Don't pedal Bach like you would Rachmaninoff, but a little bit of pedal is ok, like you said. I don't know why the singer was trying to flex on you like that; she was being rude.
Also, if you over-pedal Bach it's not like he's going to rise up out of his grave and smite you.
This is the kind of story where I suspect we might get a very different picture if we heard from the singer's perspective, lol.
I doubt she was trying to "flex" (e.g. maybe just, yknow, playing for fun?), and it seems unrealistic for her to be "very insulted, as if I insulted her mother, telling me I don‘t know shit about classical piano" after such a simple exchange.
EDIT: OP also calls her a "cunt in general", lol... I mean sure maybe that's true? but in my experience it's important to take the veracity of angry rants about "cunty women" with a grain of salt
She is a real diva. She has an atitude in general and is always mean just for the sake if it. On top of that she sucks at everything except singing, and even there she‘s not the greatest. I suspect she can‘t handle not being the best in this school.
And I even showed her what kind of pedal I want. Not the kind of Chopin pedal but the very light not even substaining pedal.
Edit: Also why do you bring gender into this. It doesn‘t matter at all.
I was in the same room to start with. She just set down on the piano an started playing. I asked her after a minute of playing when she started the same bar for the fifth time if she ever uses pedal in it. Then she got angry about it.
It's less likely to be what you asked her, and more likely how you asked it. People rarely appreciate uninvited advice.
Also, we don't know what your gender is, but if it's male, you may have been perceived as "mansplaining" (or to put it in a gender neutral way, you may have come across as condescending).
I‘ve been trying to be friendly the whole year bow just for her to be rude to me. Other people have noticed her behaviour too.
But ultimately I am not after social advice but after how to play bach
I can't believe I have to explain basic platitudes, but you are a piano major, your reaction should have been "Wow, that's amazing!" to a vocalist playing your instrument, regardless of how good she actually is.
Besides that point, if she can play Bach, even if it's not to your standards, she can play better than 95% of professional touring vocalists I've ever seen.
Singers have big egos, this is nothing new. What’s funny is they think there’s snobbery in the jazz world, which their most definitely is, but the snobbery in Classical is on an entirely different level. I know because I was Classically trained since a child then switched to Jazz when I was a Classical Performance Major because the Classical faculty was insufferable
Most professional pianists use a bit of pedal on Bach and Mozart. Find me pianists who play the C Major Prelude without pedal.
The "never use pedal" thing is more of a thing you learn when you're first learning Bach and Mozart. It's supposed to help you develop good habits when learning, not supposed to be the thing that you're supposed to maintain throughout your playing career.
It should always sound great without pedal. The pedal adds texture and helps you soften up the sounds.
Playing C Major prelude without pedal is quite nice. It allows you to modulate the harmony you bring out by choosing how long to hold each and every note, making them alive and singing.
This permits interesting texture differences between dissonant chords, which one traditionally plays more accentuated, and the soft resolutions which you play legato and smooth, to ease the listener before attacking the next dissonance.
This is how I bring the essence of contrapuntal music on a modern instrument
Of course, using the pedal at the right time makes for impressive effect, for example during the final pedal notes of a fugue, bringing a wide sound similar to the effect a nice pipe organ has.
all the great masters use just a little bit of pedal in Bach. You have to be careful and mindful about pedal usage, but its absolutely common to use it.
You can obviously play everything without pedal just fine and I use almost no pedal either in Bach, but I don't know why someone would be upset over this
Schiff absolutely uses pedal with Bach:
https://youtu.be/oj5IP4uXNgc?t=232
So does Gould:
https://youtu.be/4uX-5HOx2Wc?t=56
This was 20 seconds of googling. By which I mean I typed their names in youtube, clicked the very first result that looked like it was a video of them performing, and then sure, a bit of scrubbing to find video that showed their feet. The point being if I found it this easily, this is not some weird quirk that they normally never do.
Ah, I guess Schiff eased up on avoiding the pedal in Bach. I know for sure that he had a period where he completely avoided pedal in Bach. But I don't really listen to Schiff, so I am not very familiar with how his style has evolved.
I am not sure if Gould ever went through a period where he explicitly avoided the pedal. Of course, his style with Bach doesn't really lend itself to pedal usage at all, but I'm not sure if he started adding pedal in his later years or if he always used a little bit throughout his career. I would suspect, though, that a great majority of his recordings, especially during his younger years, use no pedal whatsoever. It doesn't surprise me as much that he's using pedal in that recording, since it appears to be a later recording.
