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Pedalling for most players just blurs the counterpoint. Nail it first without pedal, then consider where you d add some. My favourite baroque recordings for piano lack pedal and i don t miss it at all. If ther perfect pedalling for Bach is Barenboim's use of it on the WTK, then no pedal, thanks. Ever.

Something to really watch out for.

There was a pedal in those days, in a sense - some harpsichords had a swell - a kind of venetian blind under the lid that opened with a pedal. When the piano came along the pedal was used for just that effect and was actually called the loud pedal. Use it for that.

Andras Schiff uses finger pedaling in the WTC, as he mentioned in a YouTube lecture. It's not clear whether he actually uses the sustain pedal occasionally as well (I think he did mention using it once).

But most other pianists who've recorded the WTC and other Bach keyboard music (like the Goldberg and the Partitas) on the piano use the pedal discreetly (some less discreetly than others ) - Richter, Barenboim, Ashkenazy, Argerich, Perahia, Weissenberg, Nikolayeva, Fray, Bacchetti, Hewitt.....the list goes on.

Interesting, chopin, i never heard of that.

I guess some pedal in certain very specific parts is ok ... but to use the pedal as an expressive tool, as part of the interpretation, always kills it for me when it comes to baroque. Can't really define it. To achieve it through fingering is the idea. Again, not bashing it, but that version of WTK by Barenboim ... the pedal just takes over, even with Barenboim's talent the results are disappointing to me. It doesn' t sound like Bach to me. I am very fond of Weissenberg s Bach, and if he uses any pedal, i definitely don t hear much of it. It still sounds pretty light and clear.

Compare Hewitt's and Tharaud's versions of Les barricades mysterieuses from the 6eme ordre. I like Tharaud, but his pedaling just makes the piece too piano and less baroque for me. Hewitt nails it , slower tempo and much clearer phrasing. Tharaud s too energetic and fast and blurry from all the pedalling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSlCZmxE_go


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=007UKwIhQiQ

If I remember correctly, the Venetian swell and other devices were to provide a sort of cresc/decresc and were only a feature of late English harpsichords, to compete (and fail) against the fortepianos. The Venetian swell was also very heavy to lift right up, to provide maximum volume. So, nothing really to do with pedalling and Bach probably never came across one AFAIK. The one in Fenton House London is dated 1798, just a little late for our JS.

Remarkably beautiful playing by Schiff there, and thanks for the link.

I'll venture to say that most pianos would sound drier than that without the damper pedal. I've read that Schiff isn't pedalling Bach at all these days, and will take it on faith that he wasn't doing so in that performance. However, without that information, I would have guessed that that the continuous resonant glow in the piano's sound was achieved through very light and judicious pedalling. Anyway, it sounds marvelous!

Well, I think you got me there - Shudi patented his Venetian Swell in 1769. Still, I traced the Nag's Head Swell to 1754!

If you're talking about professionals who are known as good or great Bach players I think many/most would disagree.

My strong impression is that many/most of the great Bach players use at least some pedal in their playing, and the idea that they blur the counterpoint(whatever you mean by that)seems rather extraordinary to me. If you're talking about amateurs or very ordinary pros who play little Bach, then it's possible what you say could be partially true although certainly not as a broad generalization IMO.

To me the idea that a player on the level of Barenboim "blurs the counterpoint" is almost inconceivable. Perhaps you can post a YouTube example of piece where you think he does this so others can decide if they agree with you.

If you watch long enough, you'll see his feet are nowhere near the pedals. He doesn't need them. I've heard/seen him many times and have never seen him engage the pedal with Bach, which, I must add, is very, very impressive.

To make a blanket decision to not use pedal in Bach is just lazy. Good pedaling is a very high level skill and quite difficult, so it is definitely much easier to just not pedal. Good pedaling requires intense listening.

Go ahead and feel free to use as much or as little pedal in Bach as you like. To make it even more complicated/fun, experiment with the shift pedal ( the one on the left ) and the sostenuto pedal ( the one in the middle ) and even with different combinations of the pedals. You might find some magic!

Perhaps there is confusion because "using the pedal" can mean different things.

I don't think the pedal should be used in Bach the way one uses it in a typical romantic piece, kept depressed most of the time, changed every few beats as dictated by harmony and melody. Certainly this would unhelpfully blur the counterpoint as izaldu (perfectly reasonably) says.

But that doesn't mean it can't be used occasionally, discretely, here and there, to add color, or help connect. The sustain pedal (and the soft pedal too for that matter) are tools of the modern piano that can work wonders to our audience.

Remember: the score is not the music. It's only one representation of the music. The sonic illusion we produce when we play is something entirely different.


-J

Certainly good pedaling IS, indeed, a high level skill and quite difficult to master, but laziness is not associated with any decision to not use the pedal. In fact, quite the opposite.

