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Pianists,

I have learned something new from the tech forum next door. Apparently, una corda is not possible anymore. At full depression of the pedal, the hammer moves/shifts to the right only far enough to clear the left-most string of each trichord, and does not clear at all the left string of a bichord.

They also describe that the difference in color has to do with the hardness and softness of the different areas of the hammer felt, and that that factor contributes more to the color than does the number of strings being stuck.

In the slow movement to Beethoven's Hammerklavier, op.106, he writes una corda, then later poco a poco due ed allora tutte le corde (a completely exuisite passage, by the way!)

Similarly (and even more exuisitly), in the finale of op.110, he writes poi a poi tutte le corde.

Apparently, such passages are no longer realizable according to Beethoven's conception.

What is your relationship to the una corda pedal? Do you experience gradations in color, or merely its presence / absence?

There is nothing played on a piano today that sounds like Mozart conceived it. Or Chopin either, for that matter. Pianos have changed dramatically since Beethoven's day

Yes, of course.

Well, what's your relationship to the pedal?

>What is your relationship to the una corda pedal? Do you experience gradations in color, or merely its presence / absence?

To me it changes the sound to a very muffled sound. Usually I don't like it and the change is too big from the normal sound. Also the effect varies hugely from instrument to instrument, another reason to avoid it. I can't remember when I have used it last time.

In the tenor register with 2 strings the unacorda pedal still works as intended?

>Apparently, such passages are no longer realizable according to Beethoven's conception.

Maybe the modern grand is much more to Beethoven's conception than you think. For what I know he was not so satisfied with the sound of the piano of that time and wanted a more robust sound.

Look at the Adagio sostenuto movement of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata (Op. 106) where at one point (I don't have measure numbers in my edition) he asks for :
first, una corda
then, tutte le corde
then, una corda
then, poco a poco due e allora tutte le corde.

We can't do that on a modern piano.

Regards,

The una corda pedal is much more a coloristic device than a volume-controlling one. But because every piano's una corda effect is different (depending on how hard and/or new the hammers are etc), one needs to be very flexible about using it on different pianos, and be prepared to adapt to the instrument.

I only started using the una corda pedal regularly when I finally bought my own (digital) piano a few years ago, but as I also play occasionally on other (acoustic) pianos, I don't practice using it at specific points in the pieces I play, unlike - for the most part - the sustain pedal. With some pianos (old ones especially), there's hardly any difference in sound while with others, the muffling/sotto voce effect is quite marked. The same goes for gradations - it depends on the state of the felt on the hammers, so half-pedal can produce the effect better than full pedal (if full deployment has been used frequently on that piano).

Playing ff with una corda doesn't do an acoustic piano's mechanism any good (so I've heard), but on a digital, it causes no harm at all, as the effect is electronically produced, and always consistent, no matter what the state of the hammers . Quite a few concert pianists use it at all dynamic levels for coloristic reasons (watch Sokolov, for instance), and so do I.

Whether or not one uses the pedal, I believe that it should never be automatically deployed when a pp indication appears. Una corda ≠ pianissimo!

Yes! I hear it used this way so often and it drives me nuts. Often they don't realize how much they are changing the color by using it as a 'soft' pedal.

I use it rarely, mostly for classical/romantic pieces.
On my Yamaha C2, I notice a change in tone color. It sounds a bit like a bell. When I use the silent system I don't notice a difference.

The "poco a poco tutte le corde" would be hard to work, because you go from one chord to two, then to three.
Maybe playing that on an upright might be more in the Beethoven spirit, since there you can gradually move the hammers from the chords...

I have two 19th century uprights with true una corda pedals. They are a pure delight. I don't bother with normal upright left pedals - can't see the point as there's no change in timbre.

Yes, but he probably was simply imagining more volume, and not anything remotely like the change in coloration that has taken place.

What I'd encourage anyone to do, is to find a fortepiano from Beethoven and Schubert's days, and take note of how extremely different the una corda worked on those instruments. In my academy we have a copy of Schumann's Graf fortepiano and a few other fortepianos - the immediate intimacy that the una corda has to offer on those instruments is something completely different than the una corda of the modern grand piano. Consequently, I think we should learn from this, and do what we can to apply this meaningfully on modern instruments. A pianist I know had a project of performing all Schubert's (completed) piano sonatas, partially on fortepianos and partially on modern instruments. What was so amazing when he played on modern instruments was that it sounded NOTHING like a 'normal' modern grand. After years of study, he had taught himself to transform his knowledge of the differences between older and more modern instruments into a meaningful musical statement. These days, I find it increasingly difficult listening to Schubert sonatas performed by pianists who obviously know close to nothing about the instruments Schubert had at his disposal.

I love the way you have phrased this, thank you!

Additionally, a meaningful statement does not neccessarily have to take the form of 'replicating,' in a historically authentic sort of way. But being informed cannot not add meaning.

