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<DIV>Thanks, Israel. I'll let you know where this goes.</DIV>
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<DIV>Paul</DIV>
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<DIV><STRONG>"If you want to know the truth, stop having opinions" (Chinese fortune cookie)</STRONG></DIV></DIV>
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<DIV>In a message dated 07/22/07 16:27:35 Central Daylight Time, custos3@comcast.net writes:</DIV>
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At 11:00 AM 7/22/2007, Paul Revenko-Jones wrote: <BR>>Israel: <BR>> <BR>>You're not interested in the question. I am. Thanks for the input. <BR>> <BR>>Paul <BR><BR>Au contraire, Paul. I have been interested in the question for over <BR>twenty years now. It seems that nobody I approached has any light to <BR>shed on it. So I'll continue with some more hypotheses for you to <BR>check out - if you can. <BR><BR>While - as some have written - the sostenuto is a convenience for <BR>some pianists who use it quite frequently, it does not open any great <BR>vistas for composers to explore. This is due to the inherent property <BR>of the piano as a percussive instrument - it simply is not capable of <BR>sustaining a note or a chord for any significant length of time, <BR>regardless of any mechanical contraption that makes "look ma no <BR>hands" sustaining possible. The sound decays pretty rapidly <BR>regardless, and so the musical effects achievable with the sostenuto <BR>are quite limited and not even innovative - playing moving lines <BR>while sustaining a note or a chord is hardly revolutionary, <BR>musically. And composers have for a couple of centuries before the <BR>sostenuto was invented employed four-hand composition and composition <BR>for multiple keyboards for thicker-textured pieces - which the <BR>sostenuto can't even approach, since it does nothing to enable the <BR>playing of an additional moving line (as, for example, the organ pedalboard). <BR><BR>In pianistic writing a long trill is typically used in place of a <BR>long-sustained note where such an effect is called for - the trill <BR>does not decay and can be blended into a long melodic line at any <BR>dynamic level - unlike a held note whose rapid decay makes only a <BR>piano or pianissimo continuation possible... For a good example of <BR>this compositional technique, check out Beethoven's transcription of <BR>his own violin concerto for the piano. Even on the modern piano - <BR>with much more sustain capability than Beethoven's instrument - <BR>trying to substitute held notes for the sustained trills will yield <BR>pretty anemic results. <BR><BR>The sostenuto pedal is not capable of delivering a true pedal point, <BR>or fitting a note into a moving line or of too many other musical <BR>effects. Other than grabbing an occasional extra note or chord, it <BR>can do little to open great new compositional vistas... It's rather - <BR>as some have written - pretty much a "convenience device". <BR><BR>Israel Stein <BR><BR><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
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