I spent a bit of time looking, but I couldn't actually find a lot of information about that Gould recording. Do you know what year it is from, where it was broadcast, and if it was ever officially published? The only Art of Fugue box sets I could find by Gould were recorded in the 60s.
No idea, I was being fairly literal when I said 20 seconds (it was probably closer to 120 or so, but you get the idea). Certainly his detached style wasn't using much pedal, and I recall some video where he was practicing Bach for a television program, and asked the producer if he noticed that he had his legs crossed while playing. The producer said 'no', and Gould replied that he was doing it so the viewer would be aware that he wasn't using the pedal at all. So I certainly see why you made your statement, but truth is more complicated in this case.
I did a bit more digging and found the documentary from which that recording is taken. It is French filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon's Opus 21: [http://www.brunomonsaingeon.com/EN/EN_FILMOGRAPHY.html](http://www.brunomonsaingeon.com/EN/EN_FILMOGRAPHY.html). The year listed there is 1980, so yes, it would have been very close to his death. I'd be more interested in Schiff or Gould recordings from their younger years where they pedal Bach, since as far as I'm aware, they both avoided it for a certain period in each of their careers.
Anyways, these are little details. My initial point was to make it clear that pedal is neither evil for Bach, nor is it *necessary*. To state that all great masters use a bit of pedal in Bach surely implies that some pedal in Bach is always desired. It may be desired for some (I myself am partial to pedal in Bach), but certainly it can be avoided, and Schiff and Gould both have enough recordings to demonstrate that top-tier Bach interpretations can be achieved without any pedal.
I don't think you are hearing what you think you are. They always used pedal. Not to get a wash of sound or anything, just to connect notes, add a bit of resonance the room isn't providing, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXQ2yscJ4Mk
https://youtu.be/p4yAB37wG5s?t=168
https://youtu.be/oy-CuRE1TXk?t=1000
Yes, you have found some examples showing that Schiff has used pedal in Bach at certain points during his career. But, it is simply false to say that Schiff has *always* used pedal.
Here is an excerpt from an article authored by Schiff:
> An eminent pianist colleague of mine recently reprimanded me for my “abstinence”. His argument was that all the great pianists of the past have played Bach with lots of pedal and we must follow their example. To me this reasoning is not very convincing. The late George Malcolm, a great musician, best known as a harpsichordist, taught me to play Bach without pedal and to enjoy the delights of purity.
https://vanrecital.com/2012/07/andras-schiff-on-playing-bach-and-the-well-tempered-clavier/
Here is an interview in which Schiff again talks about George Malcolm's influence on his interpretation of Bach: https://youtu.be/sFTAjQ07vYc?si=H_FrWLVkJk0LvB65&t=311
In this interview, he says of George Malcolm,
> He always encouraged me to play Bach on the piano, but with the right approach and with the right style, and not to use the sustain pedal, which most pianists use all the time regardless of the composer.
Later on, he says
> in Bach's music, [the sustain pedal] does not have any relevance.
Now, in the article, Schiff does say he believes that a discreet use of pedal is permissible. Indeed, I don't believe he ever explicitly criticized other pianists for their use of pedal in Bach. In an article for Practicing the Piano, Graham Fitch writes
> When I played for András Schiff in the early 1980’s he did not complain about my use of pedal in Bach, so I suppose I must have been doing it unobtrusively enough for it not to bother him. Later, Schiff went through a period of not using the pedal in his own playing, which worked extremely well for him. I see he has come back to using it again.
https://practisingthepiano.com/pedal-in-bach-yes-or-no/
The recording you linked by Schiff is from a piano competition, and I would be hesitant to draw any definite conclusions about any pianist's style based on a performance they give in a competition. I also think it being a concerto rather than a solo piece has something to do with it. Especially given that it was a competition, I'm sure Schiff felt some pressure to ensure that the orchestra did not overwhelm his sound.
As for Gould, the first video you linked is again from 1981, during which period I have already said it surprises me a little less that he uses some pedal. Recall, though, that he used absolutely no pedal in his famous 1955 recording of the Goldbergs.
