, flute and oboe music, muahaha....always providing I can actually manage to play it )...so again, another justification for using a piano, here...

- and secondly, there is considerable difference between the touch of a harpsichord and that of pianos, early or late. It means that although it's pretty well impossible to get piano e forte on harpsi by touch alone, you can get the illusion of that using appropriate articulation - lighter and more separated notes for echo effects for instance: the other factor though works in the harpsichord's favour - it's much easier to play quick trills and runs on it because the action is less stiff, at least if the instrument is well set up. The quick passages in particular need practice to get that effortless sound if baroque music is not to sound pedantic.

I don't think it could be said better! In my opinion, completely leaving out pedal sounds ridiculous and often leads to an unmusical, contrived sound. Harpsichords are much more resonant than pianos without pedal anyway, so even the argument of authenticity doesn't justify refusing to use pedal. Of course it isn't acceptable if pedal blurs polyphony, and it's true that pedal can be overdone - the key is to maintain a balance, as one needs to do for any piece from any time period

Have you heard an 18th C fortepiano? To my ear, the sound is about half way between a harpsichord and a modern grand. This is because the hammers were harder* and not carefully placed to hit the string so as to discourage the third and fifth partials.

* they were also lighter.

just listen to great players - Horowitz, Pletnev, Zimmerman, Babayan, the Naxos recordings ...... huge differences in interpretation of the same pieces. Plenty of subtle pedalling going on!
Beautiful, beautiful stuff!

Which piece are you playing?

You have to make up your own mind about these things, and live or die by your decision.

There are far too many people about who want to force their opinions about interpretation on everyone else. You can spot them because they use the word "should" a lot, without qualifying it with an "if <you want to achieve such-and-such> then" before going on to tell you how to achieve your ends.


There is no law against using pedal in Baroque pieces, so you will not be thrown into gaol if you do use it in the music of Rameau, Couperin, Bach, Scarlatti, Telemann, Handel and their contemporaries (much as the "authenticity" mafia would like to lock you up for such a crime, assuming they have not already locked you away for daring to use a modern piano).

It probably depends on the examiner anyway and how they feel about it. Especially if they belong to this mafia.

I don't know about this for exam purposes, but when messing around at home I find the use of the piano pedal in this sort of situation makes it feel (at least to me) slightly more baroque.

Playing baroque on a piano is always a compromise because no-one born in 1685 (such as JS Bach, D Scarlatti or GF Handel) had a piano to write for. The instruments they did write for included keyboard instruments, where it was fairly common practice to write for "keyboard" rather than any specific instrument, expecting the performer to adapt the performance to the instrument being used. Alas, none of the keyboard instruments available had much in the way of fine dynamic control nor (with the exception of the organ) much in the way of sustain, as a piano does/ However, other instruments they wrote for do have fine dynamic control and sustain, such as an orchestra or a choir. This gives (at least) 4 ways of finding a pianistic solution to playing baroque keyboard music: Impersonate a harpsichord, impersonate Liszt, impersonate someone playing Liszt badly, or impersonate a baroque orchestra.

1) Impersonate a harpsichord. This seems to be strangely popular but doesn't really work for me - lit leads to a very "dry" perfomance.
2) Impersonate Liszt, using the full range of pianistic techniques, as perfected by late romantic composers, with widely ranging dynamics, huge variation in articulation, rubato extensive pedalling etc. This is generally frowned on, which probably means it's unfashionable rather than actually wrong (I believe it was very popular about the turn of the 19th/20th century i.e. the time the late romantic composers were the avant garde) but it doesn't really work and to me (and most other people) sounds just wrong.
3) Impersonate someone playing Liszt badly i.e. use some romantic techniques but watered down (or used sensitively, depending on your point of view). - This can be very effective, leads to use of some pedal but still leaves something out - it still has a romantic feel, which tends not to suit the music.
4) Impersonate a baroque orchestra: Try to hear what Bach (or Scarlatti, or Handel, or Vivaldi, or whichever composer you're working on) does when he is writing for an instrument or ensemble with dynamic range, sustain, variable articulation etc. and try to reproduce that sound on a piano. This sounds as though it might be similar to (3) but I feel that there is a difference between a romantic feel and a baroque feel, even with both styles making sensitive use of pianistic techniques.

Whatever you do with your interpretation you should be internally consistent: Know what you're trying to achieve and why and you are more likely to achieve it.

Personally I'm currently re-working a JSB sinfonia (which used to be called a 3 part Invention). I'm trying to sound like a string trio!

Not to take things off topic, but it's funny you should say that because I've actually played several Bach sinfonias as part of a string trio! It works beautifully. I think your post is a nice summary of approaches towards Baroque pieces, though of course there are infinitely many ways of doing it. I think the point about being internally consistent is a good one. I think it's possible to "get away" with a lot of freedom in interpretation, sometimes even approaching unfaithfulness to the score, if it is done with conviction.

