of a piece, operated as a staccato dot. Langlais received his tradition through his teacher
Charles Tournemire who was the last pupil of Franck. Dupré received his tradition
through his teacher Alexandre Guilmant who was a friend and musical colleague of
Franck and had often heard Franck play his own organ works.
PEDALLING
Use of sustaining pedal in classical composers
Mozart (1756-1791)
Mozart’s earliest keyboard works were not composed for the piano but for the clavichord
or harpsichord. Later on, they were composed with the piano in mind, although the
changeover in performing practice was not precise as the older instruments co-existed
with the newer instruments.
In 1782 Mozart acquired a Walter piano for which he ‘had a special preference’
(according to his son Carl). This became his main concert instrument in Vienna,
although it lacked knee levers for pedalling. This Walter piano is preserved in Mozart’s
Gebertshaus in Salzburg, although it is in many ways altered from the instrument Mozart
originally owned. Mozart did have other pianos at his disposal, some of which, such as
the Stein, did have knee levers.
It seems that by the 1780s many pianos were fitted with ‘genouillères’ or knee levers.
These were levers attached below the keyboard and were operated by an upward
movement of the pianist’s knees. The left lever removed all the dampers from the lower
half of the piano and the right lever removed all the dampers from the upper half of the
piano. We know this from Mozart’s Stein piano which has down to us and dates from the
1780s. The present writer has played on a modern copy of that piano and found that
operating the knee levers for any length of time is quite tiring for the upper leg muscles.
It seems that in Mozart’s time not all pianos had knee levers and that a pianist could
never be sure that he or she would be playing on a piano with that device.
It is apparent from Mozart’s style of writing for the piano that it is possible to make sense
of his piano works without a device to raise all the dampers at once. The use of the pedal,
of course, beautifies the sound and assists the legato in cantabile passages. Hummel, who
studied with Mozart, is said to have advised the use of the pedal only in the slow
movements of Mozart’s piano works.
Mozart never indicated, in any of his works for or with piano, the use of a device to raise
the dampers.
It has been pointed out in recent times that Mozart did write two bars in which it is not
possible to hold the notes with the fingers, in which case he seems to be implying the use