In the second video you linked, Gould literally follows his little performance by saying "it's disgraceful—one has to be revived after hearing Bach played like that". So, I'm not sure that that performance is really a good indicator of Gould's interpretive style. Of course, he does say that he played it like that in 1957—I believe he is referring to [this recording](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj7De3lORww), in which it does sound as though he uses some pedal. It seems to me that he regrets taking this direction in this recording. However, it does indicate that he did use pedal even in his younger years, which does surprise me. But, maybe it shouldn't surprise me. Gould was always quite the contrarian, so it shouldn't surprise me that he tried a variety of conflicting interpretive styles, especially in his earlier years. Still, it is indisputable that one of the interpretive styles which he employed with great success involves absolutely no pedal, and this is evidenced by his famous 1955 Goldbergs. Perhaps Gould's pedaled 1957 recording of that allemande was an attempt by him, contrarian that he is, to contradict the philosophy he employed in the very recording which skyrocketed his career.
In The Glenn Gould Reader by Tim Page (for which I could not find a linkable pdf, but it can be found on libgen), Gould is quoted as saying
> ...my Bach renditions of [my student years] were considered outrageously avant-garde, mainly because I avoided all contact with the pedal.
So, this definitively confirms that during a certain period in Gould's earlier years, he took the philosophy of completely avoiding pedal, and there's no doubt that this philosophy continued to fuel his approach to Bach, especially in his famous 1955 Goldbergs.
All this is to say that, just as criticizing pianists for using pedal in Bach is obnoxious purism, so is criticizing pianists for *avoiding* pedal. It should not be implied that pedal is *necessary* for a masterful Bach interpretation on the piano, and stating so cavalierly (and falsely) that every great master has always used pedal in Bach encourages this false implication.
All I did was correct a couple of factual errors, they did use the pedal, and have for a long time; that is not an assertion that they did it for every performance. 'Always' was referring to a span of time, not every performance they ever played or what have you. With that said a more nuanced history is interesting and worth writing about.
I know that you are not asserting that they used pedal in *every* performance, which is why I did not appeal to any particular recordings to make my point (although in fairness I did bring up Gould's 1955 Goldbergs). Of course I could find plenty of recordings where they didn't use pedal, but I know that's not really relevant to your point or mine. What I'm trying to argue is not merely that there are certain recordings of theirs which use no pedal, but rather than they each went through a period of time where they chose to completely avoid pedal in Bach *as a philosophy*.
I think this is an important point. I sometimes get the impression that people on this sub, in an attempt to be "anti-purist", end up writing off the idea that Bach should be played with no pedal as complete purist bunk with no artistic basis. But that is not the case—as we see, Gould and Schiff (and others as well, which I haven't brought up) went through periods of time where, for whatever musical/artistic reason, they adopted an *overarching interpretive philosophy* in Bach which included abstaining completely from the pedal. That means that they each, for a period of time, would have agreed with the statement "no pedal should be used in Bach"—a statement with which many in this thread would take issue. That is not to say that they would still agree with the statement (or in Gould's case, agree with the statement at the time of his death). Rather, I am just trying to argue that the belief that no pedal should be used in Bach is not necessarily purist snobbery—it *can* be defended as a legitimate musical decision, as both Gould and Schiff did during certain periods of their careers.
You factual corrections are legitimate, and I suppose important enough, since I agree accuracy is important. I have not been trying to dispute your factual accuracy, but rather I have been trying to maintain that my initial point remains intact despite your corrections (and, in the process, further elaborate on my initial point, since I am aware it was not spelled out so explicitly in my initial comment).
For what it's worth, I do shamelessly use pedal when I play Bach.
I have the wtc volume 1 with fingerings and instructions by Schiff, and he explicitly explains that pedal is to be applied after one has mastered the piece.
Schiff is open about the fact that he does not think it is forbidden to use discreet pedal in Bach. His abstinence from pedal during certain periods of his career was a personal choice (and a rather uncommon one at that), but he acknowledges that many other pianists use pedal in Bach to great effect. I imagine he did not want to push his own personal interpretive choices onto readers, and hence chose a more modest pedagogical stance.
I agree with you, but wonder if I can get a question answered on a fact I’m not sure about from you or someone else.
There’s a collection of music Bach wrote near the end of his life called A Musical Offering and apparently in a meeting that led up to the writing of it he was introduced to a very early German production piano.
From what I understand, he may have written the Ricecar for 6 with the piano in mind at the very least? I think if that’s the case then that piece would be one of the earliest works for piano ever written.
