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For a left hand ascending arpeggio starting on the D two octaves below middle C: D, A, F#, A, D. The notes will be played on one pedal and must sound legato.

The problem, a very typical one for me, is that I can think of many very reasonable choices but find it hard to decide on one of them. So on such a standard passage I can spend a lot of time trying to decide on the final fingering. What would you use and why?

This passage is from a transcription of Mi Mancherai, an incredibly beautiful but very sad song from the academy award winning film, Il Postino:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJwNS-FPXOI

Do you like this song?

I always approach fingering in terms of hand position, always striving for the least number of changes. Isolated as it is (not knowing what you are playing before or after the 5 notes you have listed), I would first look at the last 3 notes. If they are within the same octave I would use 4, 2, 1. I would then use 5, 1 on the first two notes, the pedal will connect them. Two hand positions. However, this might not work at all depending on what you are playing before or after.

That's basically one of my top choices right now except I use 3-2-1 on the last three notes.

For further clarification, no one needs to be concerned with anything before or after this arpeggio(it's just another similar arp and there's plenty of time no matter what finger the given arp ends with).

I know you didn't ask me but, for me it would depend somewhat on some things that you didn't mention. Probably most of the time it would be 5-2-1-2-1.

But, depending on things like tempo, note values, dynamics (including whether there's any kind of crescendo or decrescendo or other particular shaping) and especially on where the hand goes next and how quickly, I could imagine that I might do a couple of others:

5-2-1-4-2 (actually this might give the first one a run for its money as the #1)
4-1-4-2-1


P.S. (edit) Just saw your second post, with more info.
Taking that into account, plus the kind of song that this is, I'd probably go with 5-2-1-4-2.
It more easily gives a smooth flow in the cross-over than my first fingering.

The tempo is slow eighth notes, dynamics are around p, no significant shaping, and the LH has plenty of time to get where it's going next which is just a similar arp starting on C#. Your 5-2-1-2-1 is probably the other main choice I've tried and like about as much as 5-1-3-2-1.

I would never by myself have considered 5-2-1-4-2 but it might work. The other main one I've tried is 5-5-2-1-3 or 2.

Taken together with what you had already said -- especially that it's all in one pedal -- I'd say that means there's huge flexibility on this. I think the best answer is "whatever is comfortable, and just make sure to land lightly when you cross-over."

I'd almost certainly do 5-2-1-4-2. For me that feels extremely comfortable and gentle in such a context.

P.S. Sure I like the song (which I didn't know before). It reminds me of Bruch.

I would probably do 5-1-3-2-1, mainly because 4 crossing over on an A after the thumb plays an F# would feel a little more awkward to me. Maybe because of hand size? Or maybe I just have bad crossover technique haha.

I find it easiest to get a nice legato on 5-2-1-2-1. Having the crossing notes close together seems to give easier control. Of course, a lot is a matter of personal preference, hand shape, etc. I could consider 5-1-4-2-1 but to me it feels clunkier. With 5-2-1-2-1 I get a nice smooth arc over the whole thing.

I think most would find 3 easier on the cross over since the 3 is closer to the thumb.

When the notes aren't fast and the pedal is being held, that distance needn't matter, at all. I think most of the suggested fingerings have depended on this mattering. I do know that many people just don't feel comfortable having the hand leave the keyboard and move to the next spot in the middle of a thing like this, and some feel it makes a difference in the sound. And indeed, if one doesn't feel comfortable with the idea of it and isn't used to doing it, it would. I wouldn't worry in the least about 'connecting' the notes with the fingers or about my hand completely leaving the keyboard for a split second. I wouldn't be doing much of an actual "cross-over," per se; I would mostly just be shifting the hand for the A. Especially if I put 4 on the A rather than 2, this feels and sounds the smoothest of all, including because the hand is more easily able to stay maximally relaxed if it doesn't have to connect those notes physically.

I learned the principle (basically; I'd heard it before but didn't really absorb it) from hearing Alicia de Larrocha play a rehearsal, actually more of a warm-up since it was a piece that she wasn't going to be playing. It was Chopin's Barcarolle. I noticed how one hand or the other kept leaving the keyboard in the middle of sustained phrases and gestures. Not at all in a showy or dramatic way, but just sort of naturally and comfortably leaving the keyboard and coming back down. I didn't talk to her about it, just smiled when she was done (I was the only one sitting in the auditorium) and she smiled back, after giving a mock frown as though to say "What are you doing here?" (which I imagine she meant at least partly seriously) -- but I talked about it at length with my teacher.

