i'm working on transcribing a piano piece that uses the sostenuto pedal, but i don't know how to indicate that. i know what to do for the sustain and una corda pedals, just not for sostenudo. if anyone knows the answer please respond or email me at jester171@hotmail.com

I've often wondered how sostenuto pedaling was marked as well.

It seems to me I've seen it simply marked as Sost..... but I can't for the moment think where I've seen that. It isn't in my Debussy Durand edition of the Preludes where I expected to find it. If I locate it, I'll let you know.

Is it really necessary to notate it? Most pianists with some training know when to use it - which is rarely. If you have a note or chord which is written to be held while there are other chromatic changes, it makes sense to use the sostenuto. I use it in the Debussy "La Cathedrale engloutie" to keep the low C fully resonant while quarter- and half-pedalling the damper to give just a little bit of clarity to the "organ" chords above it.

Regards,

In the Alfred edition of Rach's Prelude in C-Sharp minor (Op.3 No.2) edited by Murray Baylor, the following notations are used:

An S inside a circle denotes the start and an asterisk denotes the end of a sostenuto.

These symbols are footnoted. So I guess there is no universal musical notation for sostenuto. You just need to identify whatever symbols you used in your score for sostenuto.

Eric

The "Essential Dictionary of Musical Notation" (published by Alfred) says that the sostenuto pedal is indicated by the abbreviation "sos." used alone or followed by a pedal bracket (i.e. sos. replaces the left vertical line of the bracket, with the horizontal line and pedal up vertical line as normal).

sos. _________________|

I cannot recall ever seeing this in a score.

[ October 07, 2001: Message edited by: MacDuff ]

Thanks all- I'll try those ideas out and see how things go.