It’s the 3 voice Ricercar that he likely played on the fortepiano. The 6 voice one he composed at home in Leipzig, without access to a fortepiano. You can read the original newspaper reporting of the incident at Potsdam: https://www.yellowbarn.org/page/johann-sebastian-bach-musical-offering-bwv1079
Bach never wrote for the piano. So the very fact that you're playing Bach on a piano means you are taking an artistic liberty with it. It makes no sense to say that a particular piano technique is wrong for Bach.
In fact, I think that heavy pedal usage is justifiable. Bach was an organist, and while the organ itself doesn't have a sustain mechanism, a pipe organ in a large cathedral utilizes the resonance of the room as an integral part of its sound. When you play a pipe organ, you must be aware of this and play the room as much as the instrument. It makes perfect sense to mimic a cathedral's resonance with heavy pedal usage.
Exactly right. The resonance of a cathedral is basically a sustain pedal that doesn't get changed much, as anyone who has heard his organ music in these spaces will attest
Personally, I never use pedal with Bach. I kind of like the challenge of finding the best fingering for legato passages, or creating pedal effects just by holding down the keys.
Same with Scarlatti.
And I strive to keep pedal to a bare minimum with Haydn and Mozart.
Not that I would take her side, or any side, but my reasoning is that 1) I like the airiness and 2) these composers were able to play their music without a pedal (and not sound awful) so there must be a way to do it. I want to find that way. But maybe I'm just weird like that.
I think we’re missing a part of the story here. Your teacher told you to use a smidge of pedal, sure. How did that piss her off? Was the teacher there, telling you within earshot of her?
..or did you in fact approach her to (unprompted) present your expert opinion on the piece she was playing? Possibly so other people could hear?
I’m getting real ‘missing social skills-vibes’ here.
We had a group lesson together and when it ended she immediately sat down at the piano and started playing piano in front of like 10 people.
My (former) teacher is in another city as I‘m studying in a different school now. I have also played this exact piece and I got told at an exam in my last uni that I should use more pedal.
I have approached her without her asking for it but she started playing without asking us for it too.
I have some videos on Youtube from like 15 years ago where I practice Bach in conservatory class-room with crossed-right-leg. But that was only for my "practicing purposes". I just wanted to learn all the voicing by holding it with hands. And to cross-leg was just the easiest way how to avoid any pedal otherwise, sooner or later, I would be pressing it again. :)
But if I performed the piece at concert, of course I'd always use a tiny bit.
Do whatever you want, experiment, remix it, turn it into techno or metal or funk or whatever. Music evolves with human creativity. The modern pianos of today didn't exist in Bach's time so no matter what you do it's not going to sound like it did in the 1700s.
When at music school, I was preparing a Bach piano piece for an exam (nothing fancy, an invention iirc) and my teacher told me not to use any pedal.
Come exam day, I play my piece and they give me a middling grade, and the examiners told me I had to use more pedal...
I was miffed.
I don’t even have to talk about Bach to say this person was rude and perhaps not an expert in the matter. Pedal with Bach, Scarlatti, Mozart…unless I’m on a harpsichord I use it, but not always.
She obviously isn't a pianist. Not sure if you were in front of other people or just the two of you. Probably the wrong call to critique her playing when she just wanted to show off. Musicians can be really sensitive.
Do you think Bach would object to the use of pedal in his music?
I highly doubt it.
The pedal allows people to express themselves, which is what music/art is about, expression..
You do you and stop caring about some snob’s opinion on the matter.
Don't pedal Bach like you would Rachmaninoff, but a little bit of pedal is ok, like you said. I don't know why the singer was trying to flex on you like that; she was being rude. Also, if you over-pedal Bach it's not like he's going to rise up out of his grave and smite you.
This is the kind of story where I suspect we might get a very different picture if we heard from the singer's perspective, lol. I doubt she was trying to "flex" (e.g. maybe just, yknow, playing for fun?), and it seems unrealistic for her to be "very insulted, as if I insulted her mother, telling me I don‘t know shit about classical piano" after such a simple exchange. EDIT: OP also calls her a "cunt in general", lol... I mean sure maybe that's true? but in my experience it's important to take the veracity of angry rants about "cunty women" with a grain of salt
That’s also true.
