Not really a "soft" pedal

[Stephen Birkett]

Someone (?) wrote:
> Why don't we refer to it by its proper name-- una corda.
>
> Early pianos only had two strings per unison. The pedal in question caused
> the action to move so that the hammer would only strike one, hence, una(one)
> corda(string).
>

Tri-chord early pianos (before the hammers got too big to fit
between the strings to achieve a true *una* corda), certainly in the
1810s-20s, often had two separate pedals for shifting the keyboard:
una and due corda, so that either one or two strings could be struck
by the hammers. A typical 1825 Graf was tri-chord throughout, except
for the bottom five notes (CC to EE) which were due-chord wound.
So the transition from 3 to 2 or 1 string was achievable for almost
the whole compass. Depending on the prevailing pedal fashion
sometimes the two separate pedals were incorporated into a single
pedal. The carefully marked passages, f.i. Beethoven Op 110, where
due or una is differentiated and he writes `little by little pass from
una to due to tre-chord' are quite achievable on the instruments of
the period.

Stephen Birkett (Fortepianos)
Authentic Reproductions of 18th and 19th Century Pianos
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
tel: 519-885-2228
fax: 519-763-4686