In some musical phrases a composer will indicate staccato notes whilst simultaneously requiring the sustain pedal.

How should I interpret this? Am I supposed to merely 'think staccato' or do I have to play them staccato with my fingers even though acoustically it will make no difference?

Indeed there will be differences. You should experiment with the amount of separation between the notes with your fingers and how far you press the damper pedal. (Playing on a tall upright or a grand piano will help you perceive the differences.)

I think composers do it on purpose to make us all uncertain. The critics must love it. However you choose to interpret it they can brand it as "lacking insight into the true style of the period/composer/pieced" .

@organ_dummy

Thank you. Now to go and find a grand piano and do some experimenting...


@mad tom

That's interesting. I was slightly worried that this might be the case

The most recent example I've found is in the Faure piece I'm learning for Grade 7 (the Andante moderato from Op.84)

In bar 24, for example, there's a pair of portato triplets with the pedal covering at least the whole of the first triplet. I've sort of been interpreting this as "to be played with dignity" but I don't have a firm clue what it's really all about

My digital supports "half-pedalling" and unless I'm hearing things, there is definitely a difference between staccato full pedal (ie: worthless) and half pedal?

I can only suggest playing as it's written. Thats not intended to be trite but I think you will hear the difference between playing legato (or even legato + pedal) and the same piece played staccato + pedal. The opening bars of Wedding Day at Troldhaugen contain staccato chords, but with the sustain pedal carried over two bars. Although the effect is sustained, the staccato gives it a crispness which it would not otherwise have. The rests are - of course - quite redundant!

Mole

I've tried playing just a scale Sustained & legato, and then Sustained & staccato, I can hear a difference, its difficult to explain it, but there is a difference.

There have been several threads on this topic. Today I came across this:

"He ... thought ... I should put the pedal down at the beginning. .... I said 'Mr Schnabel, what about the the dots on the notes?' (I was only a little boy then). He went to his piano and played a staccato arpeggio in C major with the pedal all the way down, making it sound staccato"

Claude Frank, in an interview with Adele Marcus [Great Pianists Speak. Paganiniana Publications, 1979]

So I went to the piano and tried it. You have to make a very acute staccato, quitting the keys very quickly. But when you do ... he is right. It is sounds staccato - even though the pedal is down.

So on this matter it is the physicists (arguing theoretically) that have a problem ... and not the practical artist/pianist that can coax amazing sounds from the instrument for which there is as yet no scientific explanation.

Of course there is a difference, regardless of whether you play on a steinway or a digital piano which imitates the pedal adequately.

There is often a misconception that all the sustain pedal does is simply 'sustain', where in actual fact it emphasises every passing nuance (which would otherwise go unnoticed); 'pecking' a key with your fingertip with the pedal depressed would mean that the decay is almost unperceptible, whether pressing the key fully gives a full-bodied sound.

The same with staccato or legato scales, uneveness of touch etc etc it is all amplified with the pedal depressed. Hence why teachers work on pedalling last and, in any case, at early stages the use of too much pedal is discouraged. You can still hear legato or staccato phrasing with the pedal depressed or half-depressed.

Try playing the passages you indicate by just 'pecking' the keys perhaps, or playing a staccato as staccatissimo to hear even more of a difference. I'd reccomend playing a scale you are comfortable with slowly, pedal depressed, in this manner until it makes an audible difference.