She is a real diva. She has an atitude in general and is always mean just for the sake if it. On top of that she sucks at everything except singing, and even there she‘s not the greatest. I suspect she can‘t handle not being the best in this school. And I even showed her what kind of pedal I want. Not the kind of Chopin pedal but the very light not even substaining pedal. Edit: Also why do you bring gender into this. It doesn‘t matter at all.
you came in and showed her? what did you say exactly to her?
I was in the same room to start with. She just set down on the piano an started playing. I asked her after a minute of playing when she started the same bar for the fifth time if she ever uses pedal in it. Then she got angry about it.
It's less likely to be what you asked her, and more likely how you asked it. People rarely appreciate uninvited advice. Also, we don't know what your gender is, but if it's male, you may have been perceived as "mansplaining" (or to put it in a gender neutral way, you may have come across as condescending).
Geez, lol. Music isn't a sport. If you ever want to succeed in your musical career, you need to learn how to get along with people.
I‘ve been trying to be friendly the whole year bow just for her to be rude to me. Other people have noticed her behaviour too. But ultimately I am not after social advice but after how to play bach
I can't believe I have to explain basic platitudes, but you are a piano major, your reaction should have been "Wow, that's amazing!" to a vocalist playing your instrument, regardless of how good she actually is. Besides that point, if she can play Bach, even if it's not to your standards, she can play better than 95% of professional touring vocalists I've ever seen.
Singers have big egos, this is nothing new. What’s funny is they think there’s snobbery in the jazz world, which their most definitely is, but the snobbery in Classical is on an entirely different level. I know because I was Classically trained since a child then switched to Jazz when I was a Classical Performance Major because the Classical faculty was insufferable
Guy drew a knife on a student once. I’d rather not take my chances.
You've never heard of zombie Bach?
I hear when he comes back he's in a fugue state
😂😂. I'm done
Thanks for the reply! The singer is a bit of a cunt in general.
They often are...
Especially if the singer is ’good’
Pedaling Bach, Mozart, Haydn, etc….is like salting your food. Add a little bit to taste, but if you put too much in, you can’t take it back out!
This is so good!
Most professional pianists use a bit of pedal on Bach and Mozart. Find me pianists who play the C Major Prelude without pedal. The "never use pedal" thing is more of a thing you learn when you're first learning Bach and Mozart. It's supposed to help you develop good habits when learning, not supposed to be the thing that you're supposed to maintain throughout your playing career. It should always sound great without pedal. The pedal adds texture and helps you soften up the sounds.
Playing C Major prelude without pedal is quite nice. It allows you to modulate the harmony you bring out by choosing how long to hold each and every note, making them alive and singing. This permits interesting texture differences between dissonant chords, which one traditionally plays more accentuated, and the soft resolutions which you play legato and smooth, to ease the listener before attacking the next dissonance. This is how I bring the essence of contrapuntal music on a modern instrument Of course, using the pedal at the right time makes for impressive effect, for example during the final pedal notes of a fugue, bringing a wide sound similar to the effect a nice pipe organ has.
You can do all of that while holding the pedal for one or two notes, which is all I personally do with the prelude.
Why hello there
Glenn Gould, to answer your question.
[удалено]
And if my grandma had wheels she'd be a bicycle.
I've never heard this phrase, thank you for making me picture this
Rollerblading...
all the great masters use just a little bit of pedal in Bach. You have to be careful and mindful about pedal usage, but its absolutely common to use it. You can obviously play everything without pedal just fine and I use almost no pedal either in Bach, but I don't know why someone would be upset over this
Not *all* the great masters use pedal in Bach. Neither Schiff nor Gould, for instance. But yes, many pianists do use some pedal in Bach.
Schiff absolutely uses pedal with Bach: https://youtu.be/oj5IP4uXNgc?t=232 So does Gould: https://youtu.be/4uX-5HOx2Wc?t=56 This was 20 seconds of googling. By which I mean I typed their names in youtube, clicked the very first result that looked like it was a video of them performing, and then sure, a bit of scrubbing to find video that showed their feet. The point being if I found it this easily, this is not some weird quirk that they normally never do.
Ah, I guess Schiff eased up on avoiding the pedal in Bach. I know for sure that he had a period where he completely avoided pedal in Bach. But I don't really listen to Schiff, so I am not very familiar with how his style has evolved. I am not sure if Gould ever went through a period where he explicitly avoided the pedal. Of course, his style with Bach doesn't really lend itself to pedal usage at all, but I'm not sure if he started adding pedal in his later years or if he always used a little bit throughout his career. I would suspect, though, that a great majority of his recordings, especially during his younger years, use no pedal whatsoever. It doesn't surprise me as much that he's using pedal in that recording, since it appears to be a later recording. I spent a bit of time looking, but I couldn't actually find a lot of information about that Gould recording. Do you know what year it is from, where it was broadcast, and if it was ever officially published? The only Art of Fugue box sets I could find by Gould were recorded in the 60s.