I have done a tiny bit more research into this and it seems that while JS Bach might not have warmed to the early Silberman pianos that he was shown, it very likely that Scarlatti both had access to early fortepianos, and made use of them. Although the fortepiano only displaced the harpsichord in popularity during the late 1760's and through the 1770's he could well have been using one regularly as early as the late 1730's. What is more the objective evidence suggests that he composed most of his keyboard pieces after the age of 60, in a late burst of creative genius i.e. after 1745. [Although there are many that choose not to believe this, not because of any strong evidence to the contrary, but because they dislike the idea of the works of an old man surpassing those of his youth]

In those days the fortepiano was much more expensive than an equivalent harpsichord and only royalty and high-ranking aristocrats had them. We know that his patron, Princess Maria Magdalena Barbara, later Queen of Spain, for whom he wrote most of his music, had several early fortepianos probably made by Ferrini in the style of Cristofori, although she may well have owned an instrument by the inventor Cristofori himself. She left a fortepiano in her will to the castrato Farinelli, who was a good friend of Scarlatti. Modern replicas of those instruments show that far from being undeveloped and inferior to the harpsichords of the day, they had an attractive tone, and an action not too different in feel to a modern piano. Here is a recording on a modern replica of the sort of instrument to which Scarlatti probably had access: http://www.denzilwraight.com/SevskayaGaluppi.mp3

Not bad is it? Not that different from a modern Steinway!!

There is one slight problem with my thesis. So far as I can tell the Italian/Spanish fortepianos lacked a sustain pedal or equivalent. That was an invention of Silberman's.

So there is every possibility that Scarlatti intended many of his keyboard compositions for the fortepiano, or at the very least to be suitable for both the harpsichord and for the instrument that would eventually replace it.

Why does this matter? Because it means that if the "historically correct" brigade insist that Scarlatti should best be played on a harpsichord then they are very likely just wrong. However, they could be right that the use of the pedal is not "historically correct". My view is that as Scarlatti's writing is so obviously pianistic (rather than "harpsichordistic") that they cry out for sensitive use of both pedals.

Not obvious to me; I like his music on both. I prefer to play Scarlatti on the harpsichord stop of my keyboard rather than on my piano. The keyboard allows me to choose from two Werckmeister temperaments, which were chronological possibilities for Scarlatti. The Kirnberger temperament is almost certainly too late.

No problem with that:

I have to say, I'm a bit puzzled about where the "baroque/original mafia" lives....?

I do prefer early instruments and historically informed performance of early music, for reasons I've given on countless occasions, but the idea that those of us who feel this way are automatically laying down the law for everyone else is simply not true: we might perhaps point out that HIP does give us clues on balance of timbre and volume, and help clarify ornamentation - but part of my beef against "modern is best" standpoints lies in the oft-made parallel accusation that early music is primitive and soulless in comparison with later genres....does preference of one approach to such music over another constitute belonging to a "mafia"? It is quite simply not true that proponents of HIP have "taken early music away" from mainstream performance - one could as easily say that the mainstream has decided that baroque music doesn't have enough of interest to it to be worth bothering with.

Okay, so in my view, the HIP lot do a better job of Bach, Handel and certainly of the likes of Rameau and Couperin . But it's my opinion only. I don't care for the "mafia" comments. Those who like ketchup on all their music are welcome to it.

Sorry. Hijacked that a bit. Consensus on this thread continues to be that Scarlatti on the piano is a Good Thing, that pedalling is justifiable on account of the instrument being equipped with pedals: examiners know that a range of possible approaches to execution exist and wouldn't unduly penalise a relatively "mainstream" approach. Just let 'em hear the tune, pleeeease .

Any subculture of any art can "become" a "mafia" - I only have experience of music, but this probably goes on in art and dance and etc etc etc too. Unfortunately those who shout the loudest then give the rest of the mild-mannered proponents of whatever subculture it is a bad name. When I was a composition student I remember being told that tonal music was so yesterday, atonal was really the way to go, and I also remember as a horn student that the Chicago horn sound was the way to go, and so on. I have not yet met the HIP mafia, but given my experience with the other mafias, I'm sure they exist.

In classical and baroque music I see the pedal as something that changes the colour of the instrument rather than like in Chopin (just one example) where you use it for different effect (joining notes that couldn't be joined, holding the bass while the other harmony changes). I wouldn't be trying for a Chopin-like effect in baroque music but that is my opinion, and I am not an examiner. I think the style I've come closest to trying to emulate is that of a baroque orchestra; I often try to play melody lines like they would be played on a stringed instrument. I have no idea how successful this is as I have never actually played any stringed instruments.