I had a teacher with ridiculously small, slender hands, who could devourer the most masochistically difficult literature. If she could stick the pedal down, she could get to it (otherwise her playing had to be spunky and detached, as for baroque and classic works, where romantic pedal is not appropriate).

The key to it, as she would exclaim to me in lessons, is "don't hop," meaning do not clip the note you are leaving and pounce on the one you are going to as if trying to walk on stepping stones a little too far apart.

Exactly. And, I want to say (please, no psychoanalytic interpretations) .....when you get into doing this well, it can be somewhat of a transportive experience.

(BTW my automatic spell-check doesn't think "transportive" is a word.)

A while ago there was a thread (started by Joel, I think) about pieces that feel like you are going "airborne." Doing this technique can be kind of like that. It gives a bit of a feeling of not being bound by gravity and earthliness, and I think that helps for the overall feeling of passages like the one here. Feeling that things need to be connected with the fingers or hand seems (to me) undesirably "grounding."

Perhaps your teacher walked in the footsteps of Leopold Godowsky ...

I'm always amazed when I see printed fingerings in music that requires the sustain pedal, where finger switches galore, contortions and twists of hands & fingers, stretches of 12ths etc are all - apparently - expected by whoever (almost never the composer) devised the fingerings.

And this sort of thing also seems to be propagated by some teachers, who insist that their students play all new pieces without using the pedal until they've got the piece sorted out in terms of fingering, phrasing, voicing etc - why?

I know for a fact that if I don't use the pedal right from the start when learning a new piece that requires pedal, I'd be using very uncomfortable fingering and a lot of crossing overs (with ridiculous contortions of wrists, hands and fingers to achieve them) - often unconsciously, even when sight-reading - in an attempt to connect the melodic and/or harmonic notes that need to be connected if the music is not to sound disjointed. And risk giving myself an injury in the process.

It's obvious that if the sustain pedal is depressed, it makes no difference to the sound whether any key is held down for the duration. So, pianists should be endeavouring to perfect their sleigh of hand by moving the hands smoothly and swiftly into position without twisting/crossing fingers for the next note (or group of notes), so that there is no rhythmic or tonal unevenness, hence the 'break' between adjacent notes isn't audible.

The conclusion from that is that whatever fingering is used when playing such passages, it should feel comfortable for the 'leap', and without causing an audible 'bump' when the finger lands after that leap, and for the notes that follow after that....

If play on the piano is a ballet of hands then the pianist is its choreographer in the full sense of the word; and pianistic choreography should be studied as a ballet - in front of a mirror! Liszt in his time scrabbled configuration of hand movements, corresponding to certain pieces . It is from here is retrieved fingering..

I think the possible fingerings for this passage show there is some times a trade off between playing with finger legato plus pedal or playing legato with the pedal only. If one uses 5-2-1-2-1 and uses finger legato plus pedal one has to do a slightly awkward hand movement but avoids the leap. If uses 5-1-3-2-1 one has a leap and can create legato only with the pedal but the hand motion is less awkward.

That's the point I was making - if you're going to use the pedal on the whole sequence of notes without changing, why would you want to use the awkward fingering? The piano can't tell the difference, and neither can the ears.

It's a different matter if it was Bach and you're not using pedal.

Of course, if the first fingering suits you better, by all means use it, but you still wouldn't want to cross your finger over your thumb.......would you?

In other words, the more awkward fingering would still lead to a break in continuity of finger legato, but the pedal is going to connect the notes for you. In which case, why use that fingering?

I think my point was different from yours. The 5-1-3-2-1 avoids awkward crossovers but extra skill to make the jump to the F# seamless. The 5-2-1-2-1 fingering avoids any jumping but has awkward crossovers. IOW each fingering has its pluses and minuses,

A beautiful way to describe this. My instructor talks about gesture and navigating the "topography" of the keyboard and how the fingering should both arrive from and support this.

I wish to experience what MarkC - and others- wrote about above. The playing equivalent of a runner breaking through "the wall"? At any rate, I've not had that yet with fast l.h. arppeggios (Clair de Lune comes to mind).

Forrest

Unfortunately I haven't either. Only with slowish ones.