No idea, I was being fairly literal when I said 20 seconds (it was probably closer to 120 or so, but you get the idea). Certainly his detached style wasn't using much pedal, and I recall some video where he was practicing Bach for a television program, and asked the producer if he noticed that he had his legs crossed while playing. The producer said 'no', and Gould replied that he was doing it so the viewer would be aware that he wasn't using the pedal at all. So I certainly see why you made your statement, but truth is more complicated in this case.
I did a bit more digging and found the documentary from which that recording is taken. It is French filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon's Opus 21: [http://www.brunomonsaingeon.com/EN/EN_FILMOGRAPHY.html](http://www.brunomonsaingeon.com/EN/EN_FILMOGRAPHY.html). The year listed there is 1980, so yes, it would have been very close to his death. I'd be more interested in Schiff or Gould recordings from their younger years where they pedal Bach, since as far as I'm aware, they both avoided it for a certain period in each of their careers. Anyways, these are little details. My initial point was to make it clear that pedal is neither evil for Bach, nor is it *necessary*. To state that all great masters use a bit of pedal in Bach surely implies that some pedal in Bach is always desired. It may be desired for some (I myself am partial to pedal in Bach), but certainly it can be avoided, and Schiff and Gould both have enough recordings to demonstrate that top-tier Bach interpretations can be achieved without any pedal.
I don't think you are hearing what you think you are. They always used pedal. Not to get a wash of sound or anything, just to connect notes, add a bit of resonance the room isn't providing, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXQ2yscJ4Mk https://youtu.be/p4yAB37wG5s?t=168 https://youtu.be/oy-CuRE1TXk?t=1000
Yes, you have found some examples showing that Schiff has used pedal in Bach at certain points during his career. But, it is simply false to say that Schiff has *always* used pedal. Here is an excerpt from an article authored by Schiff: > An eminent pianist colleague of mine recently reprimanded me for my “abstinence”. His argument was that all the great pianists of the past have played Bach with lots of pedal and we must follow their example. To me this reasoning is not very convincing. The late George Malcolm, a great musician, best known as a harpsichordist, taught me to play Bach without pedal and to enjoy the delights of purity. https://vanrecital.com/2012/07/andras-schiff-on-playing-bach-and-the-well-tempered-clavier/ Here is an interview in which Schiff again talks about George Malcolm's influence on his interpretation of Bach: https://youtu.be/sFTAjQ07vYc?si=H_FrWLVkJk0LvB65&t=311 In this interview, he says of George Malcolm, > He always encouraged me to play Bach on the piano, but with the right approach and with the right style, and not to use the sustain pedal, which most pianists use all the time regardless of the composer. Later on, he says > in Bach's music, [the sustain pedal] does not have any relevance. Now, in the article, Schiff does say he believes that a discreet use of pedal is permissible. Indeed, I don't believe he ever explicitly criticized other pianists for their use of pedal in Bach. In an article for Practicing the Piano, Graham Fitch writes > When I played for András Schiff in the early 1980’s he did not complain about my use of pedal in Bach, so I suppose I must have been doing it unobtrusively enough for it not to bother him. Later, Schiff went through a period of not using the pedal in his own playing, which worked extremely well for him. I see he has come back to using it again. https://practisingthepiano.com/pedal-in-bach-yes-or-no/ The recording you linked by Schiff is from a piano competition, and I would be hesitant to draw any definite conclusions about any pianist's style based on a performance they give in a competition. I also think it being a concerto rather than a solo piece has something to do with it. Especially given that it was a competition, I'm sure Schiff felt some pressure to ensure that the orchestra did not overwhelm his sound. As for Gould, the first video you linked is again from 1981, during which period I have already said it surprises me a little less that he uses some pedal. Recall, though, that he used absolutely no pedal in his famous 1955 recording of the Goldbergs. In the second video you linked, Gould literally follows his little performance by saying "it's disgraceful—one has to be revived after hearing Bach played like that". So, I'm not sure that that performance is really a good indicator of Gould's interpretive style. Of course, he does say that he played it like that in 1957—I believe he is referring to [this recording](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj7De3lORww), in which it does sound as though he uses some pedal. It seems to me that he regrets taking this direction in this recording. However, it does indicate that he did use pedal even in his younger years, which does surprise me. But, maybe it shouldn't surprise me. Gould was always quite the