As anyone who has actually done it for any length of time will know.

The OP mentioned using the pedal to cover insufficient technique - I think many of us will know how that works. I played Baroque music using the sustain pedal for decades. Then I decided, as an exercise in self-discipline (and out of just plain curiosity), to not use it at all while playing through the whole of the WTC, focusing on one P&F per week.

What a shock!! Suddenly, there was no place to hide. It taught me a lot about how I had been trying to use the pedal to cover deficiencies I didn't consciously even know were there. And far from encouraging laziness, I think it has made me a much less lazy pianist than before.

Yes but I think this almost goes without saying. No professional and I doubt even any beginning piano student who has a teacher would consider using the pedal in Bach the same as in Chopin.

Although I didn't agree with Izaldu, who I think was just expressing a his personal taste when he said Barenboim "blurred the counterpoint", I don't think he was talking about using the pedal this way. Even the most heavily pedaled editions from someone like Busoni don't indicate pedal the way it is typically used in Romantic music.

I have not seen anyone play Bach in concert without some pedal, except for Schiff. I remember thinking at the time that I am hearing rythms in the piece he played that I had not peviously appreciated. I did unfortunately miss his WTC tour where he apparently played the entire 2 books with feet flat on the floor.


Here is an excerpt from an iterview with the NYT last year:
His elimination of the sustaining pedal, which lifts the dampers on the piano strings and allows all the notes in a series to keep sounding together until the pedal is released, places far more emphasis on rigorously and sensitively shaping the line.

“I don’t want to be dogmatic,” he said, “but at this stage of my life I really feel that I don’t want to use pedal in Bach, because it’s a kind of cosmetic. I don’t feel that it brings anything. You can have arguments about it, and I’ve had arguments about it with some very distinguished colleagues who say you have to use pedal in Bach, because all the great pianists have used pedal in Bach. To me that’s not an acceptable argument.”

He notes that there was no sustaining pedal on the clavichord, an intimate keyboard instrument that Bach used for practice and composition. (“Well-Tempered Clavier” was originally written as a collection of student pieces.) Nor was there one on the harpsichord or on the organ, where the pedals have a different function.

“So for all those instruments,” he said, “if you want to produce articulation or you want to produce a passage in legato, you have to achieve that with your fingers. Modern pianists very often cannot do that, because it’s very difficult. It’s a musical but also a technical problem. And when you push down the pedal, you create legato, and it covers up for it, and this is what I’m opposed to.”

For Mr. Schiff, there are no such shortcuts. “I think that the sustain pedal is used even in later music, like Chopin, in a very indiscriminate way. They think it’s like an automobile, and your right foot is on the gas pedal permanently. It’s the same mistake as string players who vibrate every single note.”

I use the sustain pedal only very selectively in Bach, but I think it's significant that Schiff talks about using finger pedaling when playing Bach, i.e. holding down notes far longer than written in the score to carry over their harmony. Is that authentic, or what Bach himself would have expected? After all, he is not averse to writing down what he wants, regardless of what finger contortions the player has to undergo to achieve it, if not using the sustain pedal. Many pianists in fact get around the problem by playing non-legato - including Schiff.....

Another point to consider is that the harpsichord and clavichord (as well as fortepianos and early grand pianos) have far less effective damping mechanism than the modern piano, which means that the player can release keys early to get to the next one, and the phrase will still sound 'connected'/legato.

In a way my decision not to use pedal at all in Baroque is based on both my preference to the dry sound AND lazyness. Because using the pedal in a way that would be acceptable to my ears is much more difficult than getting the piece sound right with just my fingers.

But I also think it depends on the quality of the instrument. I have never tried to pedal baroque music with a good quality grand.

Two interpretations of the same piece, one with pedal one without, and both wonderful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=5Qab_HtaLns

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnWhE4kcWmc&feature=player_detailpage

case closed

I'm no purist, I don't have the slightest clue about the Baroque music tradition, and I think the harpischord sounds like total crap, but I dislike using damper pedal in anything polyphonic that has much momentum to it.

With Bach I use sostenuto pedal to help with legato where it's not possible with fingers (5 part fugues, nasty finger twisters!). The damper pedal doesn't just blur the sound, it also introduces sympathetic vibration and such, and it's much too messy for my taste when there is as much going on as in a Bach Fugue. I'll admit though, I don't use the una corda because I'm too lazy to experiment and figure out if it would sound nice anywhere.

Just my 2 cents, I am only a novice of Baroque music.

I used a lot of pedal in playing Bach, but it was years ago.
My ear told me not to use that much..... less, and then less.
And now, I don't use pedal, almost.
I think it is a matter of finger Technic.
Years ago if I don't use pedal, it won't sound right.
And now, I feel so good, so happy, using no pedal in playing Bach.
I don't have any rule on the issue, I just follow my ear, and my feeling.