There is a very good case for less sustain in performance of 18th to early 19th century music for piano. One piece of evidence is pedal marking in a couple Beethoven sonatas. Beethoven very specifically tells the performer to hold the pedal down for several measures in at least a couple passages (I don't remember precisely which pieces off hand, except that they are late sonatas). Taking that literally on a modern piano results in clangorous mud. So for modern performance practice with a modern instrument, we tend to flutter pedal such passages (lightly bounce the dampers on the strings) to produce the proper effect. But I am quite certain Beethoven meant the indications to be taken literally - and it works on an authentic period piano, because rapid decay clears the sound adequately. But the argument "that there is virtually no music > written from any time period that requires more then half of this > sustain level is utter hogwash. No question Debussy, for instance, expected and required much more sustain than Beethoven. Not to mention Rachmaninov, Rubenstein, etc, etc. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico Richard Brekne wrote: > >snip< > > A little off the subject line here, this quote reminded me of > something I heard a few weeks back from an eminent harpsichord builder > in Northern Europe. Bear in mind the fellow is a piano forte' lover, > dislikes the Steinway sound intensly, and in general dislikes the > modern piano. > > His point was that this whole sustain issue is misunderstood from the > get go. That is to say that there is no need for nearly the sustain > levels modern pianos offer, ... that there is virtually no music > written from any time period that requires more then half of this > sustain level. Never heard that argumentation before. > > His position was that older instruments of the modern variant sounded > better (read mellow) as they lost some of their power and sustain > through the years. > > Just a bit more for the mesh > > Cheers > > -- > Richard Brekne > RPT, N.P.T.F. > UiB, Bergen, Norway > mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no > http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html >
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