Schubert, it strikes me, explored the high treble a great deal in his music. This had been a "new frontier" with the expanding keyboard compass. Sometimes this gets a bit trite sounding on the modern piano, which has a much different tone color and power in that region than the fortepiano. It takes a great deal of skill not to overplay the right hand in Schubert.

As for the una corda, I had a technician who felt that most pianos are not adjusted correctly--the hammers should just barely shift such that the strings don't line up in the same grooves as for tre corda, which gives a much more muffled timbre.

Strange; I once mentioned exactly that thought to an internationally known performer and teacher with respect to Schubert's chamber music with piano. He seemed to think that that wasn't true.

Regards,

Sounds nice!
Can you post some samples on how it sounds?

It's important to understand the main differences between the modern piano and the fortepiano. Fortepianist Bart van Oort said it better than anyone (I'm paraphrasing): the fortepiano, with its fast-decaying tone, was meant to 'speak', while the modern piano, with its sustained tone, was built to 'sing'. Such things are easy to spot by just comparing scores by Mozart or Haydn with much later music by Brahms or Liszt - we find an abundance of short slurs and phrases in the music of the former, and longer lines/slurs in the latter.

The issue of the dynamic scale is equally important. It's not just that fortepianos made less noise than modern pianos, but the una corda also made it possible for more nuances in the softer dynamics than most pianists dare to realize on modern pianos today. And that's a shame. I mentioned this pianist who played all of the Schubert sonatas - well, in his final concert he performed the last three, on a modern Steinway. It sounded NOTHING like a modern Steinway, because after all of those years of study at the fortepiano he had completely absorbed that sound-world and turned it into something meaningful on the modern instrument he had at his disposal. Clearly, this caused some discomfort for some in the audience - some were "really annoyed" that he used the una corda "almost all of the time". Actually, he didn't really use it all of the time, but it was perceived that way since he avoided the standard approach of 'projecting big sound', which the modern grand was basically built to do. I remember how a friend who was about to do his debut in Bartok's 2nd concerto spoke to the piano technicians of the concert hall where the concert was going to be - it seemed their only concern with the concert piano was to make it 'project as much sound as possible'. No talk of color, difference of sound in different registers etc - all they seemed concerned about was volume.



That's an interesting point. On the other hand, if someone uses the una corda a great deal, then I suppose that the sound will end up less muffled with time, anyway.

On my piano, I use the una corda for a tone change. In fact, the change in tone is actually more prominent than the volume reduction so it's not some kind of "easy pp" type pedal.

Feathering it to kick it slightly out of the groove has a rather obvious tone changing effect.

I'm not always sure where this is an effective thing within the larger dynamics of a piece, so I don't use it that much unless I'm basically holding it down for the whole piece, which obviously isn't that often. On my old piano, which kept tending to a very brash bright sound, I could get better sound by just kicking the hammer off its groove a tad, without really pushing it down much more. Those were the times when I would basically keep the pedal feathered a bit for the duration of a piece.

My new piano has a very mellow tone, and the una corda almost closes the whole sound down. There's a place in the Brahms intermezzo I was playing where the una corda is called for. I used it with my old piano, but with the new piano, I actually didn't follow that notation, under the instruction of my teacher.

I found some interesting information about the una corda in the Steinway Voicing Manual which is to be found on scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/209556122/Steinway-Voicing-Manual#scribd

I learnt something I didn't know before: some pianos are regulated so that the hammer always strikes three strings, even with this pedal depressed: in this case the change in tone colour comes solely from the change in hardness of the part of the hammer that strikes the string:

Thank you for this, and the rest of your post. So much to think about.

My piano, a Mason & Hamlin 6-foot grand, circa 1919, has an interesting effect on the una corda. The piano was used for many years in my family, where all 7 kids played the piano an hour a day. I've never had the hammers worked on.

When you slightly press down the left pedal, you get a slightly "fuzzy" or "tinny", almost like a harpsichord-like sound (but not nearly as pronounced as a harpsichord). It could also be described as sounding like a fortepiano, I suppose. This effect is most pronounced in the middle range of the piano.

Pressing it further slightly affects that tone quality.

Pressing it all the way down is a very muffled sound.

I love this effect. It's like pulling a different stop on an organ. The change of colours is quite pronounced and, to me, a lovely effect.

But my piano teacher says the first thing he'd do with my piano is work the hammers. OK, so my piano isn't "normal", but most other pianos (including his) have practically no effect. They are boring! He also has a M&H but about 20 years old.

Recently I worked on Beethoven Op 110 last half, which has the gradual una corda removed during the last fugal section. It works well on my piano -- really producing an effect of a gradual change in mood, texture, tonal quality, and volume.

Another example: Op 111, Arietta movement it's fantastic for the softer passages.

I enjoy playing the piano extremely quietly more than fff. Anyone can play loudly, but to play very quietly requires a really good piano with careful technique, or faking it with the soft pedal. My biggest complaint about many poor uprights is they are hard to play softly.

Anyway, I ain't gonna ruin this effect by having the piano "corrected".