I am going to accompany The Old Lady's elder daughter, Kate (on flute), at a concert and one of the pieces she will play is the Prelude from the Suite Antique by John Rutter. This is a really lovely piece but I am a bit puzzled by the pedalling instructions.

Under the first bar is una corda which begins p. I would normally press and hold the left pedal until this instruction is cancelled, and sure enough in Bar 21 there appears tre corde and a change of dynamics to mp. But then under the end of Bar 35 there re-appears una corda with no change of dynamics from the mp called for two bars earlier, and tre corde never appears after it. The dynamics through the rest of the piece to the last bar 79 include mp, f, mf, p and finally pp and include various crescendi and diminuendi.

Would you think it normal to hold the left pedal throughout all these changes or do you think that a tre corde instruction might be missing? I have always played on the assumption that right hand pedal instructions have no effect on those for this pedal, but there are various con Ped instructions through the piece.

I suppose in the end I will just play my own interpretation, but I just wondered if anybody had a view about this.

From what I can remember about when I played this is, I used the soft pedal a lot, and not just where the score said una corda, in order to allow the flute to dominate - except for the piano's solo bits. You can still rise to mp with the soft pedal on. I think it's better that you're too soft than too loud, if in doubt. It'll depend, too, on the acoustics of where you'll be playing, and the strength of the piano.

Oh dear. Is Kate causing problems?

Not at all, just John Rutter or his publishers . Tell Kate this piece is nearly learned (apart from the pedalling, that is )
Thanks Dulciana for your comments.