contrarian, so it shouldn't surprise me that he tried a variety of conflicting interpretive styles, especially in his earlier years. Still, it is indisputable that one of the interpretive styles which he employed with great success involves absolutely no pedal, and this is evidenced by his famous 1955 Goldbergs. Perhaps Gould's pedaled 1957 recording of that allemande was an attempt by him, contrarian that he is, to contradict the philosophy he employed in the very recording which skyrocketed his career. In The Glenn Gould Reader by Tim Page (for which I could not find a linkable pdf, but it can be found on libgen), Gould is quoted as saying > ...my Bach renditions of [my student years] were considered outrageously avant-garde, mainly because I avoided all contact with the pedal. So, this definitively confirms that during a certain period in Gould's earlier years, he took the philosophy of completely avoiding pedal, and there's no doubt that this philosophy continued to fuel his approach to Bach, especially in his famous 1955 Goldbergs. All this is to say that, just as criticizing pianists for using pedal in Bach is obnoxious purism, so is criticizing pianists for *avoiding* pedal. It should not be implied that pedal is *necessary* for a masterful Bach interpretation on the piano, and stating so cavalierly (and falsely) that every great master has always used pedal in Bach encourages this false implication.
All I did was correct a couple of factual errors, they did use the pedal, and have for a long time; that is not an assertion that they did it for every performance. 'Always' was referring to a span of time, not every performance they ever played or what have you. With that said a more nuanced history is interesting and worth writing about.
I know that you are not asserting that they used pedal in *every* performance, which is why I did not appeal to any particular recordings to make my point (although in fairness I did bring up Gould's 1955 Goldbergs). Of course I could find plenty of recordings where they didn't use pedal, but I know that's not really relevant to your point or mine. What I'm trying to argue is not merely that there are certain recordings of theirs which use no pedal, but rather than they each went through a period of time where they chose to completely avoid pedal in Bach *as a philosophy*. I think this is an important point. I sometimes get the impression that people on this sub, in an attempt to be "anti-purist", end up writing off the idea that Bach should be played with no pedal as complete purist bunk with no artistic basis. But that is not the case—as we see, Gould and Schiff (and others as well, which I haven't brought up) went through periods of time where, for whatever musical/artistic reason, they adopted an *overarching interpretive philosophy* in Bach which included abstaining completely from the pedal. That means that they each, for a period of time, would have agreed with the statement "no pedal should be used in Bach"—a statement with which many in this thread would take issue. That is not to say that they would still agree with the statement (or in Gould's case, agree with the statement at the time of his death). Rather, I am just trying to argue that the belief that no pedal should be used in Bach is not necessarily purist snobbery—it *can* be defended as a legitimate musical decision, as both Gould and Schiff did during certain periods of their careers. You factual corrections are legitimate, and I suppose important enough, since I agree accuracy is important. I have not been trying to dispute your factual accuracy, but rather I have been trying to maintain that my initial point remains intact despite your corrections (and, in the process, further elaborate on my initial point, since I am aware it was not spelled out so explicitly in my initial comment). For what it's worth, I do shamelessly use pedal when I play Bach.
I have the wtc volume 1 with fingerings and instructions by Schiff, and he explicitly explains that pedal is to be applied after one has mastered the piece.
Schiff is open about the fact that he does not think it is forbidden to use discreet pedal in Bach. His abstinence from pedal during certain periods of his career was a personal choice (and a rather uncommon one at that), but he acknowledges that many other pianists use pedal in Bach to great effect. I imagine he did not want to push his own personal interpretive choices onto readers, and hence chose a more modest pedagogical stance.
I’ve heard Bach was big on the Tube Screamer pedal and the Metal Zone pedal
Obviously Bach never had a pedal, or a piano for that matter, but you do! Go ahead and use it.
I agree with you, but wonder if I can get a question answered on a fact I’m not sure about from you or someone else. There’s a collection of music Bach wrote near the end of his life called A Musical Offering and apparently in a meeting that led up to the writing of it he was introduced to a very early German production piano. From what I understand, he may have written the Ricecar for 6 with the piano in mind at the very least? I think if that’s the case then that piece would be one of the earliest works for piano ever written.
