Artur Schnabel wrote in his Editor’s Preface to his edition of the Beethoven Sonatas:
‘Quite often the Editor was guided by the pedagogic conception of a piano of which the
tone colouring is unaided by the pedal – the fact being that the pedal is very seldom used
in classical piano literature as a means of colouring.’
Up to and including the time the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata was completed in 1801, dampers
were raised on European pianos by the cumbersome method of raising the knee levers
with an upward movement of the knees. It may be argued that for Beethoven even to call
for constant changed pedalling, leaving aside the question of unchanged pedalling, was to
call for a very unusual way of playing the piano for those times. Constant pedal sonority,
constantly changed, has to a greater or lesser extent become the norm in piano playing
since Beethoven’s day but it was not so then.
Newman also says:
‘Today, on the modern piano, only an idolater like Schnabel would continue to apply
Beethoven’s instruction literally, ethereal and wonderful as its effect may have been
originally.’
Schnabel marked in each bar the traditional pedalling. He did not suggest that this in any
way diverged from Beethoven’s intention as embodied in Beethoven’s indications.
Rowland’s view 1994
The following three passages are taken, respectively, from pages 50, 58 and 63-69 of the
article by David Rowland entitled ‘Beethoven’s Pianoforte Pedalling’ which is chapter 3
(pages 49-69) of ‘Performing Beethoven’ edited by Robin Stowell and published as
Cambridge Studies in Performance Practice (No. 4) in 1994. I will comment in detail
later on the third passage which is from pages 63-69.
‘Pedals were virtually unknown on any pianos in Europe before the nineteenth century,
with the notable exception of English instruments. Almost all German and Austrian
pianos of whatever design, had a knee-lever or handstop for raising the dampers.’ (page
50)
‘ “Senza sordini” and “con sordini” (meaning “without dampers” and “with dampers”)
were the terms customarily used in Vienna for the damper-raising levers in the early
years of the nineteenth century and occur in works by several other composers. The
change from this terminology to the more commonly-used “ped.” with an appropriate
release sign (which originated in England) occurred within a few years, coinciding with
the abandonment of knee levers in favour of foot pedals by piano manufacturers.’ (page
58)
‘The most controversial of all Beethoven’s pedal markings are those which, as Newman
observes, blur “the sound through harmonic clashes”. The most notable is the first
movement of the Sonata Op. 27 No. 2. In this case, the directions “Si deve suonare tutto
questo pezzo delicatissimamente e senza sordino/ sempre pp e senza sordino” seem to