My rough guide to adding pedal or altering a composition in any way is " would the composer mind ?". Would Beethoven care if I miss a slur or staccato -- I think he probably would, so I don't do it. Would J S Bach mind if I substitute a jazz fill at the end of a fugue -- I think he would probably enjoy it ! Just judging from the sound of Scarlatti sonatas I am quite comfortable with adding either pedal ad lib to give passages a different "colour".

Hm, Bach did write quite florid passages in some of his music, and one line of thinking on that was that he didn't in fact care for the habit that some players from his own time had, of ornamenting everything to death, and so wrote out what he thought to be necessary.....but maybe that's mafiose thinking, who knows ?

It really isn't possible to say what a composer might have liked or disliked - they didn't have the baggage we have when it came to their music, and we don't have theirs either: all we can hope to do is to put together something which is coherent and gives the listener an experience which is musical: in meeting the needs of the times we find ourselves in, it may well diverge a lot from what was originally intended.

Sorry, initially read this as "they didn't have the bagpipe", and am now in a Bach/Bagpipe confuzzled state...

hehe, cue the Peasants' Cantata..

Of course, I should know better than to look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxuhiPg66QI (nearest I could find...)

aww - smallpipes are at least semi-civilised

I was thinking of this tune albeit not quite on that instrument

The Sonata in B minor, Kp. 29 (L.449) - on the current grade 8 syllabus





I am going to take these to my piano and continue without the pedal. I've done some research and I prefer it without the sustain - I think I have the staying true to authenticity side of the argument embedded to deep to do anything different. Plus I never liked ketchup anyway

Interesting reading though!

Quite simply - no
If you say "there are of course many ways to play any given piece of music, but my preference is to listen to and/or play in the HIP-style", that's not mafia at all - that's personal preference and we're all allowed those!
It gets a bit different when you have people who say "there is one and only one way to correctly play this piece of music, and anybody who says differently is just wrong. And stupid. And probably a [insert-despised-group-of-choice] too", that's when it gets silly. The problem would arise if you were surrounded by people constantly telling you this sort of thing when you want to go your own way.
You get extremists in any subculture, as corenfa says, and these are the people it's just best to stay out of the way of.

Highly civilised - by virtue of their double-reedness.

This is a sort-of-related interesting read: http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/musi...ical/debate.htm
A critic gave a scathing review of Red Priest's Four Seasons - sufficiently scathing for Piers Adams to repsond. The conversation that follows I think touches on authenticity and what it means if you do something 'unacceptable' with the music (bearing in mind that acceptability is of course a matter of opinion)

Now I've read the thread it's an interesting point.
I'm doing the Scarlatti F# minor which is allegro (or hopefully it will be). This rather negates the need for a pedal since speed together with the figured chords tend to fill out the harmony nicely. I haven't actually tried it with the pedal, but it is an interesting point that if Scarlatti (Bach et al) had a sustaining pedal they would have used it, however, one can also argue that they would also have written the music somewhat differently.

Another concern (if the pedal wasn't enough) is dynamics. I always find it slightly odd to hearing pounding fff parts in Baroque music when played on a modern piano. However, it raises the question again, would Scarlatti have played it that way if he had access to louder instrument?

My Scarlatti will be followed by Mozart Allegro in D (also with no pedal) and then concluding with Chopin Nocturne in B, which has enough pedal to make up for the absence of pedal in the other 2 pieces!

I suppose for the exam, just play it the way you've learnt it and take your chances!

Oof, it's long - and interesting to see that perhaps we have there an example of the extreme proponent of HIP, who fails utterly to understand that Piers Adams and Red Priest aren't about HIP - they may use recorder and harpsichord, but play at a'=440Hz: Piers has some very modern recorders in his collection and Red Priest aims for a fresh approach whilst keeping sound balance and timbres well-matched: his critic really does manage to miss the point (thank goodness he finally acknowledges he did ). I've said before - despite his amazing virtuosity, I'd not want to play the way Piers does, but only because I haven't the charisma and kerpow to carry that sort of performance off convincingly: he can.
So it would also be with Scarlatti, I think - again, music with incredible poignancy often, even the fast pieces, and pent-up emotion in it: it's open to a wide range of valid interpretation...and hence he's one of my favourite composers for keyboard .

[quote name='AntonPiano' date='Apr 13 2012, 02:09 AM' post='1142050']
[quote name='dorfmouse' post='1141473' date='Apr 10 2012, 10:03 AM']
Which piece are you playing?
[/quote]

The Sonata in B minor, Kp. 29 (L.449) - on the current grade 8 syllabus

Thanks, but it's K27 (was puzzled 'cos I know and love this one and just checked with the syllabus). Enjoy!