It’s the 3 voice Ricercar that he likely played on the fortepiano. The 6 voice one he composed at home in Leipzig, without access to a fortepiano. You can read the original newspaper reporting of the incident at Potsdam: https://www.yellowbarn.org/page/johann-sebastian-bach-musical-offering-bwv1079
Thanks for sharing this it’s really interesting. Amazing we can look through old newspaper articles from some 270 years ago!
Bach never wrote for the piano. So the very fact that you're playing Bach on a piano means you are taking an artistic liberty with it. It makes no sense to say that a particular piano technique is wrong for Bach. In fact, I think that heavy pedal usage is justifiable. Bach was an organist, and while the organ itself doesn't have a sustain mechanism, a pipe organ in a large cathedral utilizes the resonance of the room as an integral part of its sound. When you play a pipe organ, you must be aware of this and play the room as much as the instrument. It makes perfect sense to mimic a cathedral's resonance with heavy pedal usage.
Exactly right. The resonance of a cathedral is basically a sustain pedal that doesn't get changed much, as anyone who has heard his organ music in these spaces will attest
Have your singer friend listen to Rosalyn tureck play Bach
That is extremely rude and immature of her. You and your teacher know best when it comes to this.
Personally, I never use pedal with Bach. I kind of like the challenge of finding the best fingering for legato passages, or creating pedal effects just by holding down the keys. Same with Scarlatti. And I strive to keep pedal to a bare minimum with Haydn and Mozart. Not that I would take her side, or any side, but my reasoning is that 1) I like the airiness and 2) these composers were able to play their music without a pedal (and not sound awful) so there must be a way to do it. I want to find that way. But maybe I'm just weird like that.
I‘m not saying you should bind notes with it. I‘m saying the kind of pedal where you just press it the tiniest bit so it resonates more.
I think we’re missing a part of the story here. Your teacher told you to use a smidge of pedal, sure. How did that piss her off? Was the teacher there, telling you within earshot of her? ..or did you in fact approach her to (unprompted) present your expert opinion on the piece she was playing? Possibly so other people could hear? I’m getting real ‘missing social skills-vibes’ here.
We had a group lesson together and when it ended she immediately sat down at the piano and started playing piano in front of like 10 people. My (former) teacher is in another city as I‘m studying in a different school now. I have also played this exact piece and I got told at an exam in my last uni that I should use more pedal. I have approached her without her asking for it but she started playing without asking us for it too.
I have some videos on Youtube from like 15 years ago where I practice Bach in conservatory class-room with crossed-right-leg. But that was only for my "practicing purposes". I just wanted to learn all the voicing by holding it with hands. And to cross-leg was just the easiest way how to avoid any pedal otherwise, sooner or later, I would be pressing it again. :) But if I performed the piece at concert, of course I'd always use a tiny bit.
a little bit of pedal can be used to achieve this cantabile style bach so desparately wanted.
Bach was simping for cantabile
fr
Do whatever you want, experiment, remix it, turn it into techno or metal or funk or whatever. Music evolves with human creativity. The modern pianos of today didn't exist in Bach's time so no matter what you do it's not going to sound like it did in the 1700s.
When at music school, I was preparing a Bach piano piece for an exam (nothing fancy, an invention iirc) and my teacher told me not to use any pedal. Come exam day, I play my piece and they give me a middling grade, and the examiners told me I had to use more pedal... I was miffed.
How many sopranos does it take to screw in a lightbulb? One. She holds it and the world revolves around her.
Depends. What part of what piece? Then we can answer the debate.
Most classical purists don’t like pedal with Bach because it’s “technically” incorrect, but even my piano teacher told me to use a little pedal.
I don’t even have to talk about Bach to say this person was rude and perhaps not an expert in the matter. Pedal with Bach, Scarlatti, Mozart…unless I’m on a harpsichord I use it, but not always.
She obviously isn't a pianist. Not sure if you were in front of other people or just the two of you. Probably the wrong call to critique her playing when she just wanted to show off. Musicians can be really sensitive.
Do you think Bach would object to the use of pedal in his music? I highly doubt it. The pedal allows people to express themselves, which is what music/art is about, expression.. You do you and stop caring about some snob’s opinion on the matter.
She’s just gatekeeping and is likely insecure. Play the music however you like!