If it is argued that Bülow and Lebert were of the view that Beethoven’s original intention
was to mandate the traditional pedalling, then there would have been three tiers to which
they were referring. The first tier was the pedalling they indicated specifically in the text
as the minimum they believed was required. The second tier was a somewhat more
generous pedalling at the discretion of the pianist, but with some gaps in pedal sonority
presumably to rest the listener’s ear. The third tier was the traditional pedalling which
they did not recommend presumably because it did not give the listener’s ear any relief
from pedalled sonority.
It may, on the other hand, be argued that Bülow and Lebert were of the view that
Beethoven’s original intention was to mandate the unchanged pedal. On this view the
first and second tiers remained and the third tier was, of course, the unchanged pedalling
of the entire movement. On this view, to employ unchanged pedalling throughout the
entire movement would constitute taking the ‘original directions too literally’ because
this would have created too much of a blur on the modern piano.
Bülow recorded a Chopin nocturne, and possibly other pieces, on the wax cylinder but
nothing has come down to us. He did not otherwise survive into the recording age.
Tovey’s view 1931
In about 1931 the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music published its edition
of the Beethoven Sonatas which was edited by Harold Craxton and contained
commentaries and notes by Donald Francis Tovey.
Tovey stated:
‘On the early pianofortes many things could be allowed which would sound very messy
on our present instruments. Thus Beethoven could, in a pianissimo, take the whole first
eight bars of the slow movement of the C minor Concerto with the pedal unchanged
through all the modulations. In the first movement of the C sharp minor Sonata he
probably never changed the pedal at all.’
‘As for senza sordini, this simply means “with raised dampers”; and on the feeble
instruments of 1802 there was no reason for changing the pedal at all in this movement,
for the sound of the undamped strings did not outlast the slow changes of harmony.’
Critique of Tovey’s view
Tovey based his argument on the argued analogy with Beethoven’s pedalling in the slow
movement of his C minor concerto which he performed publicly in 1803, as reported by
Czerny. Tovey also based his argument on the weak sound of the Beethoven piano in
1802 when the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata was published. He did not give us the benefit of his
assessment of other views such as those of Schindler and Bülow and Lebert.
Schnabel’s view 1935